"Terraplane Blues" is a

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

song recorded in 1936 in

San Antonio, Texas ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , subdivision_t ...

, by bluesman

Robert Johnson Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911August 16, 1938) was an American blues musician and songwriter. His landmark recordings in 1936 and 1937 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that has influenced later generati ...

Vocalion Vocalion Records is an American record company and label. History The label was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Company, a maker of pianos and organs, as Aeolian-Vocalion; the company also sold phonographs under the Vocalion name. "Aeolian" was ...

issued it as Johnson's first

78 rpm record A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts nea ...

, backed with "

Kind Hearted Woman Blues "Kind Hearted Woman Blues" is a blues song recorded on November 23, 1936, in San Antonio, Texas, by the American Delta bluesman Robert Johnson. The song was originally released on 78 rpm format as Vocalion 03416 and ARC 7-03-56. Johnson perform ...

", in March 1937. The song became a moderate regional hit, selling up to 10,000 copies. Johnson used the car model

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. They were ...

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 "Stones in My Passway" is a Delta blues song written by American blues musician Robert Johnson. He recorded it in Dallas, Texas, during his second to last session for producer Don Law on June 19, 1937. Music writer Greil Marcus describes it as ...

References

{{Robert Johnson Robert Johnson songs 1936 songs Songs written by Robert Johnson Vocalion Records singles Song recordings produced by Don Law