“White Rabbit”
Artist: The Jefferson Airplane
Music / Lyrics by Grace Slick
Label: RCA, 1967 (from the LP Surrealistic Pillow)
The Jefferson Airplane, like the Grateful Dead, epitomized classic San Francisco psychedelic
rock: surreal, often drug-referenced lyrics; a song style that draws from both blues-based rock
and the folk revival; and in live performance, loose arrangements that often featured long,
meandering instrumental solos. Like a number of other rock legends, their rise to fame was
catalyzed by their appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival, which was followed by a number of
high-profile TV appearances and the 1967 LP Surrealistic Pillow, which included “White Rabbit.”
Musical style notes
The evocation of the exotic in American and European popular music often is achieved by
borrowing elements from non-western music. The song “White Rabbit” is partly based on a scale
known as the “Phrygian mode,” which was used in western music in medieval times but is now
mostly associated with Spanish music by way of Spain’s Arabic past. It is also partly based on
harmonic minor, which also gives it a slightly Middle-Eastern feeling. The instrumentation is very
sparse, with Jack Casady’s bass playing the repeating “bolero” beat in support of Jorma
Kaukonen’s undulating guitar solo, which snakes between Phrygian mode and the harmonic
minor scale. These elements all combine to form a kind of “opium-den” ambience to “White
Rabbit,” while Grace Slick’s edgy vocals and Alice-in-Wonderland-inspired lyrics add to the mood.
The drug trip metaphor extends even into the musical structure; the song begins as a standard
multiple verse melody (see sections A1 below), but it doesn’t do what you would expect. Section
B starts out with a new melody, suggesting a standard pop-song verse-verse-bridge-verse form,
but there is no clear break between bridge and verse. The musical material of the verse comes
back halfway through the bridge, while the singer segues directly from the bridge into the third
verse. The new verse retains the phrasing of previous verses, but features a new melody which
becomes progressively higher in pitch and louder in volume, mirroring the increasing intensity of
an LSD “trip.” Slick’s musical trip peaks at the song’s climactic psychedelic call to action, “Feed
your Head.”
Musical “Road Map”
Timings
0:00-0:28
Comments
Instrumental introduction
0:28-0:55
Electric bass begins; snare drum enters at 0:05;
electric guitar enters at 0:09.
Verse 1
0:55-1:23
Verse 2
1:23-1:42
“Bridge”
1:42-1:51
New melody introduced, with new lyrics.
Instrumental texture thickens; rhythm guitar adds
chords; vocals occur at a higher pitch, increasing
sonic intensity; continues directly into Verse 3.
Verse 3
1:51-2:16
Return of bass and drum part from Intro and verse
1; however, note the new vocal melody, which
has the same phrasing as the previous verses but
at a higher pitch level.
The pitch and volume of the vocal line steadily
Lyrics
One pill makes you larger.
And one pill makes you small…
And if you go chasing rabbits, and you know
you’re going to fall…
When men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go;
And you’ve just had some kind of
mushroom…
Go ask Alice…I think she’ll know…
When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy
2:16-2:27
increases, hitting its climax with the last line -The punchline: “Feed your head”
2:27-2:31
Downbeat of final chord; fades to 2:31
dead…
Feed your head…
Feed your head.