Continuing with my Storybook theme and my Alice's Adventures In Wonderland focus, have the White Rabbit sound the trumpets and let me present to you "White Rabbit" from Jefferson Airplane.
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco who became pioneers of psychedelic rock. They were also the first band from the San Francisco scene who achieved mainstream success with their 1967 album Surrealistic Pillow. Psychedelic indeed.
Pillow was recorded in just thirteen days and produced the hits "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit". It is regarded as one of the key albums from 1967's infamous "Summer of Love". The band actually played the three most famous festivals in music history, including Woodstock.
"White Rabbit" was written by Grace Slick while she was part of The Great Society, shortly before joining Jefferson Airplane. It uses imagery found in Lewis Carrolls' Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.
Imagery like changing size after taking pills or drinking an unknown liquid. And character references like Alice, the Caterpillar, the White Knight, the Red Queen and the Dormouse. However, this being psychedelic rock of the 1960s, it is commonly known that the lyrics are also references to the hallucinatory effects of drugs like LSD and psilocybin mushrooms.
In the 1960s, drugs were a part of mind-expanding and social experimentation but not widely accepted in any way. "White Rabbit" actually made history as one of the first songs to sneak drug references past censors on the radio.
Check out this groovy performance of "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane themselves (below).
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