We like some songs more than others; we play them more often than we do others, wearing out vinyl, styluses, and cassette tapes till we hit the digital. Some songs grow stale; we find them overly familiar; but every once in a while, we return to them, and discover them anew. Sometimes it is because we hear an old favorite under the influence of psychotropic substances; sometimes in a new setting and place–perhaps while making love to a new flame, driving through new lands, talking to a stranger in a strange land, or hearing it piped through the awesome machinery of a magnificent audio system, which suddenly renders clear notes and melodies and lyrics you had never heard before.
My personal roster of rediscoveries must now include the renewed exploration of favorites with my four-year old daughter. And among these, pride of place must go to Jefferson Airplane‘s White Rabbit (a song written by Grace Slick); I first heard the song as an undergraduate, not bothering to pay attention to anything other than the song’s psychedelic feel; it prompted endless replays of a beat-up tape. Later, once I had discovered pot, White Rabbit was rediscovered anew; years on, once I had paid more attention to the lyrics, and also partaken of psychedelics myself, White Rabbit took on another new dimension. The years rolled on, White Rabbit became consigned to the past. I did not disdain the song; I did not ‘grow out of it’; but I did not seek it out either.
And then, my daughter was born. And earlier this year, on my birthday, my wife and I introduced her to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland at Brooklyn’s Puppet Works. During the show, many adults in the audience, including me, giggled at the references to mushrooms, growing tall, strange visions, and indeed, the very idea of being transported to strange lands where all is topsy-turvy, and old verities are no longer so. My daughter was delighted with the tale; she quoted from it endlessly; and she was very enamored of the movie versions we subsequently exposed her to.
And so last week, as I sat down again with my daughter to listen to some music with her–in the form of a few music videos–I decided I would play White Rabbit for her. I found a version of Jefferson Airplane’s live performance of White Rabbit at Woodstock in which the lyrics flash up on the screen and make singing along easier; which is what I did, loudly, bringing forth the most amazing expressions imaginable from my daughter–she loved the lyrics’ evocation of the characters and oddities of the land she had traveled to. I played the song twice and tried to get her to sing along the second time, and she did try, for after all, her favorite, Alice, was featuring in a wholly new kind of song:
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
When she’s ten feet tall
And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you’re going to fall
Tell ’em a hookah-smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
Call Alice
When she was just small
When the men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you’ve just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving low
Go ask Alice
I think she’ll know
When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen’s off with her head
Remember what the dormouse said
Feed your head
Feed your head
Before I became a parent, I’d been told I would see the world anew through the eyes of my child; ’tis true, but you also hear it differently. I’m not going to be able to listen to White Rabbit now without thinking of my daughter–and Alice.
