Jefferson Starship

Blows Against The Empire (1970)

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1. Mau Mau (Amerikon) (Covington/Kantner/Slick) - 6:35
2. The Baby Tree (Sorrels) - 1:43
3. Let's Go Together (Kantner) - 4:21
4. A Child Is Coming (Kantner) - 6:19
5. Sunrise (Slick) - 1:53 (Strumentale)
6. Hijack (Balin/Blackman/Kantner/Slick) - 8:16
7. Home (Kantner/Nash/Sawyer) - :36 (Strumentale)
8. Have You Seen the Stars Tonite (Crosby/K.) - 3:41
9. XM (Garcia/Hart/Kantner/Sawyer) - 1:24 (strumentale)
10. Starship (Balin/Blackman/Kantner/Slick) - 7:04

Notes / Jefferson Airplane / Cover Art

 

 

1. Mau Mau (Amerikon)

TOP NOTE

Put your old ladies back into bed
Your old men back in their graves
Cover their ears so they can't hear us sing
Cover their eyes so they can't see us play
Get out of the way
Let the people play
We're gonna get down on you
Come alive all over you
Dancin' down into your town
Tyrannosaurus Rex was destroyed before
By a furry little ball that crawled along
The primeval jungle floor
And he stole the eggs of the dinosaur

CLOSE YOUR EYES & CREATE THE SOUND
OPEN YOUR HAN DS & REBUILD THE GROUND

We are egg snatchers
Flashin' sunshine children
Diamond thieves
You unleash the dogs
Of a grade B-movie star governor's war
While you sit in the dark
Insane with the fear of dying
We'll all ball in your parks
insane with the flash of living

I AM ALIVE
I AM HUMAN
I WILL BE ALIVE AGAIN

So drop your fuckin' bombs
Burn your demon babies
I WILL BE ALIVE AGAIN
The rabid lover - feelin' the starch in your grin
Callin' for acid cocaine and grass
And receiving your homemade gin

PUSH THE BUTTON
PULL THE SWITCH
CUT THE BEAM
C'MON MAKE IT MARCH

Sign me up as a diplomat - my only office is the park

You need to be out before you come in
And after you come to go
In the midst of Yang is a smaller part of Yin
And when it happens you know -

THE DAWN COMES
HEY DICK

Whatever you think of us is totally irrelevant
Both to us now and to you
We are the present
We are the future
You are the past
Pay your dues and get outta the way
'Cause we're not the way you used to be
When you were very young
We're something new
We don't quite know what it is
Or particularly care
We just do it - You gotta do it

Open your eyes there's a new word a-coming
Open your eyes there's a new world today
Open your hearts people are lovin'
Open it all we're here to stay

OPEN THAT DOOR

2. The Baby Tree

TOP NOTE

There's an island way out in the sea
Where the babies they all grow on trees
And it's jolly good fun
To swing in the sun
But you gotta watch out if you sneeze - sneeze
You gotta watch out if you sneeze

Yeah you gotta watch out if you sneeze
For swingin' up there in the breeze
You're liable to cough
You might very well fall off
And humble down flop on your knees - knees
Tumble down flop on your knees

And when the stormy winds wail
And the breezes blow high in a gale
There's a curious dropping and flopping and plopping
And fat little babies just hail - hail
Fat little babies just hail

And the babies lie there in a pile
And the adults they come after awhile
And they always pass by
All the babies that cry
And take only babies that smile - smile
Even triplets and twins if they'll smile

3. Let's Go Together

TOP NOTE

Wherever I go I see you people
I see you people just like me
And whatever you do I want to do
And the Pooh and you and me together make three

Let's Go Together
Let's Go Together
Let's Go Together

Wave goodbye to Amerika
Say hello to the garden

You know I see - I see the way you feel
And I know that your life is real
Pioneer searcher refugee
I follow you and you follow me

Let's Go Together
Let's Go Together
Let's Go Together

Wave goodbye to Amerika
Say hello to the garden

4. A Child Is Coming

TOP NOTE

Last electric Sunday mornin' waitin' in the park for the dawn
Listenin' to all the animals in the Park and in the city beyond
Flashin' with my lady. Sky goin' back to blue
She sad I got a surprise for you

A child is coming
A child is coming
A child is coming

What you gonna do when Uncle Samuel comes around
Askin' for the young one's name
And lookin' for the print of his hand for the files in their number game
I don't want his chance for freedom to ever be that slim
Let's not tell 'em about him

IT'S GETTING' BETTER
LIKE A MORNIN' TO BE BORN

I won't carry the government's child
I want to see my young head
Rising from the water chamber warm with love

To the clear air
Light
Bright
And getting higher

Rain forest born
Born desert warm
No processed child in hiding

It's none of the government's
Business who comes to or
From my body

5. Sunrise

TOP NOTE

Surprise
Civilized man
You were keeper to me
Now your animal is free
And you're free to die
Die
You're old and your hand is gray
Your old go home
We've all heard your dirty stories
Two thousand years
Two thousand years
Two thousand years

Of your god damn glory

6. Hijack

TOP NOTE

The summer was dry like your nose when you've born behind cokl for a day & a season
We sail out into the grasshopper nite & we seek the righteous poison
Sunday morning' in speedway you know the people come around for a reason

Sunday morning'

The land is green & you make it grow go to the forest & move
The sound of thundering electrical energy calls us to the park in the noon
C'mon anybody - now fill my pipe - to the park - to the forest and move

When I feel you comin' round me - kidding in the sun
Going home move your mind - towards Mars and then beyond
Genesis is not the answer: two which we had before
It was - altogether in you

You know I remember the 23rd of November
To the abyss of Chicago you can see the barbed wire - pigs around a lot of nothing
The witch hunters wail & they bark & they wheeze & they try to turn us onto their poison

You know - a starship circling in the sky - it ought to be ready by 1990
They'll be building it up in the air ever since 1980
People with a clever plan can assume the role of the mighty

Hijack The Starship
Carry 7000 people past the sun

And our babes'll wander naked thru the cities of the universe - C'mon
Free minds free bodies free dope free music
The day is on its way to the day of ours

You breathe out you breathe in
And the glow of the machines'll get you on
Grace fully growing - as wild as we can be
Only the sun knows what we really need to know
Only the sun holds the secret
And more than human can we be
'Cause human is truly locked
To this planetary circle

You gotta ride - said the doctor of space
I have lived here once before
The lites in the nite are a village of stars
Of stars that I have explored
Beyond the … of beyond the void
And beyond that and more
Parallel links in this village of stars
Will lead you to the second door
And time won't wait the doctor of space from the city of the sun to come

Where do we go from here?
Chaos or community
Can't you see - on this future Sundays
7000 gypsies swirling together
An offering to the sun in the name of the weather
Gonna Hijack - Hijack the Starship

8. Have You Seen the Stars Tonite 

TOP NOTE

Have you seen the stars tonite
Would you like to go upon "A" deck and look at them with me
Have you seen the stars tonite
Would you like to go up for a stroll and keep me company

Do you know
We could go
We are free
And place you can think of
We could be

Have you seen the stars tonite
Have you looked at all the family of stars

Let the children lead you
Let the children feel you
Let the children be you
Whatever happens to Tim Leary will happen to Amerika
Become your own Woodstock you ain't gonna find it
In a no dope movie show

Don't think I'm on your side
I'm on nobody side
I'm a battlefield
Burn me or mark me
Explode me and beat me
I we you will live
I'm gonna go
I won't run

Past Uranus and Pluto
We break through
Moving on out of the cool and the dark
We open our hands and build a Park
And (that's all) Amerika … apart
For her children to return with their starship
If you lived only on earth you've never seen the sun
Or the promise of a thousand other suns that glow beyond

If you care to see the future
Look into the eyes of the young dancing children
Don't be afraid of what we do
We share our hope
We share our dope
Our music is yours
And you are the magic

There really is something going on
Were not just putting you on
It really is magic

And each … takes us father from all humanity
You hear more
You see farther
You feel the planets in your body

10. Starship 

TOP NOTE

What you gonna do when you feel your lady rolling
How you gonna feel when you see your lady strolling
On the deck of the starship
With her head hooked in Andromeda
C'mon Hijack
Gotta get back and ahead to the things that matter
Amerika hates her crazies
And you gotta let go you know
gotta let go you know
gotta let go you know or else you stay

SPILLING OUT OF THE STEEL GLASS
GRAVITY GONE FROM THE CAGE
A MILLION POUNDS GONE FROM YOUR HEAVY MASS
ALL THE YEARS GONE FROM YOUR AGE

Hydroponic gardens and forest
Glistening with lakes in the Jupiter starlite
Room for babies and Byzantine dancing astronauts of renown
The magician and the pantechnicon
Take along the farmer and the physician

We gotta get out and down
Back into the future
Beyond our own time again
Reaching for tomorrow
It's so fine
Starshine

THE MELTING ACID FEVER STREAKING THRU MY MIND
MAKES IT AH SO DIFFICULT TO SEE YOU
AND AH SO EASY TO TOUCH YOU
I MELT WITH YOU
FEEL WITH YOU
MAKE LOVE FOR YOU
AT YOU
AROUND YOU
I LOVE YOU

Dear Brumus, the ship'll be ours and you got to roll with it
And tho' your masters head's blown off you got to go with it
Roll with the natural flow
Like water off spinning ball
Out the one remaining way to go
Free - the only way to fall

The light in the night is sun
And it can carry you around the planetary ground
And the planetary whip of the sun
Will carry well past Gideon
And the people you see will leave you be
More than the ones you've known before

Hey - rollin' on
We come and go like a comet
We are wanderers
Are you anymore
The land is green and you make it grow
And you gotta let you know
You gotta let go you know
You gotta let go you know
Or else you stay

Mankind gone from cage
All the years gone from your age

At first
    I was iridescent
Then
    I became transparent
Finally
    I was absent

Personnel

Paul Kantner - guitar, vocals, banjo, bass machine
Grace Slick - piano, vocals
Harvey Brooks - bass
Jack Casady - bass
Joey Covington - drums, congas
David Crosby - guitar, vocals
David Freiberg - vocals
Jerry Garcia - guitar on "XM" and "Starship", banjo on "Let's Go Together", pedal steel on "Have You Seen The Stars Tonite"
Mickey Hart - percussion on "XM", drums on "Have You Seen The Stars Tonite"
Peter Kaukonen - guitar
Bill Kreutzmann - drums on "Let's Go Together"
Graham Nash - congas, vocals
Phil Sawyer

 Note

Jefferson Airplane & family

1. Mau Mau (Amerikon) 

2. The Baby Tree 

 

This very simple country song is clearly linked to the imminent birth of the daughter of the two leaders of Jefferson Airplane, Paul Kantner and Grace Slick, who had recently married. At the forthcoming birth is also dedicated the next track "A Child Is Coming".
As a tribute to his wife, the song is sung only by Kantner, which is accompanied with the banjo.

3. Let's Go Together 

4. A Child Is Coming

Also this song is dedicated obviously to the imminent birth of the son of Paul Kantner and Grace Slick, respectively Baron Von Tollbooth and the Chrome Nun of the eponymous disc of 1973, so dubbed by David Crosby. It is clear that the piece was written when their son was still on the road, in fact Paul Kantner afraid to see him, "sequestered" by the government as a soldier. In fact she will be a girl, to be born a year later, January 25, 1971, to which they give the name of China, and to which symbolically they will dedicate the song Sketches Of China in Baron Von Toolbooth, and that will be portrayed triumphant on the front cover of the album released the following year, Sunfighter.

5. Sunrise

6. Hijack 

This is the song where it is launched for the first time the metaphor of the spaceship, which replaces the airplane used in the first group name. It is mentioned the construction of an orbiting space station prompt to leave in an interstellar journey involving several generations. The ship would carry a new community with different rules , escaping from the reality of that time, very far away from the ideas and the vision of the world of the psychedelic Jefferson. And even if that was not the original purpose of the space station, it would become, because the title of the song is " hijacking " and then the imagined story is that of a space hijacking. The space station was actually under construction then, it was the Russian station MIR, which concluded its cycle many years after, in year 2000. But it was not the basis to discover other worlds as the enormous space ship of classic science fiction novel " Rendezvous with Rama" by Arthur C. Clarke.

The same theme of escape was also present in the song of David Crosby "Wooden Ships" on the album Volunteers of 1969 (the year before). In that case the means of escape were more environmentally friendly: "wooden ships."

7. Home

8. Have You Seen the Stars Tonite 

Here is mentioned Timothy Leary, prophet of the youth counterculture '60s and '70s (and of the free use of drugs).

9. XM 

An instrumental song that is actually a mere collection of special effects inspired to science fiction movies, in line with the sci-fi theme of the album.

10. Starship

The last song, sung in chorus by all, returns to the theme of the ship (which probably is called Hijack, an "hijacked" spaceship, a term mentioned several times in several songs), on which the wanderers, the gypsies, the freaks, the insane hated by the society flee to Andromeda and beyond. In other words, mankind escaping from the cage, thanks to hydroponic cultures and artificial forests (like the mythical Rama mentioned before).
The planet Gideon, mentioned in the text, is the site of one of the adventures of the famous television series Star Trek.

The new name Jefferson Starship takes off with this tune, full of "alternative" culture; interesting to note that with this new name the original Jefferson Airplane will land instead to big sales numbers, to rock FM, to the commercial success in the 80s and the 90s.

   

Lyrics © 1970 RCA Records / Notes © Alberto Truffi 2002 / Reproduction for commercial use strictly prohibited

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