This lyrics question has probably been answered many times.

[Sixtiesfan]

So apologies in advance, but my thinking about this was stimulated by seeing the wonderful "Alice in Wonderland" in the theater yesterday.

Is the correct lyric in "White Rabbit"

"When logic and proportion have fallen so all be dead";

"When logic and proportion have fallen softly dead";

"When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead"; or

something else entirely?

This drove me crazy when I first heard the lyric and I could never find a source that was authoritative. The website http://www.kissthisguy.com claims that it's "softly dead", but I'm not
convinced that that's correct. Surely someone on this board will have the authoritative answer. Can someone help?

[okeedoe]

sloppy dead

[redrabid]

I always heard Grace singing "softly dead". But yes it is "sloppy dead", much to my regret. I like "softly dead" much better, so in the bathroom and elsewhere I sing "softly dead".

[Susan Butcher]

I used to heard it as "starkly dead". "Softly" isn't acidic enough, but "sloppy" fits the bill sometimes. Gone all melty.

[plasticfantastic]

Yeah, sloppy is right...

I don't blame you though, it is pretty hard to understand some of those lyrics. I always used to get confused-- "and the red queen's off with her head", or "and the red queen's on her head", or "and the red queen's off her head", etc... that's the one that always got me.

[Dormouse]

Just remember what the dormouse said...

[EmbryonicRabbit68]

FEED YOUR HEAD!!!

I do love randomly shouting that... But no, I've never confused lyrics in White Rabbit, but I still didn't understand some of them for a while, I'm not the best with hearing lyrics. I do mishear lyrics a lot though, and my favorite mis-hearing has always been The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil. I always thought the first verse was this-

If you were a bird and you lived very high
You flew on the wind as the breeze came by
Sail on the wind as it took you away
That's where I wanted to go today.

But the two middle lines are "Knew even the wind as the breeze came by. Say to the wind as it took you away."

A misheard lyrics topic would be nice and it could start here, but I think we may have done that before.

[Susan Butcher]

The Dormouse said "Treacle", actually. Since treacle was originally a medicine, you could feed your head with it, I suppose.

[fairlane500]

For years I wondered what Grace said there. I read somewhere (I don't remember where) that it's "sloppy dead". On the Fly Jefferson Airplane DVD it looks and sounds like "sloppy dead" on the Smothers Brothers vidclip of JA performing White Rabbit. I don't think ithe Smothers Brothers clip of WR is the studio version, because it seeems Grace enunciates better on the TV clip than on Surrealistic Pillow. Rock n' roll, though, is full of lyrics that seem mumbled, like Mick Jagger on Honky Tonk Women. For years I couldn't understand what he was saying at the beginning of that song. Or the Thompson Twins "Hold Me Now". For a long time I thought he said "hold me now, won't drive far". I found out I was wrong on that lyric, too! I'm sure there are others!

[graceslick]

Definitely sloppy dead. Grace spoke the lyrics in an interview one time, and that cleared it up for me completely.

[JoeD80]

If you were a bird and you lived very high
You flew on the wind as the breeze came by
Sail on the wind as it took you away
That's where I wanted to go today.

But the two middle lines are "Knew even the wind as the breeze came by. Say to the wind as it took you away."

According to Paul Kantner's book, "You'd lean on the wind as the breeze came by, say to the wind as it took you away" is the lyric.