‘The Lemon Song’ is one of the closest things to straight electric blues that Led Zeppelin ever produced. Its raw sound is underscored by Jimmy’s Page’s heavily compressed guitar track, while its defining feature is an ascending pentatonic riff played true to the blues form.
There are typically Zeppelin quirks, of course, from the song’s off-kilter, shuffling rhythm that slows down its traditional 12-bar verses to Robert Plant’s desperate yelps in its final minute, leading into a double-time coda replete with Page’s string-shredding pyrotechnics. But there’s a reason why the track is one of Jack White’s all-time favourites. It doesn’t mess about with the basic blues ingredients and is steeped in the traditions of the Mississippi Delta.
So much so that Howlin’ Wolf launched a plagiarism suit against all four Led Zeppelin members, who were credited as the song’s composers. His complaint was that the composition has a near-identical melody and guitar figure similar to his own 1964 single, Killing Floor, which Zeppelin themselves covered in 1969. In fact, the entire first verse of ‘The Lemon Song’ consists of lyrics lifted straight from Wolf’s recording. The band settled with their blues idol out of court, adding his name to the song credits as well as sending him a cheque in lieu of past royalties.
However, nothing it borrows from Howlin’ Wolf explains the song’s title. Even its own lyrics contain just one cursory mention of the fruit, with the phrase “squeeze my lemon” serving as a not-so-discreet allusion to sexual foreplay. So, how did it end up in the name of the track itself?
Was it taken from another blues number?
While Zeppelin certainly leant on Wolf’s song for inspiration and more, the final verse of ‘The Lemon Song’, which references said fruit, is actually based on a much older blues composition. ‘Killing Floor’ seems to take its lead from this blues number, too, as Wolf’s main guitar figure is composed of the same pattern as its predecessor.
‘Travelling Riverside Blues’ by Robert Johnson is now considered a blues standard and was also covered by Led Zeppelin in 1969. Johnson recorded the track 32 years earlier and made it onto the 1998 reissue of his posthumous compilation album King of the Delta Blues Singers. Plant only slightly altered Johnson’s lyrical refrain, “You can squeeze my lemon till / juice run down my leg,” removing the word “lemon” from these lines, possibly to avoid further accusations of plagiarism, since the lines are sung twice in both songs.
The single reference to the fruit that Zeppelin’s singer keeps in his own song might be more subtle, but it’s enough to establish the direct link between ‘The Lemon Song’ and ‘Travelling Riverside Blues’. In this sense, perhaps the naming of the song is a deliberate acknowledgement of the debt the band owed to their great Delta forefathers.