Jefferson Airplane - Bless Its Pointed Little Head

I need a break from Christmas albums, how about you? Let's talk about Jefferson Airplane instead.

You can disagree with me, but Bless Its Pointed Little Head is the last Jefferson Airplane album, in my opinion. I briefly mentioned Voluteers, and the remaining members kept the name going into the 70s, but it's not the same band for me.

It's not a strange opinion for me either. Syd Barret's Pink Floyd, Roger Waters' Pink Floyd, and David Gilmore's Pink Floyd are three different bands. Peter Gabriel's Genesis and Phil Collins' Genesis are different bands. There's Van Halen and Van Hagar. And so on.

Jefferson Airplane was a rock band, regardless of what other things they did on their studio albums. They were 20 something driftabouts who liked jamming in front of people. And that's exactly what they were doing in 1968, while the 4 Seasons were carefully calculating how best to express how silly and ineffectual that is.

Jefferson Airplane thought they were having fun. They recorded their shows at the Filmore East and West (New York and California), including new songs that weren't on their earlier albums, and went to bed. Then they woke up in actual real life 1969 feeling like moldy produce. "Oh no! We ARE just entertainment. We're not important at all." Thus ends Jefferson Airplane. I imagine it hurt.

I already told you i like what Paul Kantner and Grace Slick did with that hurt, i like it a lot, but i wouldn't call it fun. This album is fun.

You might be thinking "i don't get what you're saying bottle, they were always politically motivated and skeptical." To which i respond "no." They knew something was wrong but they didn't have any proper way to express themselves, like children. Like children, they said "we're right and everybody else is dumb," put them down, said things like "bless its pointed little head," but the only thing they understood was the metaphor. They didn't understand the reality that makes that metaphor actually meaningful to the people in the audience. They didn't actually have an enemy, just a nebulous "them."

And, they weren't the only band growing up either. The Beatles released The White Album at pretty much the same time, and then fell apart. Don't blame Yoko, John Lennon didn't like the caricature of himself he was becoming.   He didn't like having to explain to trespassing burnouts that he couldn't possibly be writing this nonsense for them personally (yes that's a very real thing he had to deal with). McCartney ran and hid on his farm and stayed a silly but famous musician, Harrison tripled down on the Indian spiritualism, and Ringo just sold his personal memorabilia whenever he needed some cash.

I feel like i lost my train of thought...Jefferson Airplane's live album Bless Its Pointed Little Head is awesome, just try not to think about it's historical context too much.

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