Traveling Riverside Blues

One of the rarest and arguably the most popular bootlegged tracks of Led Zeppelin's discography before the Digital Age, sometimes called "Mudbone" or "Mud Bone," Traveling Riverside Blues was originally written and recorded in Dallas, Texas by the bluesman Robert Johnson. Johnson's June 20, 1937 recording has a typical 12 bar blues structure (though as is common in downhome blues of this era, the length of each verse is in fact thirteen-and-a-half bars of 4/4), played on a single guitar tuned to open G, with a slide. It was first released on the 1961 compilation LP King of the Delta Blues Singers. The song is well known for the lyrics: "I want you to squeeze my lemon until the juice runs down my leg."

Led Zeppelin's version of this song was recorded at the BBC studios in Aeolian Hall on June 24, 1969, by engineer John Waters, which took place during the band's UK Tour of Summer 1969. Jimmy Page dubbed extra guitar tracks onto the track (the main track being played on a 12-string electric guitar, possibly the same one used on the track "Thank You"), and it was broadcast four days later on John Peel's Top Gear show under the title "Travelling Riverside Blues '69", and repeated on January 11, 1970.

It is quite different from the original, and it is more a tribute to Robert Johnson than a straight cover. The song showcases a riff by Page (also in open G tuning), and in the lyrics Robert Plant quotes many Robert Johnson songs, such as "She studies evil all the time", from "Kind Hearted Woman Blues", and "Why don't you come on in my kitchen", from "Come on in My Kitchen" (which is heard during the song's solo). Conversely, parts of Johnson's "Travelling Riverside Blues" are used as lyrics in Led Zeppelin's "The Lemon Song", namely the "squeeze my lemon" sequence. It is likely that Johnson borrowed this lyric himself, from a song recorded earlier that same year (1937) called "She Squeezed My Lemon", by Roosevelt Sykes. The line "she got a mortgage on my body, got a lien on my soul" and reference to "front teeth lined with gold" at the end of the song are also from Johnson's original.
"Travelling Riverside Blues" can be found on the Led Zeppelin BBC Sessions album, on disc one of the Led Zeppelin Boxed Set, and on the expanded Coda album from The Complete Studio Recordings box set. It was interest from US radio interviewers and fans during Page's Outrider tour that originally led him to negotiate with BBC Enterprises for the song's release. A promotional video clip was also released in 1990, with out-take footage from the band's 1976 concert film, The Song Remains the Same inter-spliced with other footage from the band's archive. The clip also features a railroad montage, and underwater shots of the Mississippi River. The song reached number seven on the Billboard Top Rock Tracks Top 50 chart in November 1990, culled from national album rock radio airplay reports.