1. Mau Mau

2. The Baby Tree

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

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

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

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

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 

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 

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

Altre notizie sui Jefferson Airplane & family

1. Mau Mau (Amerikon) 

2. The Baby Tree 

Questo pezzo, un country particolarmente lieve, è chiaramente legato alla prossima nascita della figlia dei due leader dei Jefferson Airplane, Paul Kantner e Grace Slick, che si erano da poco sposati. Alla nascita è dedicato anche il successivo "A Child Is Coming".
Come una sorta di omaggio alla moglie, il brano è cantato dal solo Kantner, che si accompagna con il banjo.

3. Let's Go Together 

4. A Child Is Coming

Questo brano è anch'esso evidentemente dedicato alla prossima nascita del figlio di Paul Kantner e Grace Slick, rispettivamente il Baron Von Tollbooth e la Chrome Nun dell'omonimo disco del 1973, così soprannominati da David Crosby.
Si capisce che il pezzo è stato scritto quando il figlio era ancora in viaggio, infatti serpeggia un timore di Paul Kantner di vederlo "sequestrato" dal governo come militare. In realtà sarà una bambina, che nascerà l'anno dopo, il 25 gennaio 1971, alla quale daranno il nome di China, e alla quale dedicheranno simbolicamente la omonima canzone in Baron Von Toolbooth (Sketches Of China), e che sarà ritratta trionfante sulla copertina dell'album dell'anno successivo, Sunfighter.

5. Sunrise

6. Hijack 

E' il brano dove viene lanciata per la prima volta la metafora dell'astronave, che sostituisce quella dell'aereo usata nel primo nome del gruppo (Jefferson Airplane). Viene citata la costruzione di una stazione spaziale orbitante per partire in un viaggio interstellare che coinvolgerà più generazioni. L'astronave avrebbe trasportato una nuova comunità con regole diverse, in fuga dalla realtà dell'epoca, poco digeribile per gli psichedelici Jefferson. E se anche non era quello lo scopo iniziale della stazione orbitante, lo sarebbe diventato, perché il titolo della canzone significa "dirottamento" e quindi la vicenda immaginata è quella di un dirottamento spaziale. La stazione orbitante era in realtà allora effettivamente in costruzione, era la stazione russa MIR, che ha concluso il suo ciclo nel 2000. Non era però la base di partenza per altri mondi favoleggiata nel brano, ispirato forse al classico libro di fantascienza "Incontro con Rama" di Arthur C. Clarke ("Rendez-vous with Rama"), che è stato fonte di suggestione anche per il Battiato di "Mondi lontanissimi".

Lo stesso tema della fuga era anche presente nella canzone di David Crosby "Wooden Ships", contenuta nell'album Volunteers del 1969 (quindi dell'anno prima). Solo che in quel caso il mezzo per la fuga era più ecologico: "navi di legno".

7. Home

8. Have You Seen the Stars Tonite 

Il Tim Leary citato nel brano è Timothy Leary, profeta della controcultura giovanile anni '60 e '70 (e dell'uso libero di droghe), recentemente scomparso.

9. XM 

Un brano solo strumentale che in realtà è una rassegna di effetti speciali da film di fantascienza, in linea con il tema fantascientifico dell'album.

10. Starship

Nell'ultimo brano, cantato coralmente da tutti, ritorna il tema dell'astronave (che probabilmente si chiama Hijack, cioè "dirottata", termine citato più volte in vari brani), sulla quale i vagabondi (wanderers), gli zingari, i pazzi invisi alla società fuggono verso Andromeda ed oltre, una umanità in fuga da una gabbia (mankind gone from the cage), con descrizione della astronave autosufficiente, grazie a culture idroponiche e foreste artificiali (come la mitica astronave - pianeta Rama).
Il pianeta Gideon, citato nel testo, è il luogo di una delle avventure della famosa serie televisiva Star Trek.

Il nome Jefferson Starship decolla con questo brano, pervaso di cultura "alternativa"; curioso notare che proprio con questo nome gli originali Jefferson Airplane approderanno ai grandi numeri di vendita, al rock da FM, alla affermazione commerciale, negli anni '80 e '90.

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