SURREALISTIC PILLOW by JEFFERSON AIRPLANE (1967, RCA Victor)

The name SURREALISTIC PILLOW was the suggestion of Grateful Dead frontman and ‘ghost’ producer Jerry Garcia who apparently said the album sounded "as surrealistic as a pillow is soft". It’s the second Jefferson Airplane album and contains two of the best known songs and biggest hits.

For the Psychedelic-folk-rock pioneers this was the first West Coast psych album to really explode internationally and bring the Haight Ashbury scene to prominence, mainly due to the success of the songs ‘Somebody to Love’ and ‘White Rabbit’ which were hits on both sides of the Atlantic.

It was the first Airplane LP to feature new female singer Grace Slick. Slick is both a formidable songwriter (‘Somebody’ and ‘Rabbit’ are both her compositions) and has a powerful banshee like presence, not dissimilar to Florence Welch or Siouxsie Sioux. She manages to both terrifying and captivating especially on ‘White Rabbit’ where we follow Lewis Carroll’s Alice as she pops pills, changes size and meets characters like the Hookah-smoking caterpillar, the White Knight and the Dormouse.

Understandably the song ‘White Rabbit’ has become synonymous with LSD and hallucinatory drugs. It has been used as the soundtrack to druggy dalliances in ‘Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas’, ‘Platoon’ and even an episode of The Simpsons when the good people of Springfield end up drinking Homers hallucinogenic homebrew.

Fellow lead singer Marty Balin’s voice is much more ordinary but although Slick sings lead on the albums most memorable tracks Balin does get some lovely hippy moments such as the track ‘How Do You Feel’. The album also contains some stunning guitar work by Jorma Kaukonen, in particular the acoustic instrumental ‘Embryonic Journey’ (which trivia fans, appeared in the last episode of Friends).

'WHITE RABBIT'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WANNqr-vcx0

‘SOMEBODY TO LOVE’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Jj3wZVc7nw

‘HOW DO YOU FEEL’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufb3jHSRMSU