This song is more associated with Crosby, Stills and Nash but was co-written by Paul Kantner of Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship and Starship, who died earlier this week. Apparently his name could not be put on the CSN release of the song for legal reasons but Kantner contributed to the lyrics. Both CSN and Jefferson Airplane performed the song at Woodstock but Airplane’s (very long) version did not appear in the film.
Jefferson Airplane: Wooden Ships
Paul Lorin Kantner: 17/3/1941–28/1/2016. So it goes.
This one says it all about the ingestion of strange substances. A feature of the 1960s I’m told. (Not me, Officer. On my life.)
“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.
Recall Alice/When she was just small.
When 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.”
