"Terraplane Blues" is a blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 song recorded in 1936 in San Antonio, Texas

San Antonio, Texas

San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the United States of America and the second-largest city within the state of Texas, with a population of 1.33 million. Located in the American Southwest and the south–central part of Texas, the city serves as the seat of Bexar County. In 2011,...

 by bluesman Robert Johnson

Robert Johnson

Robert Leroy Johnson was an American blues singer and musician. His landmark recordings from 1936–37 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that have influenced later generations of musicians. Johnson's shadowy, poorly documented life and death at age 27 have given...

. "Terraplane Blues" was Johnson's first single and it became a moderate regional hit, selling 5,000 copies.

Johnson used the car model Terraplane

Terraplane

The Terraplane was a car brand and model built by the Hudson Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan between 1932 and 1938. In its maiden year, the car was branded as the Essex-Terraplane; in 1934 the car became simply the Terraplane...

 as a metaphor for sex. In the lyrical narrative, the car will not start and Johnson suspects that his girlfriend let another man drive it when he was gone. In describing the various mechanical problems with his Terraplane, Johnson creates a setting of thinly veiled sexual innuendo. The guitar parts in "Terraplane Blues" are similar to those in Johnson's "Stones in my Passway".

Other versions and influences

"Terraplane Blues" has been recorded by a variety of artists, including Mickey Baker

Mickey Baker

Mickey Baker, also known as Mickey "Guitar" Baker is an American guitarist...

, Rory Block

Rory Block

-Festival appearances:*Long Beach Blues Festival - 1993*San Francisco Blues Festival - 1999*Notodden Blues Festival - 2006-See also:*List of blues musicians*List of contemporary blues musicians*List of Austin City Limits performers-External links:****...

, Canned Heat

Canned Heat

Canned Heat is a blues-rock/boogie rock band that formed in Los Angeles, California in 1965. The group has been noted for its own interpretations of blues material as well as for efforts to promote the interest in this type of music and its original artists...

, Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton

Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...

, Foghat

Foghat

Foghat are a British rock band that had their peak success in the mid- to late-1970s. Their style can be described as "blues-rock," or boogie-rock dominated by electric and electric slide guitar. The band has achieved five gold records...

, Peter Green

Peter Green (musician)

Peter Green is a British blues-rock guitarist and the founder of the band Fleetwood Mac...

, John Hammond, Jr., John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist.Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark...

, Robert Lockwood, Jr., Tony McPhee

Tony McPhee

Tony McPhee is an English blues guitarist, and founder of The Groundhogs....

, Elliott Murphy

Elliott Murphy

Elliott James Murphy is an American rock singer-songwriter, novelist, producer and journalist living in Paris.-Biography:Elliott James Murphy, Jr. was born in Rockville Centre, New York to a show business family...

, Lonnie Pitchford

Lonnie Pitchford

Lonnie Pitchford was an American blues musician and instrument maker from Lexington, Mississippi. He was notable in that he was one of only a handful of young African American musicians from Mississippi who had learned and was continuing the Delta blues and country blues traditions of the older...

, Paul Pena

Paul Pena

Paul Pena was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist of Cape Verdean descent.His music from the first half of his career touched on Delta blues, jazz, morna, flamenco, folk and rock and roll...

, and Roy Rogers

Roy Rogers (guitarist)

Roy Rogers is an American blues rock slide guitarist and record producer. He was named after the singing cowboy, Roy Rogers...

.

The Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...

 song "Trampled Under Foot

Trampled Under Foot

"Trampled Under Foot" is a song by English rock group Led Zeppelin, featured on their 1975 album Physical Graffiti.-Overview:The song was written by Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones, and evolved out of a jam session in 1972...

" is regarded as a tribute to Johnson's "Terraplane Blues", with Robert Plant

Robert Plant

Robert Anthony Plant, CBE is an English singer and songwriter best known as the vocalist and lyricist of the iconic rock band Led Zeppelin. He has also had a successful solo career...

using car parts as sexual metaphors.