White Rabbit (song)

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For other uses, see White rabbit.
“White Rabbit”
“White Rabbit” cover
Single by Jefferson Airplane
from the album Surrealistic Pillow
B-side "Plastic Fantastic Lover"
Released June, 1967
Format Vinyl record (7") 45 RPM
Recorded 1966/1967
Genre Psychedelic rock
Length 2:30
Label RCA Victor
Writer(s) Grace Slick
Producer Rick Jarrard

"White Rabbit" is a psychedelic rock song from Jefferson Airplane's 1967 album Surrealistic Pillow. It was released as a single, peaking in the USA at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 2004, the song was ranked #478 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. First performed by composer Grace Slick with her band The Great Society in 1966, the song helped convince members of the Airplane to ask Slick to join their band.[citation needed].

One of Slick's earliest songs, written in either late 1965 or early 1966, it cites parallels between the hallucinatory effects of LSD and the imagery found in the fantasy works of Lewis Carroll: 1865's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its 1871 sequel Through the Looking-Glass. Alice, the Dormouse, the hookah-smoking caterpillar, the White Knight, and the Red Queen are all mentioned in the song. Events in the books such as changing size after eating mushrooms or drinking an unknown liquid are also mentioned. The last line of the song is "Remember what the Dormouse said. Feed your head. Feed your head." and does not explicitly quote the Dormouse as is often assumed. The line probably refers to "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", Chapter XI 'Who Stole the Tarts':

“ "But what did the Dormouse say?' one of the jury asked."
"That I can't remember,' said the Hatter."		 ”

From the Jefferson Airplane website: 'Grace has always said that White Rabbit was intended as a slap toward parents who read their children stories such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (in which Alice uses several drug-like substances in order to change herself) and then wondered why their children grew up to do drugs. For Grace and others in the '60s, drugs were an inevitable part of mind-expanding and social experimentation. With its enigmatic lyrics, "White Rabbit" became one of the first songs to sneak drug references past censors on the radio. Even Marty Balin, Grace's eventual rival in the Airplane, regarded the song as a "masterpiece."'

Set to a rising crescendo similar to that of Ravel's famous Boléro, and having a strong Spanish influence to it, the music combined with the song's lyrics strongly suggest the sensory distortions experienced with hallucinogens and the song was later utilized in pop culture to imply or accompany just such a state. "White Rabbit" is one of two songs, along with "Somebody to Love," that Slick brought with her to Jefferson Airplane from her earlier group The Great Society when she replaced original Airplane vocalist Signe Toly Anderson[citation needed].

Contents

[edit] Audio Samples

White Rabbit

An excerpt from Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit from Surrealistic Pillow
Problems listening to the file? See media help.

[edit] Cultural references

  • The drug-themed novel Go Ask Alice takes its name from this song's lyrics. The book's protagonist is never named, but reviewers generally refer to her as "Alice" for the sake of convenience. The Columbia University health website Go Ask Alice!, however, does not take its name from the song.
  • The song is featured in the thriller The Game (1997) at a scene where the film's main protagonist is being subjected to extremely powerful psychological attacks on his sanity and sense of safety.
  • Richard Nixon's Head sings this song in the Futurama episode "A Head in the Polls," while making his futuristic presidential bid, telling his audience, "I'm meeting you halfway, you stupid hippies!"
""White Rabbit." I need rising sound … And when it comes to that fantastic note where the rabbit bites its own head off, I want you to throw that fuckin' radio into the tub with me!"
  • The song and part of its lyrics are mentioned in Stephen King's book Insomnia in the surreal scene at the beginning of chapter 3.
  • The song was featured in Oliver Stone's Platoon; it is played in the background of the "Feel Good Cave" as the soldiers are getting high.
  • An instrumental version of the song is used as the main menu music of the PC game Battlefield Vietnam.
  • The song was used on an episode of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Jay Leno talked about a town that has baseball "the way it used to be"; the hometown of that team is known for smoking cannabis, and this song played while people in a park smoke.
  • Also in 2005 "White Rabbit" was featured in a delicate drug-related scene in Atom Egoyan's movie Where the Truth Lies.
  • A "White Rabbit" cover portion has been a consistent part of Blue Man Group shows since their inception, and was released on their 2003 album "The Complex" featuring the vocal talent of Esthero
  • The song was played during the "Down Neck" episode of HBO's The Sopranos. During a scene where Tony Soprano takes Prozac for his panic attacks. It is also played again at the end of the episode.
  • The song is played during a drug-related skit on an episode of The Daily Show.
  • A commercial for No.7 make up used the song as well.
  • The song was played in the background in the 3rd Rock from the Sun episode, "The Dicks They Are A-Changin'" when Dick comes to Dr. Albright's apartment to remember the sixties.
  • The protagonist of Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale, Kaye, listens to this song whilst lying in her bedroom letting her pet rats roam on the shelves with her old dolls.
  • The song is used as the base beat for the song "Rabbit Hole" by the Underground Hip-Hop artists Living Legends.
  • The song both serves as an opening and is discussed in episode 2 of VH1's Drug Years series which tells of the 1960's counterculture.
  • In 2006, excerpts from the song were used in a show entitled Volume 2: Through the Looking Glass performed by The Cadets Drum and Bugle Corps, which is filled with references to Alice in Wonderland.
  • In Zero Skateboard's Dying to Live skate video, the song is skated to by Lindsey Robertson in his part.
  • A cover of the song, performed by Collide, plays in the ending credits of the film Resident Evil: Extinction in regards to the main character whose name is Alice.

[edit] Covers

The song was covered in the following years:

[edit] References

  1. ^ GameTrailers video, Lost Odyssey

[edit] External links