I'm pretty sure that almost everybody who has heard the song, "White Rabbit," by Jefferson Airplane realizes it liberally steals images from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and that it's about hallucinogenic drugs:
One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small ... Tell 'em a hookah-smoking caterpillar has given you the call ... And you've just had some kind of mushroom and your mind is moving low ... When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead ... Remember what the dormouse said, "Feed your head. Feed your head."
Grace Slick not only sang the song, but she also wrote it. During an interview, she gave the following explanation:
"Our parents read us stories like Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz. They all have a place where children get drugs and are able to fly or see an Emerald City or experience extraordinary animals and people.... And our parents are suddenly saying, 'Why are you taking drugs?' Well, hello!"
I read that quote and thought, "I don't remember any of those stories having scenes where the protagonist does drugs!" But then my symbolism sense started tingling and I thought of all the mushrooms and elixirs Alice ingested, and the poppies Dorothy enjoyed, and the pixie dust that Wendy and the boys got dusted with . . . Holy Shamoley! What were our parents thinking??!?
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