Re: [Harp-L] Re: Zep tunes [When the Levee Breaks]

[David Payne <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'll have to checkÂthis out when I get home. I've got LedÂZeppelin'sÂself-titled LP, theÂone with the Hindenburg on it. I specifically remember Willie DixonÂgetting at least two writing credits on that one album. When I get home tonight, I'll check the specifics.ÂI'm sure there were thousands looking at that LP and saying "Who's Willie Dixon?"
ButÂtheÂsongs youÂguys are talking about areÂfrom later albums. I've lost most my Zepplin Lps, so I mayÂnot be much help beyond the first. 
Now, on a lot of this stuff, whenÂZeppelin got done with it, it was pretty much a different song with the same lyrics. But, on the other hand Lynyrd SkynyrdÂdid the same thing to Jimmie Rodgers "Blue Yodel (No. 1)" but they made a pointÂto say "this is an old song byÂMr. Jimmie Rodgers" andÂsaid so on the recording. But all this said, who knows who wrote what back in the day. 
In that same Blue Yodel (T for Texas) as well as a lot of blues from the 1930s, they used a lot of the same lyrics.ÂIt was a different recording world back then, these guys mostly just hoped to get a couple bucks to sing in a can so they wouldn't have to go hungry (or sometimes sober) for a little while.
That doesn't mean they were always ripping off each other, although sometimes they did,Âmost of these lyrics, I believe the technical word is "floating lyrics," had been circulating around before Edison cut his first wax cylinder. 
There are better examples I'm sure, but this is one that came to mind since I mentioned "Blue Yodel (No. 1)" a.k.a. "T for Texas."



This is a Jimmie Rodgers line from "T for Texas." 
"Gonna buyÂme a pistol, just as long as I am tall...
Gonna shoot poor Thelma just to see her jump and fall. "

Peg Leg Howell, Sadie Lee Blues:
"Gonna buy me a pistol, long as I am tall...
I'm gonna shoot li'l Sadie, see her rise and fall"

This is a line from Ma Rainey's See See Rider: 
"I'm gonna buy me a pistol, just as long as I am tall... 
Shoot my man, and catch a cannonball."

>From Sonny Terry:
ÂWell, I'm gonna buy me a pistol, little woman, made up on a .44 frame...
Well, you can look down in the ground, little woman, whoa, you know, you can see that undertaker man

>From "Mean Mama Blues" maybe somebody did it earlier, but the guy I'm thinking of is Ernest Tubb, who did it in 1941:
Iâm gonna buy me a pistol Iâll think Iâll get a 44...
And when I get through shootinâ that girl wont step no more



_________________________________
Dave Payne Sr. 
Elk River Harmonicas
www.elkriverharmonicas.com