This song is another of my all time favorite songs. It was written and sung by Grace Slick when she was with Jefferson Airplane in '65/'66. I remember this one from Detroit. These were the Hippy days. My buddy Gary (RIP, my friend) was a wheeler/dealer. He had a girlfriend who lived in a home for wayward girls or whatever. She wasn't a bad girl. Her mom had her when she was about 16 and was just unable to raise her. So she stayed there during the week and could go out during the day over the weekend. Gary would go get her and we'd all hang out.
During the week, Gary had 3 or 4 other "girlfriends." Downtown in Detroit was Kennedy Square. It covered an entire city block and had a really nice fountain in the center. During the week, all the office workers would come out there to enjoy a summer day and have their lunch. So Gary would have his girls panhandle around the square. By evening, we'd have plenty to eat on, buy beer, then go back to our "pad" to hang out, get high and have fun. This was also before computers. So it was easy for Gary to get all of his ladies signed up for welfare, unemployment, and maybe 2 or 3 other city/county programs. So we all got along pretty good.
So, once we got our buzz on, we'd start getting more and more into the music. This is one of those songs. It starts out slow. Then it grows as the song proceeds, finally a very strong ending. Man, these girls have quite strong lungs to really belt out that ending. I've heard a couple of weak-voiced ladies try to sing it, and it just doesn't work. Catch the part about mushrooms.
"And you've just had some kind of mushroom and your mind is moving on."
Back then, there was, of course, weed. We also had LSD, cocaine and whatever else. There were also Psilocybin mushrooms, pronounced "sil- (as in silly) o-cybin. They are a psychedelic thing. I think they may be illegal, I don't remember. But they are legal for Indian tribes as they are used in their religious ceremonies to gain "enlightenment." When I visited a friend south of Seattle, he lived in a cabin on a mountainside. Pretty cool place. We went out and collected mushrooms. I did a little coke, but only when someone offered me some. It was (probably still is) quite expensive - something like $90/gram? Plus, it never seemed to do anything to me. I also know that I had a little acid, (LSD) maybe 2 or 3 times. I stopped when I realized I was in my 10th story hotel room sitting on the window sill (back then, you could still open hotel windows,) watching the birds and wondering how it would be to just fly around over the city like they were. I suddenly started thinking, "Walt! Get out of here and close the damn window." I had started feeling like I could fly like the birds. So I got in bed and stayed there, along with some pretty cool/weird fantasies. But that was the last time. Anyway, Here is the original followed by a cover by Haley Reinhart. My goodness, is SHE hot! Girl, with them legs, you need to
expect a few dirty old farts to be watching you and drooling all over their shirts
In Graces video, note all of the psychedelia behind her, That was the thing in early rock concerts during the Hippy phase, It looks pretty pathetic now. But back then, we were all, "Oh, Wow! Far out, Man. Right on!" lol. Yep. Those were the days, my friend. We thought they'd never end.
I hereby nominate Haley as our next VNA girl. She sure makes my candle wick stand up straight. Would surely love watching sweet Haley get plowed.
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