Fact #140199
When:
Short story:
Jefferson Airplane record White Rabbit, for their second LP, Surrealistic Pillow, in Studio B, RCA's Music Canter Of The World, 6363 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood, California, USA. Airplane singer Grace Slick had written the song while still a member of her previous band, The Great Society.
Full article:
Darby Slick (The Great Society) : Our version was sadder. There was a sharper contrast between the verse and the chorus because ‘when the truth is found to be lies’ was very sad, and then ‘Don’t you want somebody..’ came on like a big chorus.
(Source : not known)
Grace Slick (vocalist, Jefferson Airplane) : I wrote White Rabbit on a funny-looking upright piano with about eight keys missing. I took acid and listened to Miles Davis's Sketches of Spain album for 24 hours straight until it burned into my brain.
What we're told when we're very young is that a chemical of one sort or another is going to let you have a wonderful adventure. In Alice In Wonderland, there's DRINK ME, makes her literally high. She takes mushrooms, smokes a hookah, bites some kind of stuff that's around, like a big pill. Wizard Of Oz, they fall down in a field of poppies then see the Emerald City. Peter Pan sprinkles some white dust then you can fly. Is that cocaine? What do they expect us to do? Just say no to drugs? Why? You read me all this when I was little about how Wonderful Life could be if I just took some kind of chemical, so I was kind of nailing the parents with that song.
Darby Slick : The Airplane did it as a single so they cut the solo way down. Our version worked spectacularly well with live audiences. We would play that instrumental intro for a long time. It was sort of like a bolero effect, the crowd would become more and more frenzied. At the end of this, Grace would belt out the song and people would just go nuts. I think they decided they would get a lot more airplay by making the first part really short.
(Source : interview in Record Collector, March 1997)
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(Source : not known)
Grace Slick (vocalist, Jefferson Airplane) : I wrote White Rabbit on a funny-looking upright piano with about eight keys missing. I took acid and listened to Miles Davis's Sketches of Spain album for 24 hours straight until it burned into my brain.
What we're told when we're very young is that a chemical of one sort or another is going to let you have a wonderful adventure. In Alice In Wonderland, there's DRINK ME, makes her literally high. She takes mushrooms, smokes a hookah, bites some kind of stuff that's around, like a big pill. Wizard Of Oz, they fall down in a field of poppies then see the Emerald City. Peter Pan sprinkles some white dust then you can fly. Is that cocaine? What do they expect us to do? Just say no to drugs? Why? You read me all this when I was little about how Wonderful Life could be if I just took some kind of chemical, so I was kind of nailing the parents with that song.
Darby Slick : The Airplane did it as a single so they cut the solo way down. Our version worked spectacularly well with live audiences. We would play that instrumental intro for a long time. It was sort of like a bolero effect, the crowd would become more and more frenzied. At the end of this, Grace would belt out the song and people would just go nuts. I think they decided they would get a lot more airplay by making the first part really short.
(Source : interview in Record Collector, March 1997)