''Surrealistic Pillow'' is the second studio album by the American

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...

band

Jefferson Airplane Jefferson Airplane was an American Rock music, rock band formed in San Francisco, California, in 1965. One of the pioneering bands of psychedelic rock, the group defined the San Francisco Sound and was the first from the San Francisco Bay Area, ...

, released on February 1, 1967, by

RCA Victor RCA Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Group Corporation. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside Columbia Records (its former longtime rival), Arista Records and Epic ...

. It is the first album by the band with vocalist

Grace Slick Grace Slick (born Grace Barnett Wing; October 30, 1939) is an American painter and retired musician whose musical career spanned four decades. She was a prominent figure in San Francisco's psychedelic music scene during the mid-1960s to the earl ...

and drummer Spencer Dryden. The album peaked at number three on the ''Billboard'' 200 and has been certified

Platinum Platinum is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a density, dense, malleable, ductility, ductile, highly unreactive, precious metal, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name origina ...

by the

Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...

(RIAA). It is considered to be one of the most influential and quintessential works of the early

psychedelic rock Psychedelic rock is a rock music Music genre, genre that is inspired, influenced, or representative of psychedelia, psychedelic culture, which is centered on perception-altering hallucinogenic drugs. The music incorporated new electronic sound ...

era and

1960s counterculture The counterculture of the 1960s was an anti-establishment cultural phenomenon and political movement that developed in the Western world during the mid-20th century. It began in the early 1960s, and continued through the early 1970s. It is oft ...

. " 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 The White Rabbit is a fictional and anthropomorphic character in Lewis Carroll's 1865 book ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''. He appears at the very beginning of the book, in chapter one, wearing a waistcoat, and muttering "Oh dear! Oh dea ...

" 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 Today (archaically to-day) may refer to: * The current day and calendar date ** Today is between and , subject to the local time zone * Now, the time that is perceived directly, present * The current, present era Arts, entertainment and m ...

" was not released as a single but was played often on college radio and rock stations and remains one of their most popular songs. It was also recorded by jazz saxophonist Tom Scott for his 1967 album '' The Honeysuckle Breeze''; this version was sampled in the song " They Reminisce Over You" by Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth. In 2024, the album was inducted into the

National Recording Registry The National Recording Registry is a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, and inform or reflect life in the United States." The registry was established by the National Recording Preservation ...

by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

Background

Early drummer Alexander "Skip" Spence left the band in mid-1966. He was soon replaced by Spencer Dryden, an experienced Los Angeles jazz drummer and the half-nephew of

Charlie Chaplin Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is considered o ...

. New female vocalist

, formerly with another San Francisco rock band the Great Society, joined the Airplane in October 1966. Slick, Dryden, male lead vocalist-guitarist-songwriter and founder of band

Marty Balin Martyn Jerel Buchwald (January 30, 1942 – September 27, 2018), known as Marty Balin (), was an American singer, songwriter, and musician best known as a member of Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship. Early life Balin was born Martyn Je ...

, guitarist-vocalist-songwriter

Paul Kantner Paul Lorin Kantner (March 17, 1941 – January 28, 2016) was an American rock musician. He is best known as the co-founder, rhythm guitarist, and a secondary vocalist of Jefferson Airplane, a leading psychedelic rock band of the counterculture of ...

, lead guitarist (and occasional vocalist)

Jorma Kaukonen Jorma Ludwik Kaukonen Jr. (; ; born December 23, 1940) is an American blues, folk, and rock guitarist. Kaukonen performed with Jefferson Airplane, and still performs regularly on tour with Hot Tuna, which started as a side project with bassist ...

, 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

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 Jerome John Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) was an American musician who was the lead guitarist and a vocalist with the rock band Grateful Dead, which he co-founded and which came to prominence during the counterculture of the 196 ...

on lead guitar (see below), 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, "

", 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 Paul Vaughn Butterfield (December 17, 1942May 4, 1987) was an American blues harmonica player, singer, and bandleader. After early training as a Western concert flute, classical flautist, he developed an interest in blues harmonica. He explored ...

and featuring only himself, Casady, and Garcia plus Slick on recorder, as they were the only musicians left in the studio that night."''Surrealistic Pillow'' 2003 re-release liner notes 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. As producer, Jarrard was under orders by RCA to produce something commercial, so none of the longer covers and psychedelic instrumental jams the group had been featuring on stage, such as "Fat Angel", "Thing", and "The Other Side Of This Life", were attempted. He forbade the group to smoke marijuana at the sessions, an edict that was ignored and which contributed to the group not re-hiring him for subsequent albums; they disparaged him behind his back as a company man, although Slick stated she was "knocked out" when she heard the final product. Jarrard also bathed the stereo mix of the album in swathes of reverb, a controversial choice which has led some to prefer the drier mono mix.''Surrealistic Pillow'' 2003 re-release liner notes Some controversy exists as to the role of

Grateful Dead The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in Palo Alto, California, in 1965. Known for their eclectic style that fused elements of rock, blues, jazz, Folk music, folk, country music, country, bluegrass music, bluegrass, roc ...

guitarist

in the making of the album. His reputed presence on several tracks is denied by producer Jarrard, but he is credited on the RCA label copy and received credits on the '' Flight Log'' compilation and the '' Jefferson Airplane Loves You'' box set. In the sleeve notes for ''Early Flight'', a 1974 compilation album of previously unreleased material, manager Bill Thompson writes only that Garcia was "listed as 'spiritual advisor' on the album cover ndplayed one of the guitars" on "In the Morning". Garcia himself recalled in a mid-1967 interview that he played the high lead on "Today" in addition to playing guitar on two other songs ("Plastic Fantastic Lover" and "Comin' Back to Me") and rearranging "Somebody to Love." He also played on "J.P.P. McStep B. Blues" (included on ''Early Flight'' and the 2003 CD reissue) and may have also played on "How Do You Feel". Kaukonen has opined that Garcia was essentially the producer who arranged the songs for the group. More recently, in his biography, he says, "I used to think about him as co-producer, but now that I really know what a producer is, the producer of that record was Rick Jarrard. Jerry was a combination arranger, musician, and sage counsel."

Style

The overall style of Surrealistic Pillow has been categorized as " folk-rock-based

psychedelia Psychedelia usually refers to a Aesthetics, style or aesthetic that is resembled in the psychedelic subculture of the 1960s and the psychedelic experience produced by certain psychoactive substances. This includes psychedelic art, psychedelic ...

". The material is said to be "both melodic and complex." The style on the album's closing track, "Plastic Fantastic Lover," has been described as "quasi-

electronica Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that came to prominence in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mos ...

." The album's fourth track, "

," has been described as a "delicate

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Great Britain and Ireland from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were widely used across Eur ...

". The track "D.C.B.A.-25" contains elements of what is said to be "proto-

country-rock Country rock is a music genre that fuses rock and country. It was developed by rock musicians who began to record country-flavored records in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These musicians recorded rock records using country themes, vocal sty ...

" and "3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds" contains elements of

blues rock Blues rock is a fusion music genre, genre and form of rock music, rock and blues music that relies on the chords/scales and instrumental improvisation of blues. It is mostly an electric ensemble-style music with instrumentation similar to electri ...

Title and artwork

San Francisco photographer Herb Greene photographed the band for the album's cover art in his dining room, whose walls were covered in primitive quasi-hieroglyphics. Marty Balin had wanted the cover tinted in blue but RCA overrode him and chose pink instead, although he liked the change. The back cover was a psychedelic photo collage of the band members picked from shots taken at the same Greene photo session, also assembled by Balin. A comment to Marty by Garcia about the music being "as surrealistic as a pillow" inspired the album title.

Release

The album was initially released on LP record by RCA Victor in different stereo (LSP-3766), and mono (LPM-3766) editions. The stereo mixes include heavier use of

reverberation In acoustics, reverberation (commonly shortened to reverb) is a persistence of sound after it is produced. It is often created when a sound is reflection (physics), reflected on surfaces, causing multiple reflections that build up and then de ...

effects than the mono. The mono version was deleted in the late 1960s and remained unavailable until 2001. The first United Kingdom release replaced some original songs with tracks from the group's first US LP, '' Jefferson Airplane Takes Off''. The album was initially slow to take off until the release of " Somebody to Love" in March. Heavy radio play took the song into the Billboard top 5, aided by the group's first national TV appearances on ''

The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour ''The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour'' is an American television comedy, comedy and variety show television series hosted by the Smothers Brothers and initially airing on CBS from 1967 to 1969. The series was a major success, especially consid ...

'' on May 7 and ''

American Bandstand ''American Bandstand'' (AB) is an American Music television, music performance and dance television series that aired in various iterations from 1952 to 1989. It was hosted by Dick Clark who also served as the program's Television producer, pr ...

'' on June 3, the former appearance featuring a facsimile of the group's swirling light show, the first time the average American had seen such effects. The album entered the Billboard top 10 in May and peaked at #3 on August 5, with the help of the follow up single "

". Jefferson Airplane's fusion of

folk rock Folk rock is a fusion genre of rock music with heavy influences from pop, English and American folk music. It arose in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s. In the U.S., folk rock emerged from the folk music re ...

and psychedelia was original at the time, in line with musical developments pioneered by

the Byrds The Byrds () were an American Rock music, rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1964. The band underwent multiple lineup changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn (known as Jim McGuinn until mid-1967) being the so ...

the Beach Boys The Beach Boys are an American Rock music, rock band formed in Hawthorne, California, in 1961. The group's original lineup consisted of brothers Brian Wilson, Brian, Dennis Wilson, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and their f ...

, the Mamas & the Papas,

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan; born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Described as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his nearly 70-year ...

the Yardbirds The Yardbirds are an English rock music, rock band formed in London in 1963. The band started the careers of three of rock's most famous guitarists: Eric Clapton (1963–1965), Jeff Beck (1965–1966) and Jimmy Page (1966–1968), all of whom ...

, and

the Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatle ...

, among other mid-1960s rock bands. ''Surrealistic Pillow'' was the first blockbuster psychedelic album by a band from San Francisco, announcing to the world the active bohemian scene that had developed there starting with the Beats during the 1950s, extending and changing through the 1960s into the

Haight-Ashbury Haight-Ashbury () is a district of San Francisco, California, named for the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets. It is also called the Haight and the Upper Haight. The neighborhood is known as one of the main centers of the countercultu ...

counterculture. Subsequent exposure generated by the Airplane and others wrought great changes to the counterculture. By 1968, the ensuing national media attention had precipitated a very different San Francisco scene than had existed in 1966. In January 2017, "Somebody to Love" received a gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America, while "White Rabbit" received a platinum certification.

Critical reception and legacy

On initial release, the album received positive reviews. ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...

'' said of " Somebody To Love" that it was a "hard driver, featuring powerful female vocal lead, that never stops from start to finish." Similarly, the magazine said of "

" that it was a "change-of-pace number" with "intriguing lyric content and driving beat in strong support." ''

Cash Box ''Cashbox'', also known as ''Cash Box'', is an American music industry trade magazine, originally published weekly from July 1942 to November 1996. Ten years after its dissolution, it was revived and continues as ''Cashbox Magazine'', an online ...

'' wrote of the album that "the LP could easily go all the way to the top of the chart" and "should be especially popular with the teen set."

Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and later became a ...

of ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first Alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, ...

'' gave it a B+ although he critiqued the lyrics, claiming "the sarcasm is as vapid as the optimism." A live version of "Plastic Fantastic Lover" was released as a single in 1969. ''

'' described it as "heavy hard rock." ''

'' wrote that it "features the team's more commercial-than-controversial style" and has "a solid instrumental track and very fine vocal." ''

Record World ''Record World'' magazine was one of three major weekly music industry trade magazines in the United States, with ''Billboard'' and '' Cashbox''. It was founded in 1946 as ''Music Vendor''. In 1964, it was changed to ''Record World'' under the ...

'' wrote it was one of the band's favorites. In subsequent years the reputation of the album has continued to grow. Bruce Eder of ''

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

'' gave the album a perfect score, calling "every song ..a perfectly cut diamond." He expressed his view that the album was a "shot heard around the world" and that the group never released anything of the same quality again in their career, adding that "few artists from the era ever did." In 2003, the album was ranked number 146 on ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...

'' magazine's list of the "

500 Greatest Albums of All Time 5 (five) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number, and cardinal number, following 4 and preceding 6, and is a prime number. Humans, and many other animals, have 5 digits on their limbs. Mathematics 5 is a Fermat pri ...

", maintaining the rating in a 2012 revised list, and dropping to number 471 in the 2020 revised list. It was voted number 174 in

Colin Larkin Colin Larkin (born 1949) is a British music writer. He founded and was the editor-in-chief of ''The Encyclopedia of Popular Music''. Along with the ten-volume encyclopedia, Larkin also wrote the book ''All Time Top 1000 Albums'', and edited th ...

's ''

All Time Top 1000 Albums ''All Time Top 1000 Albums'' is a book by Colin Larkin, creator and editor of the ''Encyclopedia of Popular Music''. The book was first published by Guinness Publishing in 1994. The list presented is the result of over 200,000 votes cast by the ...

''. ''Surrealistic Pillow'' was included in the book ''101 Essential Rock Records'', where music historian Jeff Gold lauded the album's musicianship (particularly the stylings of Kaukonen and Casady), and stated his belief that Jefferson Airplane "remade pop history" with the album.

Reissues

The first compact disc releases were in Japan in 1987 and the U.S. in 1988. A 2001 re-issue by RCA was released as a limited edition gold CD and contained both the stereo and mono recordings. Both mixes were later included as part of the ''Ignition'' box set on a standard aluminum CD. Another stereo reissue appeared on August 19, 2003, with six bonus tracks, including the mono A-sides of "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit." The 2003 reissue was produced by

Bob Irwin Robert Eric Irwin (born 8 June 1939) is an Australian natural history, naturalist, animal conservation movement, conservationist, former zookeeper, and a herpetologist known for his conservation and husbandry work with apex predators and reptil ...

Track listing

Original release

1967 UK release

Side one #"My Best Friend" #"3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds" #"D.C.B.A. – 25" #"How Do You Feel" #"Embryonic Journey" #"Don't Slip Away" (Balin, Spence)These tracks were originally issued in the U.S. on '' Jefferson Airplane Takes Off''. Side two #

"Come Up the Years" (Balin, Kantner) #" Chauffeur Blues" (

Lester Melrose Lester Franklin Melrose (December 14, 1891 – April 12, 1968) was a talent scout who was one of the first American producers of Chicago blues records. Career Lester Franklin Melrose was born in Sumner, Illinois, the second of six childr ...

) #"Today" #"Comin' Back to Me" #" Somebody to Love"

Personnel

;Jefferson Airplane *

– vocals, guitar, album design, lead vocals on "Today," "Comin' Back to Me," and "Plastic Fantastic Lover," co-lead vocals on "She Has Funny Cars," "My Best Friend," "Go to Her" and "3/5 Of A Mile In 10 Seconds." * Jack Casady – bass guitar, fuzz bass, rhythm guitar * Spencer Dryden – drums, percussion *

– rhythm guitar, vocals, lead vocals on "How Do You Feel," co-lead vocals on "My Best Friend," "D. C. B. A.-25" and "Go to Her" *

– lead guitar, lead vocals on "Come Back Baby" and "In the Morning" *

– vocals, piano, organ, recorder, lead vocals on "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit," co-lead vocals on "She Has Funny Cars," "My Best Friend," "D. C. B. A.-25", "Go to Her" and "3/5 Of A Mile In 10 Seconds" * Signe Toly Anderson – lead vocals on "Chauffeur Blues" (UK only) * Skip Spence – drums on "Don't Slip Away," "Come Up the Years," and "Chauffeur Blues" (UK only) ;Additional personnel *

– "musical and spiritual advisor"; guitar on "Today", "Comin' Back to Me", "Plastic Fantastic Lover", "In the Morning", and "J. P. P. McStep B. Blues" *Herb Greene – photography * David Hassinger – audio engineer *Rick Jarrard – record producer

Charts

Certifications

References

Notes

Citations

External links

''Surrealistic Pillow''
(Adobe Flash) at Radio Romania's

Radio3Net Radio 3 net is the former ''Radio România Tineret'' (or Radio 3). More than 20,000 albums are stored on Radio 3 net. It is a radio station for young people, currently broadcasting as an online-only radio station. A few of the prominent features ...

(streamed copy where licensed)
Album entry at Jefferson Airplane's website
{{Authority control 1967 albums Albums produced by Rick Jarrard Jefferson Airplane albums RCA Victor albums United States National Recording Registry recordings United States National Recording Registry albums