Surrealistic Pillow was the second album by San Francisco-based psych pioneers Jefferson Airplane, released in February 1967. The wide range of lyrical and vocal variety provided by Grace Slick, Marty Balin, Paul Kantner, and Jorma Kaukonen is accompanied by the latter’s dazzling lead guitar, and the exemplar rhythm section of bassist Jack Casady and drummer Spencer Dryden.

The album is simply astonishing, and some of the songs are the stuff of legend. “Somebody to Love” is emblematic of the

The album is simply astonishing, and some of the songs are the stuff of legend.

Summer of Love of 1967, despite favoring a moody minor chord progression over merrier major chords. Grace Slick’s distinct, fiery voice throughout this record is equally passionate and eerily supernatural.

Few songs emphatically strike, capture and displace the listener like “White Rabbit.” The staccato Spanish-laced semi-tones provide an unsettling backdrop, rising to a hectic stomp. Slick vividly re-imagines Lewis Carroll’s centennial novel Alice in Wonderland as an acid-induced hallucination, concluding with the timeless advice “feed your head!” The hair-raising musical tension highlighted by Slick’s iconic narrative results in perhaps the quintessential psychedelic anthem of all time.

Acoustic guitar harkens to the graceful “Embryonic Journey,” a beautiful instrumental that showcases Kaukonen’s acoustic guitar wizardry before ending too soon. Similar themes continue in two of the album’s forgotten ballads, “Today” and “Comin’ Back to Me.” On the former, Jorma patiently colors in the lines with a restrained electric guitar motif while Slick and Balin’s aching pleadings soon become overwhelmed by cavern reverb – an example of the era’s overuse of this recording effect. Balin croons and rambles through “Comin’ Back to Me,” backed by Grace’s smooth recorder accompaniment.