Weirdest Jefferson Airplane Song

[SaturdayAfternoon]

Man, I agree with Grace and the past few comments, 'Today' is definitely one of the most beautiful love songs ever written. I love the way it goes hand-in-hand with 'Çomin' Back to Me' on Surrealistic Pillow. I had a tear in my eye the first time I heard 'Comin' Backto Me', especially the lyrics:
"The shadow in the mist could have been anyone
I saw you
I saw you
Comin' Back to Me"

I think 'Today' has the same touching qualities, although it is played quite differently to most love songs of that time, which is what makes it so beautiful:
"With you standing here I could tell the world what it means to love
To go on from here I can't use words, they don't say enough"

And as for "weird" songs, I think that all Airplane songs are weird, but that's exactly what makes them one of the most influencial bands of the counter-culture. They weren't afraid of freedom and expressing their ability to blow people's minds.

[plasticfantastic]

Well, my memories of 'Coming Back to Me' are quite different. It was the first song I learned to fingerpick on guitar, so I remember it most vividly from that. It's definitely a gorgeous song, and I will always associate it with last summer, when I learned it, and played it over and over again. The lyrics are pure poetry, Saturday-- you're right.

Today is also a great song, although it has a LOT of competition for the greatest love song ever written... 'ever' is a strong word, no matter the context. Even so, I admit that it's definitely up there-- a really beautiful, and moving song. On the same topic, I also love Eric Clapton's 'Bellbottom Blues,' from the Derek and the Dominoes album, 1970.

It's also my personal (and probably unpopular) opinion that many of the greatest love songs ever written talk about things other than love. The Kinks' 'Waterloo Sunset' is a good example of that. But maybe that's my opinion because I'm not a particularly sentimental person...

[SaturdayAfternoon]

Your opinion is popular with me my friend.

A love song, in my opinion, is when you can feel the singers emotion in the song. But lyricly, Today is very profound and to me, also not a greatly sentimental person, I felt something when I heard that song and Coming Back to Me. I felt similar feelings when I first heard Lennon's Imagine, although it wasn't a song about 'romance', I still felt it was a love song. That's the song that turned me onto 1960's music, unlike modern music which is sung by people who don't give a fuck about whatever it is they are singing about. I'm not going to say who I have in mind, but speeking generally, new artists just don't give a fuck.

[usedtobebabson]

It's also my personal (and probably unpopular) opinion that many of the greatest love songs ever written talk about things other than love. The Kinks' 'Waterloo Sunset' is a good example of that. But maybe that's my opinion because I'm not a particularly sentimental person...

None of us were sentimental PF. It takes you by surprise, love I mean, If you're lucky that is! It will melt the meanest, hardest feeling beast

[plasticfantastic]

That's the song that turned me onto 1960's music, unlike modern music which is sung by people who don't give a fuck about whatever it is they are singing about. I'm not going to say who I have in mind, but speeking generally, new artists just don't give a fuck.

You're so right, one of the most important things that has been lost over the years in music is emotion. Because I care so much about the industry (because according to many, I'll be going into it...), I've done a lot of research, trying to find the bands who are different. The truth is, some are better than others, but none of them are really that different. The feeling that propelled the music is gone, and that's one of the variables that has really changed. Everything sounds more clinical now, and less spontaneous. Some bands have that feeling, don't get me wrong, but they can't show it if that want to be "appealing."

[usedtobebabson]

Great thoughts on the music today and what may have happened to it, SA and PF. I've struggled with this question over the years, but unlike the 60s, I'm not "there" anymore. You two are there, and were able to see it as I couldn't, and really get your finger on it!

[plasticfantastic]

Thank you very much, Babson. I've done a lot of wondering myself on the matter. A rather embarrassing amount of wondering, now that I think about it...

Another thing that has changed is probably the death of true genres. A lot of the psychedelic music of the 60s was about was genres combining in odd ways, leading to new sounds. What has happened now though is that all of those years of combining has led to a state where there is no difference, or minimal difference, between rock and pop, jazz and blues (which barely exist at all in today's music), pop and country, rock and metal, etc. You could come up with a multitude of combinations. And just the fact that people don't have the grounding they used to in very old music has also changed things a lot. Maybe I listen to Bessie Smith and Robert Johnson, but I am aware that most of my generation doesn't. One could argue that it is no longer necessary, but I think it is.

When you look at the influences of mid-20th-century musicians, a common motif is their listening to delta blues or old jazz until Elvis and/or the Beatles. One thing that I think can really change the industry would be someone like that, to transcend years and unite a generation that has divided over those who listen to whatever is on the radio, and those who have turned to the music of other generations to make up for the fact that their generation has none of its own.

When and how this would happen, I have no idea. Hopefully it will though-- hopefully soon.

[EmbryonicRabbit68]

I think lot of new artists don't care because they think that musicians in the 20th century laid everything out for them. There's not as much struggle anymore, anyone can get an album out, not on a major label, but they can do it. And very few want to be serious about it and take the risks that musicians in the 20th century did, the risks are gone. And everything seems to have been done too, there's really no new styles that can be created or transcended, so people just try to make something as different as they can, whether it has artistic integrity or not. When I enter the music business in a few years, I plan on bringing rock back to the basics, which is what I think a lot of musicians should do, and hopefully will do, if there's enough of us. The blues has a lot to do with it, rock music needs it, it gives it soul and feeling, character. A lot of music I hear today is based on studio effects, and generating a "cool sound" that represents some image, but the songs just lack so much, it's almost sad. The issue tackling going back to the basics is sounding "out-dated", which doesn't make sense to me. Rock is rock, and blues is blues, there's no out dated-ness about it, it's just absent.

I think it'll be our generation that does this, I really feel it can be accomplished, it just requires really trying and taking real risks. And don't forget, the music business changes every ten years, it's not going to be this way forever.

[oldblue]

Something was happening at that time, and it was a wave that some of us were able to surf on. And none of us started the wave; I don’t think there’s any way you could start the wave. The wave is still going.

— Ken Kesey


why do you necessarily think it will come in the music if it comes again? remember you don't find something until you stop looking for it.

Eliot’s opinion was that this dissociation of sensibility was an event “from which we had never recovered.” Since its occurrence, the separated ends of man’s sensibility have twisted in the historical winds much as the two ends of a severed power line dance in a windstorm. Eventually, however, just as the ends of that power line will touch, so, too, will the bifurcated halves of man’s sensibility brush against each other and reconnect to achieve unity, , if only briefly. It is all a matter of chance; no one knows the reason why it happens. But at certain periods, the “energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long, fine flash for reasons that nobody really understands at the time — and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.” (Thompson 67) But then again, who’s to say that coincidence isn’t just order we don’t understand yet.

[Susan Butcher]

And you get what you want when you've forgotten that you wanted it.

I prefer "cool" in music to forced emotion, where you can hear someone trying to be hugely soulful. Which is why I prefer Grace to Janis. On the other hand, Grace sometimes sang nonsense with great conviction.

[oldblue]

And you get what you want when you've forgotten that you wanted it.

I prefer "cool" in music to forced emotion, where you can hear someone trying to be hugely soulful. Which is why I prefer Grace to Janis. On the other hand, Grace sometimes sang nonsense with great conviction.

ball and chain at monterrey was no forced emotion.

[PsychedelicRabbit]

Today's music is all about an image, I think. What sounds good? What will make me #1? And it's to the point where music lost it's initial purpose and feeling. It's about something completely different now. Last night I was listening to "Follow The Drinking Gourd," "Wade in the Water," and "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"...those songs have so much soul it makes me cry. Turn on the radio to a Top 40 station and it makes me turn it right back off. There's no feeling or emotion in anything. It's so forced and fake it makes me puke a little, lol.

In my opinion, one Altamont happened, music style lost it's "spark" [for lack of better terms]. In came the 70s, which was polished disco music. This lead to even MORE polished music in the 80s, and on and on. Annddd now we have auto-tuning, which is the worst thing to listen to.

And as for JA and their live performances - I have a firm belief that the best things happen when it's almost completely spontaneous. Though as for actual song performing, I can understand what Grace means. Some people don't need practice to feel comfortable while others need tons to feel comfortable. So it all depends, in my opinion.

BTW, if this post doesn't make sense, that's because it's 2:30 in the morning.

[Susan Butcher]

She was great at Monterey. I just thought she was a bit over the top at Woodstock. If you can turn on the emotion for a crowd, isn't it like acting? And then the question is, is it convincing?

Don't worry, PR, that makes sense!

[PsychedelicRabbit]

I think she said once that at the Woodstock performance she was on a smorgasbord of drugs. Maybe that's why she sounded over the top? And with the delays and lack of bathrooms, maybe? I think she sounds okay for the circumstances, lol. Though over the top, yeah. She seemed natural at Monterey and very...it was just simply her, stripped down totally. She was very natural there.

And in my opinion, Woodstock itself is very overrated and over the top. And I'm saying that because I'm so sick of seeing Woodstock stuff everywhere and hearing about how great it was. I never hear much of anything about the other festivals, Monterey and Altamont.

[redrabid]

Grace herself might agree with you. Somewhere on the internet is an interview (was is the interview with an australian Julie or Judie?), where Grace is talking how surprised she was when she heard tapes of Woodstock: she thought her singing was "all over the place".