My favourite Airplane tune:
Surrealistic Pillow
Studio album by Jefferson Airplane
Released February 1967
Recorded October 31, 1966 -- November 22, 1966
Genre Psychedelic rock, folk rock
Length 33:40
Label RCA Victor
Producer Rick Jarrard
Jefferson Airplane's fusion of folk rock and psychedelia was original at the time, in line with musical developments pioneered by The Byrds, The Mamas & the Papas, and Bob Dylan. Surrealistic Pillow was the first blockbuster psychedelic album by a band from San Francisco, announcing to the world the active bohemian scene that had developed there starting with The Beats during the 1950s, extending and changing through the 1960s into the Haight-Ashbury counterculture. Subsequently, the exposure generated by the Airplane and others wrought great changes to that counterculture, and by 1968 the ensuing national media attention had precipitated a very different San Francisco scene than had existed in 1966. San Francisco photographer, Herb Greene photographed the band for the album's cover art.
Some controversy exists as to the role of Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia in the making of the album. His reputed presence on several tracks is not corroborated by RCA paperwork and is denied by producer Rick Jarrard. But when performing Comin' Back to Me live with Jefferson Starship, Marty Balin almost always introduced the song with a reference to the Surrealistic Pillow sessions, mentioning Garcia as playing the guitar parts on the original studio version.
In 2003, the album was ranked number 146 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time
Track History: The acoustic instrumental 'Embryonic Journey' composed by Jefferson Airplane / Hot Tuna guitarist Jorma Kaukonen originally appeared as the ninth track on Jefferson Airplane's second album Surrealistic Pillow but has been often anthologized, and multiple takes were released as an album also entitled 'Embryonic Journey'. According to the album's liner notes Kaukonen composed the tune in 1962 as part of a guitar workshop in Santa Clara and included it on 'Surrealistic Pillow' at the band's behest.
This song has been used in the final Friends episode (entitled 'The Last One'); in the movie The Rookie during a montage scene, in the movie 'Berkeley in the Sixties' at the end with the credits, and recently in a UK television commercial for Norwich Union.
The track was Kaukonen's first composition to appear on an album; and subsequently became his signature song at live performances.