20. Jefferson Airplane, Surrealistic Pillow (1967) – “Somebody to Love,” “White Rabbit”

[2010 review of “White Rabbit” here.]

In high school daze we all seemed to have Jefferson Airplane albums and among us we had close to a complete collection. I owned After Bathing at Baxter’s and Crown of Creation—also Volunteers, which I never cared much for. Someone even had Bless Its Pointed Little Head, and a few had Surrealistic Pillow, which even then seemed to be considered best by the general consensus. I admit I spent most of my life doubting that until I arrived at this project and put in some time listening systematically. I loved Creation and Baxter’s, and I still swear by them, but what they don’t have are the songs “Somebody to Love” and “White Rabbit.” They are a certain ne plus ultra of psychedelic pop chart artistry. Yes, the turn to Ravel’s Bolero in “White Rabbit” is arch but the drama is carried off well. It burns and scratches and builds like a drug trip. Grace Slick never sounded better; she wrote it and she sings the hell out of it. Both are under three minutes. “White Rabbit” is closer to two and a half. It was the only song that could have worked in the bathtub scene in Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (the book, not the movie). It’s a sensible way to die, if you have to die—at the climax of “White Rabbit.” I would even listen to arguments that everything you want to hear in psychedelic music is captured in “White Rabbit” and “Somebody to Love.” But in other news, Surrealistic Pillow otherwise has merely the quixotic and typical virtues and problems associated with a band with multiple songwriters with multiple agendas. Grace Slick wrote “White Rabbit.” Her former brother-in-law Darby Slick wrote “Somebody to Love” when they were both in the Great Society, a forerunner to Jefferson Airplane. Marty Balin is involved in five songs on Surrealistic Pillow, Paul Kantner in two, Jorma Kaukonen two, and Skip Spence chips in one. They’re not bad, sincere ballads mixed up with various folky strains and goofs, but the songs on Crown of Creation are better. There is also, on a 2003 reissue of Surrealistic Pillow, a very nice six-minute blues workup written by Kaukonen, “In the Morning,” which is not to be missed and would have been a good album closer on the original release.