“White Rabbit” – Single by Jefferson Airplane from the album Surrealistic Pillow
B-side: “Plastic Fantastic Lover”
Released: June 1967
Studio: RCA Victor (Hollywood, California)
Label: RCA Victor
Songwriter: Grace Slick
Producer: Rick Jarrard
Charted No.8 in US, No.8 in Canada
This was written by Jefferson Airplane frontwoman Grace Slick, who based the lyrics on Lewis Carroll’s 1865 children’s book Alice In Wonderland (officially Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland). Like many young musicians in San Francisco, Slick did a lot of drugs, and she saw a surfeit of drug references in Carroll’s book, including the smoking caterpillar, the mushroom, and lots of other images that are pretty trippy. She noticed that many children’s stories involve a substance of some kind that alters reality, and felt it was time to write a song about it.
Slick got the idea for this song after taking LSD and spending hours listening to the Miles Davis album Sketches Of Spain, especially the opening track, “Concierto de Aranjuez.” The Spanish beat she came up with was also influenced by Ravel’s “Bolero.”
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. They made a series of demo records for Autumn Records, for which they were assisted by Sly Stone. 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. “White Rabbit” is in the key of F-sharp which Slick acknowledges “is difficult for guitar players as it requires some intricate fingering”.
It was released as a single and became the band’s second top-10 success, peaking at number eight on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was ranked number 478 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004, number 483 in 2010, and number 455 in 2021 and appears on The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. In 1998, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Jefferson Airplane – White Rabbit
Live on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, May 5, 1967
Grace Slick – vocals
Jorma Kaukonen – lead guitar
Paul Kantner – rhythm guitar
Jack Casady – bass Spencer Dryden – drums
