Format 7-inch single Length 2:54 | ||
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Released April 1, 1967 (1967-04-01) Recorded November 3, 1966RCA Victor's Music Center, Hollywood, California | ||
"Somebody to Love", originally titled "Someone to Love", is a rock song that was written by Darby Slick. It was originally recorded by The Great Society, and later by Jefferson Airplane. Rolling Stone magazine ranked Jefferson Airplane's version No. 274 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Contents
Background
Written by The Great Society guitarist Darby Slick after realizing his girlfriend had left him, and first performed by that band, which included his then-sister-in-law Grace Slick on vocals, the song made little impact outside of the club circuit in the Bay Area. The song was released in 1966 as a single with the B-side another Darby Slick composition titled "Free Advice" on the North Beach subsidiary of Autumn Records, and received minimal circulation outside of San Francisco. San Francisco in the mid-'60s was the epicenter of free love, but Darby Slick saw a downside to this ethos, as it could lead to jealousy and disconnect. This song champions loyalty and monogamy, as the singer implores us to find that one true love that will nurture us and get us through the tough times.
Rerecording
When Grace Slick departed to join Jefferson Airplane, she took this song with her, bringing it to the Surrealistic Pillow sessions, along with her own composition "White Rabbit". Subsequently, the Airplane's more ferocious rock and roll version became the band's first and biggest success; the single by Jefferson Airplane scored at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. Jefferson Airplane's first hit song, "Somebody To Love" was also one of the first big hits to come out of the US West Coast counterculture scene. Over the next few years, musicians flocked to the San Francisco Bay Area to be part of this scene. The original version of this song that Grace Slick sang with The Great Society is more subdued. With Jefferson Airplane she sounds far more accusatory and menacing when she belts out lines like "Your mind is so full of red" and "Your friends, baby, they treat you like a guest."
"Somebody to Love" was also a track on their influential album released in February 1967, Surrealistic Pillow. The lyrics are in the second person, with each two-line verse setting a scene of alienation and despair, and the chorus repeating the title of the song, with slight variations such as: "... / Don't you need somebody to love? / Wouldn't you love somebody to love? / ..." Like the album on which it appeared, this song was instrumental in publicizing the existence of the Haight-Ashbury counterculture to the rest of the United States.
Personnel
Use in media
This version appears in the film version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas when Raoul Duke reminisces about the first time he took LSD at The Matrix club in San Francisco in 1967. The song is also played during prologue in TV movie A Bright Shining Lie (1998), and in A Home at the End of the World (2004). The song also appears in the (2014) film St. Vincent.
In the 1996 film The Cable Guy, Jim Carrey performs a karaoke version as his character Ernie "Chip" Douglas. Carrey's version is also on the movie's soundtrack.
The full, vocal version of the song can also be heard on a radio in the beginning of the Paramount film Four Brothers.
The song works as a metaphorical framing device for the Coen brothers' film A Serious Man. The senior Rabbi (Rabbi Marshak) quotes a slightly altered version of the first two lines of the song in his meeting with Danny following Danny's bar mitzvah.
The song is featured in episode five of season two of Being Human as the vampire Mitchell explores his residual humanity, through a relationship with a mortal woman.
The song was played on episode 3 of ITV drama Marchlands.
The song is a downloadable content for Rock Band 3.
The Song Is A Plays In Speakers Of Rabbids Go Home By Ubisoft
Boogie Pimps version
It was the debut single by German electronic music duo Boogie Pimps. It is a remixed version of the song. It was released on 11 January 2004 and reached number three on the UK Singles Chart. The song features uncredited vocals of Danish singer Mariah Webster in place of Grace Slick's vocals.
Music video
The song is also well known for its iconic music video, which was an instant hit in the UK. It features several infants sky diving out of an aeroplane towards a giant woman (Natasha Mealey) lying on a grassy hill country landscape in her underwear, singing the song. One of the babies cries as his parachute malfunctions and he lands on the woman's breast, causing him to bounce and survive the fall (a possible reference to premature ejaculation). This is proven by the seven babies being apparent before and after the parachute jump, in a star formation, and sitting on her left breast after landing on her waist and breast area. The video ends with the woman taking a giant baby bottle and squirting milk all over the camera.