Jefferson Airplane’s Grace Slick becomes the very first person in history to say “fuck” on American television on August 19th, 1969—the day after Woodstock—on The Dick Cavett Show. Technically the whole band pretty much sings “fuck” if you want to split hairs. Someone had to do it first, I’m glad it was the Airplane.
“We Can Be Together” was the lead-off number on the band’s politically radical “Volunteers” album and the B-side for the “Volunteers” single. Due to the group’s unique contract for the times—they had complete artistic control—RCA Records had to go along with whatever the Jefferson Airplane wanted, including “shit” and “motherfucker” appearing in their lyrics. For the single, the “motherfucker” was mixed low, but not actually bleeped.
The song’s music and lyrics are credited to Paul Kantner, who claimed to be inspired by the Black Panther Party’s use of the “Up against the wall, motherfucker” battle cry, itself a phrase 60s activists often heard coming from police and national guardsmen during that tumultuous era.
Kantner also cribbed some (nearly all) of the lyrics from something called “The Outlaw Page” that appeared apparently first as a leaflet and then in the East Village Other underground newspaper. “The Outlaw Page” was a polemic written by a guy called John Sundstrom, who was a member of an anarchist/Situationist-inspired Lower East Side-based “street gang with analysis” called the Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers [UAW/MF] whose name came from a poem titled “Black People!” by Amiri Baraka. The Motherfuckers, whose unprintable name made them virtually press-proof, were involved with storming the Pentagon, setting up crash pads in New York City for counter culture types and the occupation of Columbia University. Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse’s stepson, Tom Neumann was an early member.
“Volunteers” was released in late 1969, ( November 2nd ) the cover photo dates back to 1967; it features the band wearing disguises and was taken during the filming of a promotional film made for the “Martha” single.
In addition to the usual two channel stereo version, a specially remixed four channel quadraphonic version of the album appeared in 1973. This was released on LP using the Quadradisc system. It was also released in quad reel-to-reel and 8-track tape tape formats. The quad mixes are different from stereo; “Hey Fredrick” has a completely different lead vocal along with different guitar lines and coda, “Volunteers” is a totally different recording, Kaukonen’s guitar lines are different on “We Can Be Together”, “Wooden Ships” lacks the opening sailboat sound effects and the backing vocals by Ace of Cups on “The Farm” are more prominent. A few tracks from the quad version were included in the three CD box set “Jefferson Airplane Loves You“, though on this release the four channel recordings are reduced to two channels due to the technical limitations of CD.
The Fat Angel Sings 