Testi & Musica: Grace Slick

 
So we all went through the wall

No one uses doors anymore

We all want to be that small

We can't fit if we're fat and that's all

chorus

Some days you do

Anything  anything looks good to do

Some days hardly smiling boy

Well your tongue's so thin it makes no noise

I just don't hear a sound

Don't start  pulling it apart

If you can't put it back together again

Don't you roll over in your bed too fast

Land on the floor in nothing but your cold bare skin

chorus

Some days you do

Anything  anything looks good to do

Some days hardly smiling boy

Well your tongue's so thin it makes no noise

I just don't hear a sound
 

©1973 Mole Music

 
Testi & Musica: Paul Kantner

Testi: Grace Slick

 
Walkin down the road to glorytown

Walkin on the ocean water

Walkin down the road to glory town

Lookin for the pharoah's daughter

I'm goin' down and if I don't come back

Tie all my dope on a wire wheel track

Give it to the man who'll have them back

From my life  from my life

chorus

Oh... honey have a time on me

Oh... baby getcha high on me

Oh... wont you try a dance on me

Oh... honey have a time on me

Walkin down the road to glorytown

Walkin on the ocean water

Walkin down the road to glory town

Huntin for the pharoah's daughter

She's makin' it hotter & hotter

Take my hand it's an avalanche

It'll worry your mind but take a chance

Take off your tie but don't leave the dance

Of your life  of your life

©1973 God Tunes and Mole Music

 
Testi & Musica: Paul Kantner

 
You have left your body  be aware if you care

Your mind has left your body  and for this one moment you are

Under the polar ice cap  in a place we call home

How is it there  white bear  like that where you grow...

Now all of you come back to here and now  elsewhen to there

Move on out the other way  where...

Do you find yourself  floating  growing  there

Riders of the rainbow

Let it grow  let it grow

You can exercise your mind on where you want to go

And y'can see the city lights flashin'  two thousand miles below you

You can feel the sands of Zanzibar  or pierce the nearest sun

Find out what and who you are and if you need to run

Riders of the rainbow

Let it grow  let it grow

There is one moment in your life and it can come at any time

And you remember all of what went on from the instant  you were born

Thru your early years

And if you can fasten on that moment  and expand thru the afterglow

You can reverse your mind in time  and travel back to when

The earth was formed

The sky was born

And the universe began

Riders of the rainbow

Let it grow  let it grow

You have left your body

Return when you may

Save it for another day... beyond you

©1973 God Tunes

 
Musica & Testi: Grace Slick

 
Somebody aimed you when you were young

But nobody ever fired

Now you just sit there inside the gun

Bullet you're getting old and tired

        If you want out - get out and get it all

        I mean a fair trial is no trial at all

        You're not guilty you can't even move without

        A human hand

        You can't cock yourself woman

        You need a man

All the way  you need him

All the way

All the way  across the floor

             Across the board

        The man's only got one finger

        He doesn't need anymore

        He makes his way one prong down

All the way

All the way

All the way  across the floor

        Seven inches of pleasure

        Seven inches going home

        Somebody must have measured

        All the way down the old bone

All the way

All the way

All the way

Down the old bone

©1973 Mole Music

 
Musica: David Freiberg

Testi: Robert Hunter

 
What would it gain me

If I was to go

Like Jacob of old

To the well of the world

To wax halls where candles

Burn on through the day

To light you a path

So you'd never lose your way

I was down in the valley

Where the shadows are long

The birds in the harp tree

Were singing this song

There is time to deliver

Time to receive

All that you're lacking

Of whatever you need

Turn around - by the by

You'll still see the sea

As it was in the dawning

As it always will be

Raise up your bottles

And drink down the blood

You planted the vine here

In spite of the flood

Turn an ear to the harp tree

An eye to the wall

The songs in the singing

Or nowhere at all

No where to come from

No place to retire

No shelter nowhere

Except in the fire

The birds in the harp tree

Can finish their song

Then rest in its branches

Which is where they belong

But where can a man go

That's sweet to his soul

When his time is not ready

But he's still turning old

Here's a dream for the piper

And a tune for his lady

Outside the thin wall

The waves are still raging

Here's one for the harp tree

And one for his song

One for the morning

When the night was too long

Here's one for the candle

That lights you to bed

And one for the sword

That hangs over your head
 

©1973 Pods Publishing and Ice Nine
  

 
Testi & Musica: Paul Kantner

 
Where will you go  what will you do

What will you see  when your night is thru

What can you do  where will you go

When the people of this planet send you away from here

Where do you come from  white boy  what is your land

Everybody else knows where they come from

You don't know your place  you never did  you never can

You can't find a place in this land

chorus

Blacks and Reds and Apaches and Jews

All know where they come from  but you don't seem to know

Baby do you understand

You appeared in the Caucasus mountains  the southern Russia of now

And you spread your peculiar form of death from Mexico to Moscow

You surprised the Europeans  the Egyptian too

All of a sudden you appeared on their land

You made mountains for the Incas  built pyramids for the Pharoah man

And you grew and you lived by their hands

chorus

Viking  Roman  fair hair  Alexander  Emperor  slave.

D'you come from the earth  D'you come from the sky?

Nobody seems to know  You build and you burn  create and destroy,

You rule me now  fair skin man  with an unfair hand.

Where did you come from  where were you born

Where were you living when the earth was formed

What can you do  where will you go

When the people of this planet send you away from here

 
(c) 1973 God Tunes

 
Testi & Musica: Grace Slick

 
Afternoon slides in sideways

It's going down summer smooth

        The man - and the water

        They move me  ah yes they move me

        From standing too long

They both dance  man & water

They both dance  together

They both dance  over me

They both dance  lying down

        Like I was making love to a flying fishman

        Swim over my body with the sea in his hands

        I'll have him again on Andromeda's sand

He's the son of Calaban

He's the son of Calaban

Fishman rules the ocean hand

        I love you Fishman  I love you

 
©1973 Mole Music

 
Musica: Paul Kantner

Testi: Grace Slick e Paul Kantner

 
He's stronger by talk than by sight

But by sight he'll know you

You buy him a ride  he'll know you

Somebody's bound to lead you

Sooner or later you're bound to go

You don't know what this man feels like

He doesn't care if you think you know

Somebody's bound to lead you

If that man got a smile on his face

Sooner or later you're bound to go bound to go

Let me tell you bout a man I knew

He roamed the depth and the breadth of China

On a horse that he grew himself

From the bark of a tree on mainland China

And he had a time yes he had the time of his life in China

He carried strife and harmony to all the people on the mainland

And there was a warlord who rode the murky depths of China

With a shotgun in his hand and he wondered where the people'd gone to

Have you got the time to listen while I sing this song

I had the time to listen to the man go right and wrong and right thru China

And it ain't what you want it's what you need

No it ain't what you want it's what you need

And I'd rather be here than yesterday

It ain't what you want it's what you need

And there was a lady  she rolled around in town in China

And there was a lady  she rolled and rolled

And she killed a war  she made the warlord rise in time

She sat him down  took him down  and she laid him out for just one more round

Drunk in a beautiful garden celebration

Here comes the Khan
Storm the palace 
look for Alice

Rising Oriental girl  diving back for just one more pearl

And it ain't what she wants it's what she needs

She don't want your sound  she wants your country

And I'd rather be next year than on the way to Bombay

It ain't what you want it's what you need

© 1973 God Tunes and Mole / Vai alla Traduzione con commenti
 

Paul Kantner e Grace Slick, fondatori e leader della multiforme formazione West Coast dei Jefferson Airplane, assieme a Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady e Marty Balin, oltre che compagni nella vita, e recenti genitori della figlioletta China, alla quale avevano già dedicato un album per molti versi analogo a questo, Sunfighter, del 1971, due anni dopo, in una fase di passaggio artistico e di esaurimento della esperienza Jefferson, sintetizzarono in questo disco le loro idee musicali e sulla vita, con l'aiuto di buona parte dei musicisti West Coast, a cominciare dal co-autore David Freiberg, bassista dei Quicksilver Messenger Service (altro gruppo dell’area californiana), che assieme a loro aveva già collaborato al capolavoro della musica West Coast, cioè If I Could Only Remember My Name di David Crosby.

Il titolo dell’album riprende proprio i soprannomi che il mordace amico David Crosby aveva dato ai due: Baron Von Tollbooth, a Paul Kantner per i suoi tratti di autoritarismo tedesco e il piglio da leader, Chrome Nun (la suora cromata) alla cantante Grace Slick, per la sua attitudine di missionaria, ma di tutto quello che è alternativo e proibito.

Credits:

Paul Kantner - Guitar, Vocals, Producer
Grace Slick - Keyboards, Vocals, Producer
David Freiberg - Vocals, Producer

Mickey Hart - Drums
Jerry Garcia - Banjo, Guitar
Jorma Kaukonen - Guitar
The Pointer Sisters - Vocals
Papa John Creach - Violin
Jack Traylor & Steelwind - Vocals
Craig Chaquico - Guitar
John Barbata - Drums
Jack Casady - Bass
David Crosby - Guitar, Vocals
Chris Ethridge - Bass

Jim Gaines - Engineer
Jim Marshall - Photography
Jeff Tamarkin - Liner Notes
Drew Struzan - Illustrations
Pacific Eye & Ear - Design
Bill Garland - Illustrations

Disco:

GRUNT Records - 1973 - Afterthought Productions Corp. / Patent 1973 RCA - BMG Entertainment