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White Rabbit (song)

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"White Rabbit"
Song
B-side"Long John Silver"

"White Rabbit" is a psychedelic rock song from Jefferson Airplane's 1967 album Surrealistic Pillow. It was released as a single, peaking 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 proved an inducement to convince members of the Airplane to lure Slick away to join them[citation needed].

One of Slick's earliest songs, written in either late 1965 or early 1966, it details parallels between the hallucinatory effects of LSD and the imagery found in the work of Lewis Carroll. References to Carroll's 1865 fantasy Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its 1871 sequel Through the Looking-Glass pervade the song: the title character, the Dormouse, the smoking caterpillar, the changing of ones size due to eating pills or sweets, the chasing of rabbits, the eating of mushrooms to cause your perception to change, and the Red Queen. A century after the fact, Carroll was busy in the rock and roll world of 1967; that same year John Lennon would refer to Looking-Glass in his densely textured "I Am the Walrus" composition recorded by The Beatles.

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 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, 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.

Later songs by The Jacksons ("Can You Feel It") and Madonna ("Material Girl") share the bass line used in "White Rabbit".


Two references to the "Alice in Wonderland" books, are misstated in the song:

The White Knight does not talk backward. Some believe the Jabberwock did, but the only reference to possible sounds made by the Jabberwock in Lewis Carroll's poem is "... and burbled as it came."

It is the Queen of Hearts that says "Off with her head", not the Red Queen.

A third supposed mistake is often cited: The Dormouse never said "Feed your head", and the phrase does not appear in either of the Alice books. 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 may refer 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."



The Damned version

"White Rabbit"
Song
B-side"Rabid (Over You)"
"Seagulls"

"White Rabbit" was released as a single by The Damned.

The song is a cover of Jefferson Airplane's 1967 classic. The single was initially only released in France and Germany, with the UK release originally only coming out as a promotional record. This was the first Damned recording to feature new bass player Paul Gray.

In 1983, Chiswick's Big Beat imprint would finally give the single a full UK release.

Track listing

  1. "White Rabbit" (Slick)
  2. "Rabid (Over You)" (Scabies, Sensible, Vanian, Le Vien)
  3. "Seagulls" (Scabies, Sensible, Vanian)

Production credits

Cultural references

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  • The drug-themed novel Go Ask Alice takes its name from the song, which includes the lyrics, "Go ask Alice/When she's ten feet tall." 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 has been used twice on The Simpsons in episodes; "D'oh-in In the Wind," and Midnight Rx. In the episode Moe Baby Blues when Maggie asks Moe to read her from the book Alice in Wonderland, Moe flips through the pages and reading references like White Rabbit (perhaps hinting Playboy bunnies) and chicks popping mushroom pills he decides against reading it to her.
  • The song features 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.
  • The character of 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. Its initial beat also forms 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 when they showed people in a park smoking.
  • 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
  • In the movie Stoned from 2005 the song is played when the character of Brian Jones takes LSD for the first time.
  • 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 background on 3rd Rock from the Sun TV series in episode "The Dicks They Are A-Changin'" when Dick comes at 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.

Covers

The song was covered in the following years:

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