Every single time Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" is played, I experience full-body chills. Perhaps it is the menacing opening riff and creeping bassline that has a distinguishably '60s psychedelic twang, the double-meaning lyrics, or maybe it is Grace Slick's undeniable vocal prowess, but something about this song gets under your skin and just lives there.
The hallucinogenic song ranked No. 1 on Ultimate Classic Rock's Best Book Song list, which is pretty impressive considering it is in the company of 'The Battle of Evermore' by Led Zeppelin and 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' by Metallica. The song is directly based on Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, with lyrics that reference specific moments in the book, such as "When the White Knight is walking backward / And the Red Queen's off with her head."
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Grace Slick Explains the Real Meaning Behind 'White Rabbit'
However, the song itself is so much more than just a clever ode to the illustrated children's tale. According to a report by Louder, Slick always explained that the song was pointed at "hypocritical" parents who read "drug-laced" stories to their kids at their most impressionable, vulnerable ages.
“In all those children’s stories, you take some kind of chemical and have a great adventure,” she told writer Mark Paytress. “Alice In Wonderland is blatant. Eat me! She gets literally high, too big for the room. Drink me! The caterpillar is sitting on a psychedelic mushroom smoking opium!”
Slick reportedly wrote it after listening to Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain for 24 hours on an upright piano that was missing keys for her band The Great Society.
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“When we started working, nobody had anything because I couldn’t write any more,” The Great Society rhythm guitarist David Miner claims of what pushed her to write it. “I was too busy keeping up with my various jobs. So Grace’s husband, Jerry Slick, challenged them: ‘What are you gonna do? Let David write all the songs?’ Y’know, ‘Do something!’. So Darby Slick came back with a couple of songs, and Grace came back with 'White Rabbit.'”
However, as The Great Society was unraveling, she was asked to join Jefferson Airplane and took the song with her. It was three times as long as the singleJefferson Airplane ultimately released. While the longer version has the same fascinating lyrics but more musical twists and turns, it doesn't carry the haunting, alluring appeal of Jefferson Airplane's version.
Surprisingly, it nearly didn't make the album.
“Grace had two songs she brought with her from The Great Society,” Jefferson Airplane bassist Jack Casady told the outlet. “But 'White Rabbit' was the song we were going to leave off the album because we thought it would never get released, we thought it was going to be censored. It eventually became a big deal because it made the album and then got dispersed into the crowd whenever we played live. Otherwise, it was just a little two-and-a-half-minute song that was kind of a lark.”
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