Uploaded January 2014 | Updated September 2026, 10 hours ago

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One of Grace Slick's earliest songs, written during either late 1965
or early 1966, uses imagery found in the fantasy works of Lewis
Carroll: 1865's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its 1871 sequel
Through the Looking-Glass, such as changing size after taking pills or
drinking an unknown liquid. It is commonly thought that these are also
references to the hallucinatory effects of psychedelic drugs, such as
LSD and psilocybin mushrooms. Characters referenced include Alice, the
hookah-smoking caterpillar, the White Knight, the Red Queen, and the
Dormouse.

For Slick and others in the 1960s, drugs were a part of mind-expanding
and social experimentation. With its enigmatic lyrics, "White Rabbit"
became one of the first songs to sneak drug references past censors on
the radio. Even Marty Balin, Slick's eventual rival in Jefferson
Airplane, regarded the song as a "masterpiece". In interviews, Slick
has related that Alice in Wonderland was often read to her as a child
and remained a vivid memory into her adult years.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal Slick mentioned that in
addition to Alice in Wonderland her other inspiration for the song was
"the bolero used by Miles Davis and Gil Evans on their 1960 album
Sketches of Spain." The song is essentially one long crescendo similar
to that of Ravel's famous Boléro. The music combined with the song's
lyrics strongly suggests the sensory distortions experienced with
hallucinogens, and the song was later used in pop culture to imply or
accompany just such a state.

While the Red Queen and the White Knight are both mentioned in the
song, the references differ from Lewis Carroll's original text,
wherein the White Knight does not talk backwards and it is the Queen
of Hearts, not the Red Queen, who says "Off with her head!"

The last lines of the song are: "Remember what the Dormouse said. Feed
your head. Feed your head." Although commonly interpreted as quoting
the Dormouse, the lines may instead refer to Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland, Chapter XI: "Who Stole the Tarts", wherein a very nervous
Mad Hatter is called to testify:

'But what did the Dormouse say?' one of the jury asked.
'That I can't remember', said the Hatter.