Rock music tends to speak to the listeners on the fringes of societal norms and niceties, but Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” spoke directly to the authority figures so many music lovers of the 1960s were trying to escape from: their parents. Parents not understanding their kids (and vice versa) is a tale as old as time.
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But it seemed especially prevalent in the 1960s as children of the counterculture stood up to their folks in the more straight-laced “greatest generation.” And according to Jefferson Airplane vocalist and “White Rabbit” songwriter Grace Slick, standing up against the older naysayers was “easier than s***.”
How Grace Slick Spoke to 1960s Parents in “White Rabbit”
Jefferson Airplane’s musical legacy is synonymous with the psychedelic movement on the West Coast in the 1960s. The band played at some of the most memorable concerts of the decade, including Woodstock and the Monterey Pop Festival. Their driving rock music and trippy themes made the perfect sonic background to the Summer of Love. But this also made them targets for older people who denounced the band as bad influences because of their drug use. Grace Slick chose to speak to these critics directly with their massive hit, “White Rabbit.”
Using Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland as an allegorical argument, Slick said, “The lyrics were written at parents because parents kept asking us, ‘Why do you take all these drugs?’ So, the song responds with, ‘Okay, do you remember the stories that you read to us when we were little, like Alice in Wonderland? Well, Alice takes at least five different drugs in that book. One makes her high, one makes her low, et cetera.’”
One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small. And the ones that mother gives you don’t do anything at all. Go ask Alice.
“Or take Sleeping Beauty,” Slick continued in a 2025 Guitar Player interview. “Why do you think she’s sleeping? Somebody knocked her out with some drugs! And by the way, what’s that you’re having with dinner? Alcohol? Well, alcohol is also a drug. It just happens to be legal. Same with cigarettes. Standing up to all that stuff was easier than s***.”
How Psychedelics Helped Inform the Jefferson Airplane Hit
It should come as no surprise that the people who became figureheads of the psychedelic Summer of Love movement were fans of dabbling with LSD themselves. This hallucinogenic drug was involved in many Jefferson Airplane performances and songwriting sessions, and “White Rabbit” was no exception. In her 2025 Guitar Player interview, Grace Slick recalled taking some LSD and putting on Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain. “I once listened to that album for 24 hours straight. I look acid and put it on over and over and over. It’s burned into my brain.”
“Musically speaking, “White Rabbit” is kind of an extension of Sketches of Spain and Ravel’s Bolero,” Slick explained. “It’s funny that [“White Rabbit”] is classified as a rock song, because it’s not anywhere near rock. It’s a Spanish march. I happen to like Spanish music a lot, including flamenco guitar. So, maybe it was inspired by that. I can listen to Spanish guitar instrumentals all day long. Flamenco guitar just knocks my socks off.”
Photo by MediaPunch/Shutterstock
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