When I first heard the Ave Maria playing in the background of an Amazon commercial, I was admittedly weirded out. What’s that doing there? Doesn’t it belong more appropriately at funerals? (It’s a staple at Roman Catholic funerals, for sure.) But then I paid a tiny bit of attention and saw that it was an ad for Prime in which dear old dad – wearing headphones to listen to Schubert’s Ave Maria – is noise-canceling out his rock-band-y kids. Personally, I wouldn’t be chillin’ with the Ave Maria – too much Catholic school PTSD, too many funerals – but to each Prime customer their own. (Not that I’m in these circles – or anywhere near them – but when googling I did see that this generally anodyne ad was met in Catholic circles of the more sensitive nature with shock and offense.)
Anyway, having really paid attention to the Amazon ad, I was no longer weirded out by it. That or the Celebrity Cruise ad that uses White Rabbit as its theme knocked the Amazon-Ave ad way out of weird contention.
If you don’t count the overnight ferry I took from Bangor, Wales to Dun Laoghaire, Ireland in 1973, I’ve never been on a cruise that took longer than a couple of hours. My impression is that cruisers skew older, or are for those traveling in family packs. And although those older cruisers are now mostly Boomers, who would be well familiar with the songs of Jefferson Airplane, I’m guessing that even if they had done some tripping in their past, at this point in their lives they’re not looking for a psychedelic experience.
They’re looking for a game of Trivial Pursuit, dinner with the captain, cocktails before dinner, a massage in the spa, and the next on-shore excursion.
But in the ad we hear the unmistakable, head-spinning intro – unmistakable to anyone who had a turntable and a stick of incense in 1967 – to White Rabbit. And Grace Slick belting out the lyrics:
One pill makes you larger.
And one pill makes you small.
And the one that mother gives you.
Don’t do anything at all.
Go ask Alice.
When she’s ten feet tall.
And there is a lovely young red-headed woman, in a demure green (not Alice-blue) dress, falling down a dream rabbit hole and into the Celebrity Cruise experience.
Oh, man! Oh, wow! What a trip!
Take it for yourself! (Oh, man! Oh, wow!)
Some of the more druggy aspects of the original are left out.
Our latter-day Alice doesn’t get the call from a hookah-smoking caterpillar. And ain’t no one admitting to having some kind of mushroom. Nor do we hear that logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead.
But we do get to hear what the doormouse said. Which is “feed your head.” Which I understand is something that happens early and often on cruises.
Still, it seems completely and unreservedly weird to use White Rabbit as the theme song for a cruise that’s not oriented toward getting a bunch of old hippies – the kind we used to call oh-wowers - in tie-dyed shirts to sign on for a way-back cruise where everyone sits around the piano bar singing along to Grateful Dead songs and munching on has brownies. (Oh, man! Oh, wow!)
For Celebrity, it may be part of a larger theme. Last year they introduced something called the Magic Carpet. This is a tangerine-colored platform that runs up and down the side of the ship while people drink and dine. (Oh, man! Oh, wow!)
And the use of “tangerine” as the color for the Magic Carpet? Is that a nod to Tom Wolfe’s early-sixties essay – “The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby”? Sure, it was about custom cars, not drugs. But as anyone who was there can tell you, orange (along with chartreuse and hot pink) was a signature color of the 1960’s. (Oh, man! Oh, wow!)
Or perhaps it is another druggy nod, this time to Steppenwolf’s Magic Carpet Ride:
Well, you don't know what
We can find
Why don't you come with me little girl
On a magic carpet ride
Errr, no thanks, Mr. Steppenwolf. Think I’ll stay right here with my Friendly’s mint chocolate chip cone. And no, thanks, I never accept a funny cigarette from a stranger.
My cousin MB is a veteran and inveterate cruiser. She and her SO just got back from a cruise to Canada, and are heading out shortly on a jaunt around the Mediterranean and a repositioning cruise back to the States. (I’m not entirely sure what this next cruise entails. MB and Dan do at least a couple of long cruises every year and they’ve been everywhere, including Antarctica.) Anyway, I’ll have to ask them what they make of the White Rabbit ad.
Meanwhile, I was going to say that I bet Grace Slick never went on a cruise ship. And then I saw this: A 70’s themed Rock & Romance Cruise 2020 that features, among others, Jefferson Starship (the follow-on group to Jefferson Airplane). Grace Slick is no longer with Starship, but this is plenty close enough.
Who else is on this cruise? Rita Coolidge, Cheap Trick, Todd Rundgren, and – dear Lord! – the group America. The group that gave us Horse with No Name, quite possibly the worst song ever written. One thing to put up with Sister Golden Hair Surprise. But Horse with No Name. I’d have to find me that hookah-smoking caterpillar, or it’d be “cruiser overboard” for sure.
--------------------------------------------------------------For anyone interested in Jefferson Airplane performing the full version of White Rabbit, here you go. Oh, man! Oh, wow!
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