Surrealistic Pillow (1967)

Surrealistic Pillow is the second studio album by the American rock band Jefferson Airplane, released on February 1, 1967, by RCA Victor. It is the first album by the band with vocalist Grace Slick and drummer Spencer Dryden. The album peaked at number three on the Billboard 200 and has been certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It is considered to be one of the most influential and quintessential works of the early psychedelic rock era and 1960s counterculture.

"My Best Friend" was released as the first single in December 1966 but only reached No. 103 on the Billboard Bubbling Under chart. Two more singles were released in the spring of 1967: "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit" peaked respectively at number five and number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and are the band's only Top 40 hits on that chart. "Today" was not released as a single but was played often on college radio and rock stations and remains one of their most popular songs. In 2024, the album was inducted into the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

Background

Early drummer Alexander "Skip" Spence left the band in mid-1966. He was replaced by Spencer Dryden, an experienced Los Angeles jazz drummer and the half-nephew of Charlie Chaplin. New female vocalist Grace Slick, formerly with another San Francisco rock band The Great Society, joined Jefferson Airplane in October 1966. Slick, Dryden, male lead vocalist-guitarist-songwriter and founder of band Marty Balin, guitarist-vocalist-songwriter Paul Kantner, lead guitarist (and occasional vocalist) Jorma Kaukonen, and bassist Jack Casady formed the core of the best-known line-up of the group, which remained stable until Dryden's departure in early 1970.

Songs and recording

A mere two weeks after Grace Slick joined the band, the group entered RCA Victor studios in Hollywood on October 31 to record their second album. Working with producer Rick Jarrard, the group recorded album opener "She Has Funny Cars" featuring Jack Casady on fuzz bass and the mellow folk-rocker "My Best Friend", written by departed member Skip Spence and chosen as the album's lead-off single. On November 1 they recorded Balin's "Plastic Fantastic Lover", his ode to a television set penned after a visit to a plastics factory in Chicago while the band was on tour. This was followed the next day by his love ballad "Today", which purportedly featured Jerry Garcia on lead guitar, laid down in a single take and soon to be a popular live staple. On November 3 a Slick composition she brought from her time in The Great Society, "White Rabbit", was recorded with its original instrumental introduction drastically shortened for commercial purposes; it was among the first explicitly pro-drug rock songs and would go on to become her signature piece, used in countless movies and TV shows since. On the next day the Balin rocker "3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds", which the band had already been featuring in its shows since September, was committed to tape. Marty claimed the title came from seeing two different phrases in the sports section of the newspaper, one for "3/5 of a mile" and another for "10 seconds", which he combined at random. The high price of "real clean, real fine nicotine" in the lyrics was a veiled reference to marijuana.

After a short break to play some gigs the group reconvened at RCA on November 14 to record another Spence composition, "J.P.P. McStep B. Blues", which was ultimately left in the can; the group would sporadically play it on stage, sometimes in a medley with the later "Wooden Ships". Spence was present for this session, which also saw the recording of The Mamas & the Papas soundalike "How Do You Feel" written by Kantner friend Tom Mastin. On the following day "Somebody to Love", another song from the Great Society penned by Slick's brother-in-law Darby and given a new, punchier arrangement by Garcia, was captured in 13 takes along with Kantner's chiming, Byrdsian folk-rocker "D.C.B.A.-25" (the title referring to the song's chord progression, with the number 25 an oblique reference to LSD-25). On November 16, the band recorded Balin's "Comin' Back to Me", a gentle acoustic-baroque ballad penned that very day after having smoked a particularly strong joint given to him by Paul Butterfield and featuring only himself, Casady, and Garcia plus Slick on recorder, as they were the only musicians left in the studio that night." Two outtakes, the driving Kantner-Estes acid-rocker "Go to Her" (which had also been attempted for the debut album) and slow Kaukonen blues "In the Morning", were taped on the 17th and 21st with the album's final song, the acoustic fingerpicking showcase "Embryonic Journey" penned by Kaukonen some five years prior, added on November 22 at the insistence of Jarrard.