There’s Something About Alice
What do seasoned rebellious rock gods such as The Beatles and Pink Floyd have in common with today’s talented tearaways and eccentric songsmiths such as Pete Doherty and Marilyn Manson?
They all share one lasting source of inspiration for both their music and lyrics. She can be found lurking in Wonderland with a crazed man in a top-hat and an unpunctual little rabbit.
Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson’s psychedelic coming-of-age novel published in 1865 ,under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll, has been translated into 125 languages and immortalized in art,comics, poetry and not to mention hundreds of film and television adaptations. But it’s not just Walt Disney and Tim Burton who have cashed in on our Alice and her weird and wonderful friends. Wonderland has been the inspiration behind some of the most seminal songs of our time.
The late 60’s was a perfect time for Alice to re-emerge with a new T.V adaptation of her adventures. A whole new movement of counterculture had emerged,experimental youths had flowers in their long hair and more freedom than ever before. Plus not to mention the vast array of mind-bending hallucinogenic drugs on offer. With many looking to find an altered state of perception, it’s no wonder they rushed to Wonderland and whilst there found inspiration in one form or another. In turn as time has passed and our views have changed so has the myth of Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, from sex, drugs to rock‘n’roll, it seems that her tale can be interpreted in numerous ways and this has been reflected in the music she has inspired.
Jefferson Airplane, White Rabbit, 1967.
The clue is in the title of this timeless song. Long time Alice admirer,Grace Slick singer and songwriter for the acid rock Airplane took this song with her from her previous band The Great Society gaining Airplane a number 8 on the US Billboard Charts and a spot in Rolling Stone’s 500 greatest songs of all time.
The song echos both the psychedelic surreality of both Carroll’s imagery and “falling down the rabbit hole”, 60’s slang for taking a trip on LSD, referencing the sensory shifts throughout the book; the Cheshire Cat disappearing and Alice shrinking and growing. The lyrics read from a first person view of someone in Carroll's Wonderland with lines such as “When men on the chessboard get up and tell you where to go and you've just had some kind of mushroom and your mind is moving slow. Go ask Alice,I think she'll know,” it was one of the first songs of it’s kind to sneak past the strict US censors at the time onto mainstream radio,drug innuendos and all.
White Rabbit has been covered time and time again by the likes of The Smashing Pumpkins and even rock goddess Patti Smith. Yet no version manages to live up to the chaotic original. It was even featured in Gonzo journalist Hunter.S.Thompson’s cult classic Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas, something I think even Carroll himself would have been pleased with.]
The Beatles: I Am the Walrus, 1967
At the same time as Jefferson Airplane were riding high in the charts Beatlemania was gripping the world and this iconic band also loved a regular trip to Wonderland for inspiration. Written by the genius that was John Lennon, whilst he was apparently high on acid. In true Lewis Carroll style Lennon embarked upon his own “nonsense poetry” in I Am the Walrus,to throw people who were anaylsing Beatles’ lyrics at the time.
The song is a direct reference to the narrative poem “The Walrus and the Carpenter” which is recited to Alice by Tweedledee and Tweedledum in her second outing “Through the Looking-Glass”. Rare in that it is mainly remembered by the middle verse “to talk of many things,of shoes and ships,and sealing-wax .Of cabbages and kings.” A direct parallel to Lennon’s memorable chorus “I am the egg man, we are the egg men and I am the walrus”. However it would seem Lennon didn’t know the true meaning of Carroll’s ditty and in a later interview with Playboy he was quoted as saying: “It never dawned on me that Lewis Carroll was commenting on the capitalist and social system. I never went into that bit about what he really meant, like people are doing with the Beatles' work. Later, I went back and looked at it and realized that the walrus was the bad guy in the story and the carpenter was the good guy. I thought, Oh, shit, I picked the wrong guy. I should have said, 'I am the carpenter,' but that wouldn't have been the same, would it?" Nevertheless the song encapsulates the unpredictability and strange beauty of the “Wonderland” state of mind. However unlike Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit this song didn’t escape the censors and the BBC refused to play the lines "pornographic priestess" and "let your knickers down".
Lennon continued to play with the walrus idea throughout his career, apparently enjoying the guesses of who the famous walrus was and his solo song God he sang: "I was the walrus, but now I am John".
Pink Floyd: Country Song,1970.
Not one of their biggest hits, Country song was originally meant for the soundtrack for the film Zabriskie Point but was rejected. The song was originally known as “The Red Queen’s Theme” drawing on dreamlike imagery of Alice In Wonderland, with lyrics such as “There will be no game today, she cried across the board. Everyday will be a holiday and all the pieces cheered as tidings spread abroad. And the Pink Queen sat and smiled at the cat who smiled back.”
Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd fame, was said to have been “fascinated by Alice In Wonderland. Fantasy was always more interesting to him than reality.He hadn't got a lot of time for reality,”according to his sister in an recent interview with The Mirror. It is believed that Alice In Wonderland inspired a lot of his work.
There is also rumors that the bands album The Wall was recorded to be in perfect sync with the 1966 Disney adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, however the band have denied this along with further claims The Wall is also in audio sync with The Wizard of Oz too. Yet fans remain puzzled as to the seemingly unreal coincidence.
Alice has skipped back into lyrical vogue in the naughties starting with Aerosmith’s “Sunshine” in 2001. The music video features the lead singer Steve Tyler dressed as the Mad Hatter alongside other characters from the book. The song starts with the overtly sexual lyrics “I sold my soul for a one night stand. I followed Alice into wonderland I ate the mushroom and I dance with the queen Yeah we dancing in between all the lines,” it would seem Alice has grown up. With ‘lines’ an innuendo towards cocaine and ‘sunshine’ slang for LSD it would seem she still reigns supreme as the princess of psychedelia.
In 2007 Alice was the inspiration for Marilyn Manson’s album “Eat Me, Drink Me” the song of the same name, where Manson sings: “In the wasteland On the way to the Red Queen” and “A rush of panic and the lock has been raped. This is only a game. Eat me.Drink me.” It would seem Alice had gone over to the very dark side.
Shambolic songstrell Pete Doherty sexualized Wonderland even further with his lyrics to “Through The Looking Glass”: “In the morning there’s a buzz of flies between the pillows and the skies that beg into your eyes. Through the looking glass in between your thighs. It's really no small surprise. How it goes straight down the rabbit hole,there it goes.” I think the imagery is crystal clear on that one.
Songstress du jour Florence of Florence and the Machine has also alluded to Alice in lyrics for her single “Rabbit Heart”, however perhaps alluding to the trappings of a celebrity lifestyle, rather than sex, drugs and rock’n’roll; “The looking glass, so shiny and new. How quickly the glamour fades. I start spinning, slipping out of time. Was that the wrong pill to take?”
Lad rock band Kasabian have shown a softer side admitting Alice was a theme for their very psychedelic single Me Plus One which mentions a “white rabbit from yesterday” throughout the whole 60s sounding song.
With the dvd release of director Tim Burton’s take on Alice In Wonderland and an accompanying soundtrack ,Almost Alice, featuring new songs inspired by the novel. Including numbers from Avril Lavigne , Robert Smith, Wolfmother and Franz Ferdinand to name a few, it seems that Alice will be a source of inspiration for years to come.
