#Jefferson airplane white rabbit series#

'Grace Slick and Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane: how we made White Rabbit'. ^ a b c Jesudason, David (August 23, 2021).Got a revolution!:the turublent flight of Jefferson Airplane. ^ 'Darby Slick Puts Original Lyrics Up For Sale'.^ a b 'The RS 500 Greatest Songs of All Time'.^ 'Top 100 Music Hits, Top 100 Music Charts, Top 100 Songs & The Hot 100'.'Jefferson Airplane: 12 Essential Songs'. ^ Heller, Jason Spanos, Brittany Vozick-Levinson, Simon Harris, Keith Greene, Andy (January 29, 2016).'How Jefferson Airplane's Grace Slick Wrote 'White Rabbit' '. Reception Ĭash Box called it 'a real strong outing guaranteed to get lots of attention.' Chart history 'White Rabbit' is in the key of F-sharp which Slick acknowledges 'is difficult for guitar players as it requires some intricate fingering'. Grace Slick said: 'We were so bad that Sly eventually played all the instruments so the demo would sound OK.' When Slick joined Jefferson Airplane later in 1966, she taught the song to the band, who recorded it for their album Surrealistic Pillow.

#Jefferson airplane white rabbit series#

They made a series of demo records for Autumn Records, for which they were assisted by Sly Stone. The song was first played by the Great Society in a bar in San Francisco in early 1966, and later when they opened the bill for bigger bands like the Grateful Dead. The music combined with the song's lyrics strongly suggests the sensory distortions experienced with hallucinogens, and the song was later used in pop culture to imply or accompany just such a state. Like Boléro, 'White Rabbit' is essentially one long crescendo. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Slick mentioned that, in addition to Alice in Wonderland, her other inspiration for the song was Ravel's Boléro. In interviews, Slick has related that Alice in Wonderland was often read to her as a child and remained a vivid memory well into her adulthood. Even Marty Balin, Slick's eventual rival in Jefferson Airplane, regarded the song as a 'masterpiece'. With its enigmatic lyrics, 'White Rabbit' became one of the first songs to sneak drug references past censors on the radio. The White Rabbit is your curiosity.' For her and others in the 1960s, drugs were a part of mind expansion and social experimentation. įor Slick, 'White Rabbit' 'is about following your curiosity. Slick reportedly wrote the song after an acid trip. Ĭharacters Slick referenced include Alice, the White Rabbit, the hookah-smoking caterpillar, the White Knight, the Red Queen, and the Dormouse. The line 'feed your head' is about reading, as well as psychedelics feed your head by paying attention: read some books, pay attention. A lot of women could have taken a message from that story about how you can push your own agenda. But Alice did not she was on her own in a very strange place, but she kept on going and followed her curiosity – 'that's the White Rabbit'. She later commented that all fairytales read to little girls have a Prince Charming who comes and saves them. Slick said the composition was supposed to be a slap to parents who read their children such novels and then wondered why their children later used drugs. We were all trying to get as far away from the expected as possible.' She later said: 'Writing weird stuff about Alice backed by a dark Spanish march was in step with what was going on in San Francisco then. She said that the music was heavily influenced by Miles Davis's 1960 album Sketches of Spain, particularly Davis's treatment of the Concierto de Aranjuez (1939). moving between major chords for the verses and chorus. Slick wrote the lyrics first, then composed the music at a red upright piano she had bought for US$50 with eight or ten keys missing-'that was OK because I could hear in my head the notes that weren't there' It uses imagery found in the fantasy works of Lewis Carroll-1865's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its 1871 sequel Through the Looking-Glass-such as changing size after taking pills or drinking an unknown liquid. 'White Rabbit' is one of Grace Slick's earliest songs, written during December 1965 or January 1966. Both songs became top-10 hits for Jefferson Airplane and have ever since been associated with that band. The Great Society's version of 'White Rabbit' was much longer than the more aggressive version of Jefferson Airplane.

The first album Slick recorded with Jefferson Airplane was Surrealistic Pillow, and Slick provided two songs from her previous group: her own 'White Rabbit' and ' Somebody to Love', written by her brother-in-law Darby Slick and recorded under the title 'Someone to Love' by the Great Society. Slick quit them and joined Jefferson Airplane to replace their departing female singer, Signe Toly Anderson, who left the band with the birth of her child. 'White Rabbit' was written and performed by Grace Slick while she was still with the Great Society.