They recorded it too, huh? Blurgghh.
That’s the song, and it’s not Air Supply.
ETA: They covered it?
Interesting…from Wikipedia:
Bolding mine.
Well it’s good I came along just to hammer the final nail into the “We Built This City” coffin.
I was never that happy about “We Built This City” but when this happened, I lost all respect for the song:
I’d post a link but it is from Google Books and I’m not having much luck with it.
Anyway, as someone else said, Jefferson Airplane were of that *tear down the establishment *mentality. Then they sold a song to ITT&T? :eek:
I even tolerated “We Built This City” because I was proud to see some of the Airplane still musically relevant after all those decades flew by.
The Jefferson Airplane were never really of the “tear down the establishment” mentality:
They were a good group that managed to keep going a little longer than they should have by replacing members and doing side projects even as various members left the group out of boredom. There was nothing particularly rebellious about their lyrics beyond what was common at the time. They didn’t sell out in any way beyond what any once-famous group did after their height of popularity.
I really have to disagree with this (and that Wiki link doesn’t really say much either way).
I know what their attitude seemed to be at the time. They represented the alternative culture very strongly.
Musically and lyrically, they were one of the leaders in creating the new style of music. Just a few example:
White Rabbit is not very subtly advocating drug use (‘Feed your head’)
Spare Chaynge is a not altogether successful example of free form music.
The House At Pooneil Corners is apocalyptic, both musically and lyrically.
They called for two different alternative lifestyles: the first being the ‘tear down the walls, motherfuckers’ style, which was common at the time.
From Wiki:
They also, later, had a ‘leave this planet to find a better world’ type of vision as exemplified in Blows Against The Empire.
Again, from Wiki:
So the change from exciting, innovative, counter culture lifestyle to corporate sellout is upsetting.
I don’t know which members you are thinking of, but I’ not aware of any that left out of boredom. Just a few examples:
Signe Toly Andersen was elbowed out because of the arrival of Grace Slick.
Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady left to form Hot Tuna, due to the fabled ‘musical differences’.
Skip Spence, the JA drummer, left to join Moby Grape as a guitarist.
Signe left to raise her kid, not because she was “forced out.” If anybody left because of boredom, it was Marty Balin.
All of that was simply typical of the times. That’s why I said, “beyond what was common at the time.” Anybody could ape the obvious platitudes about the current hip political attitudes. They didn’t do anything to back up those cliches. Signe wasn’t pushed out. She quit when she had a baby. Spence left to join another group. Kaukonen and Casady left to form another group. I would call all of those leaving because of boredom. They decided that something else was more interesting. In any case, Signe and Spence (NOTE: In case somebody is confused, this is not Spencer Dryden, but Skip Spence) left before the group became famous and don’t really count.
That’s partially, and probably mainly the reason, but I believe that the impetus for change came initially from the rest of the band.
From wiki:
But surely they were one of the (musical) groups who helped to *create *those times.
Not many musical groups did, apart from groups with a more aggressive attitude like the MC5. And when John Sinclair got sent to jail, their motivation seemed to go with him. Political and activist groups like the Yippies and the Hog Farm did, and people like the Merry Pranksters helped to create an alternative lifestyle by example.
They were musicians, not revolutionaries.
Somebody has to provide the soundtrack. 
Hah! I like it.
I have never met any member of the Airplane or Starship, so everything I know of them has come from listening to their music and reading interviews with, and books on them, both from then and now.
From that, my belief is that they helped to create and shape cultural and political attitudes in the late sixties from what they said both musically and in print, and from the way they lived. Don’t forget that they - and we - were rebelling against the staid, conservative, hidebound attitudes that we grew up with prior the changes begun in the sixties. There *was *a change, and my belief is that the Airplane helped to create the attitudes that lead to those changes.
If you get the chance, read Grace’s autobiography Somebody To Love? It’s a pretty honest memoir of the times.
I have. I enjoyed it very much. I wish Paul would write his.
Another interesting one is Ralph Gleason’s 'Jefferson Airplane, written in 1969.
In some interview on TV Grace Slick said that she and the other hippies of the 60’s and 70’s were right about some things and wrong about others. She said they were right about peace and love, but wrong about drugs.
And frankly, I think a lot of anti-establishment types of the 60’s became part of the establishment by the 80’s, or at least they didn’t rebel any more.
nobody
Yes, in that articlel I quoted, the previous sentence mentioned that the Smothers Brothers are doing ads for KFC.
Please tell me the extra “T” stands for “Tits.”
Hey, what do you think about the live version? I like the song, its cool!! here they sing it at mtv new years eve 1986!
Doesn’t help.