In late Octo­ber 2020, amidst anoth­er surge of the COVID-19 virus, the Ger­man gov­ern­ment asked the Berlin Phil­har­mon­ic to close down for a month. On the eve of their clo­sure, the Phil­har­mon­ic per­formed John Cage’s mod­ernist com­po­si­tion, 4′33″, which asks per­form­ers not to play their instru­ments through­out the entire dura­tion of the piece, allow­ing the audi­ence to expe­ri­ence the some­times awk­ward, some­times unex­pect­ed sounds of silence. In this par­tic­u­lar moment, the Berlin Phil­har­mon­ic offered a poignant com­men­tary on the silence and iso­la­tion expe­ri­enced dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

The web­site, Clas­si­cal Voice North Amer­i­ca, breaks down the per­for­mance as fol­lows: The con­duc­tor Kir­ill Petrenko “defined each of the three move­ments in 4’33” with a par­tic­u­lar affect. In the first move­ment, he seemed to be con­duct­ing a con­ven­tion­al piece that wasn’t there. In the sec­ond move­ment, his hands were posi­tioned near his face, as if ask­ing for qui­et or like a priest pro­nounc­ing a bene­dic­tion. In the third move­ment, his hands stretched toward the orches­tra, fin­gers splayed in one hand, with a search­ing facial expres­sion. He was near tears with sor­row and grief. ‘What is this? What is hap­pen­ing?’ he seemed to ask. ‘I don’t under­stand!’ ” We all felt that way at some point.

Watch the per­for­mance above.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Watch John Cage Play His “Silent” 4′33″ in Har­vard Square, Pre­sent­ed by Nam June Paik (1973)

The Curi­ous Score for John Cage’s “Silent” Zen Com­po­si­tion 4′33″

Watch John Cage’s 4′33″ Played by Musi­cians Around the World

“One pill makes you larg­er and one pill makes you small…”

Some­time in the sum­mer of 2016, this iso­lat­ed track of Grace Slick’s vocals for “White Rab­bit”–prob­a­bly the most famous Jef­fer­son Air­plane song and def­i­nite­ly one of the top ten psy­che­del­ic songs of the late ‘60s–popped up YouTube. As these things go, nobody took cred­it, but every­body on the Inter­net was thank­ful.

Drenched in echo, Slick sings with mar­tial pre­ci­sion, com­plete­ly in com­mand of her vibra­to and dip­ping and ris­ing all through the Phry­gian scale (also known as the Span­ish or Gyp­sy scale.) And no won­der, the song was writ­ten in 1965 after an LSD trip at her Marin coun­ty home where Slick had lis­tened to Miles Davis’ Sketch­es of Spain over and over again for 24 hours. Com­pare the orig­i­nal ver­sion to Davis’ track “Solea” to hear what I mean.

Bob Irwin, who was in charge of remas­ter­ing Jef­fer­son Airplane’s cat­a­log in 2003, was the first to hear Slick’s iso­lat­ed vocals after many, many years:

When you put up the mul­ti- tracks of the per­for­mances to some­thing like “White Rab­bit” and iso­late Grace’s vocal…you can’t believe the inten­si­ty in that vocal. It’s hair-rais­ing, and absolute­ly unbe­liev­able. I was telling Bill Thomp­son about that. It’s not that I’m so well-sea­soned that noth­ing sur­pris­es me, but boy oh boy, when I put that mul­ti up and I heard Grace’s vocal solo-ed—and it’s absolute­ly whis­per-qui­et, there’s not an ounce of leak­age in there at all—-you can hear every breath drawn and the inten­si­ty and the con­cen­tra­tion…

Inter­est­ing­ly, when Slick wrote the song, Air­plane hadn’t start­ed. Instead she was in a band called The Great Soci­ety, and the orig­i­nal jam ver­sion doesn’t do jus­tice to the com­po­si­tion.

Rhythm gui­tarist David Minor recalled that the song came out of a song­writ­ing request to the oth­er mem­bers of the band.

“When we start­ed work­ing, nobody had any­thing because I couldn’t write any more,” he recalls. “I was too busy keep­ing up with my var­i­ous jobs. So Grace’s hus­band Jer­ry chal­lenged them: ‘What are you gonna do? Let David write all the songs?’ Y’know, ‘Do some­thing!’. So Dar­by came back with a cou­ple of songs and Grace came back with White Rab­bit.”

When the Great Soci­ety fell apart, Jef­fer­son Air­plane chose Slick as their singer in 1966 and she brought with her “White Rab­bit.” The rest is rock his­to­ry, and a large part of the now-retired Slick’s income.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2017. It’s a favorite, and today we’re bring­ing it back for an encore.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How Grace Slick Wrote “White Rab­bit”: The 1960s Clas­sic Inspired by LSD, Lewis Car­roll, Miles Davis’ Sketch­es of Spain, and Hyp­o­crit­i­cal Par­ents

Watch Jazzy Spies: 1969 Psy­che­del­ic Sesame Street Ani­ma­tion, Fea­tur­ing Grace Slick, Teach­es Kids to Count

Dick Clark Intro­duces Jef­fer­son Air­plane & the Sounds of Psy­che­del­ic San Fran­cis­co to Amer­i­ca: Yes Par­ents, You Should Be Afraid (1967)

Jef­fer­son Air­plane Plays on a New York Rooftop; Jean-Luc Godard Cap­tures It (1968)

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the artist inter­view-based FunkZone Pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.

Above we have George Sakel­lar­i­ou per­form­ing Paul Desmond’s jazz clas­sic, “Take Five,” on a vin­tage 1959 Viu­da y Sobri­nos de Domin­go Este­so (Conde Her­manos) clas­si­cal gui­tar. First record­ed in 1959 by the Dave Brubeck Quar­tet, the track even­tu­al­ly became the best-sell­ing jazz song of all time. It’s also a song fre­quent­ly cov­ered by oth­er tal­ent­ed musi­cians. Orig­i­nal­ly from Athens, George Sakel­lar­i­ou joined the San Fran­cis­co Con­ser­va­to­ry of Music and lat­er became chair­man of their Gui­tar Depart­ment. As his bio notes, his gui­tar style places an empha­sis “on clear tone and smooth lyri­cal lines,” all on dis­play here. Enjoy…

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Watch an Incred­i­ble Per­for­mance of “Take Five” by the Dave Brubeck Quar­tet (1964)

How Dave Brubeck’s Time Out Changed Jazz Music

Pak­istani Musi­cians Play a Won­der­ful Ver­sion of Dave Brubeck’s Jazz Clas­sic, “Take Five”

We just had the chance to see the Red Hot Chili Pep­pers kick off a new tour, and so had to bring you this–Luna Lee per­form­ing RHCP’s “Cal­i­for­ni­ca­tion” on the Gayageum, a tra­di­tion­al Kore­an stringed instru­ment dat­ing back to the 6th cen­tu­ry. Over the years, we’ve shown you her adap­ta­tions of Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Voodoo Chile;’ David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold The World;” Leonard Cohen’s “Hal­lelu­jah; and Pink Floy­d’s “Com­fort­ably Numb,” “Anoth­er Brick in the Wall” & “Great Gig in the Sky.” Today, we’re keep­ing the tra­di­tion going. You can fol­low along with the orig­i­nal record­ing down below. Enjoy!

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Talk­ing Heads’ “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” Per­formed on Tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese Instru­ments

Pak­istani Musi­cians Play a Won­der­ful Ver­sion of Dave Brubeck’s Jazz Clas­sic, “Take Five”

A‑ha’s “Take On Me” Per­formed by North Kore­an Kids with Accor­dions

A Mid­dle-East­ern Ver­sion of Radiohead’s 1997 Hit “Kar­ma Police”

The Red Hot Chili Pep­pers’ Flea Presents a Bass Les­son, and Essen­tial Advice That Every Bass Play­er Should Know

AC/DC’s “Back in Black” Played on the Gayageum, a Kore­an Instru­ment Dat­ing Back to the 6th Cen­tu­ry

Sam Edel­ston can rock the duclimer. On his YouTube chan­nel, he writes: “Dul­cimers are nat­ur­al rock instru­ments. In fact, I even say that dul­cimers are among the world’s coolest musi­cal instru­ments, and they deserve to be known by the gen­er­al pub­lic — the way that every­body knows gui­tars and ukule­les. Though usu­al­ly asso­ci­at­ed with old folk songs and tunes, dul­cimers are great for a shock­ing vari­ety of mod­ern music, too. I do these videos to inspire more peo­ple to play and lis­ten to dul­cimer music, in diverse, non-tra­di­tion­al styles.” Above, watch him cov­er the Ramones’ 1978 clas­sic “I Wan­na Be Sedat­ed.” Find more cov­ers of  Zep­pelin, the Stones & Bea­t­les here. And yet more covers–including Bowie’s “Space Odd­i­ty” and Sab­bath’s “War Pigs”–on the Con­tem­po­rary Dul­cimer YouTube Chan­nel. Enjoy.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Finnish Musi­cians Play Blue­grass Ver­sions of AC/DC, Iron Maid­en & Ron­nie James Dio

Tears for Fears Sings “Every­body Wants to Rule the World” with Musi­cian Who Cre­at­ed Divine Dul­cimer Ver­sion of Their Song

A Blue­grass Ver­sion of Metallica’s Heavy Met­al Hit, “Enter Sand­man”

Pak­istani Musi­cians Play Amaz­ing Ver­sion of Dave Brubeck’s Jazz Clas­sic, “Take Five”

Watch Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Voodoo Chile’ Per­formed on a Gayageum, a Tra­di­tion­al Kore­an Instru­ment

And the award for the first Black song­writer to win Song of the Year at the Coun­try Music Awards goes to Tra­cy Chap­man …for a tune that trans­fixed mil­lions of row­dy con­cert­go­ers when she sang it at Wem­b­ley Sta­di­um 35 years ear­li­er (see above.)

At the time of that per­for­mance, Chap­man was just 24, near­ly a decade younger than 33-year-old Luke Combs, the coun­try super­star whose recent cov­er was a mas­sive hit.

“Fast Car” was not just a star-mak­ing turn at Wem­b­ley. It was a last minute, unsched­uled one.

Chap­man had already per­formed her 3‑song set at that day’s celebri­ty-stud­ded Nel­son Man­dela 70th Birth­day Trib­ute con­cert, sand­wiched between Stephen Fry and Hugh Lau­rie’s com­e­dy act and pro­to­typ­i­cal­ly 80s Scot­tish soft rock­ers Wet Wet Wet.

Her 3‑song set list was in keep­ing with the nature of the event, which helped speed the anti-apartheid activist and future South African pres­i­dent’s release from prison, and was described by music jour­nal­ist Robin Denselow, as “a more polit­i­cal ver­sion of Live Aid, with the aim of rais­ing con­scious­ness rather than just mon­ey:”

Why?

Behind the Wall

Talkin’ Bout a Rev­o­lu­tion

The audi­ence got to hear “Fast Car” thanks to the unwit­ting involve­ment of sur­prise guest Ste­vie Won­der.

The R&B great went to Wem­b­ley Sta­di­um straight from the air­port, unaware that his syn­clavier’s hard disc, con­tain­ing all the syn­the­sized music for his act, had not made the trip.

This colos­sal over­sight was only dis­cov­ered when he was head­ing toward the stage. Unwill­ing, or pos­si­bly too over­whelmed to come up with a workaround, he declined to go on, leav­ing orga­niz­ers scram­bling for an artist who could hus­tle to the mic to fill time.

Chap­man and her solo gui­tar must have struck them as a tech­ni­cal­ly uncom­pli­cat­ed solu­tion.

No one can fault her for seem­ing a bit breath­less at first. How often is an emerg­ing singer-song­writer called upon to save the day by step­ping into a legend’s shoes?

With­in a year, Chap­man was named Best New Artist at the Gram­my Awards, and “Fast Car,” which she per­formed at the cer­e­mo­ny, earned her “Best Pop Vocal Per­for­mance Female”. (Song of the Year went to Bob­by McFerrin’s “Don’t Wor­ry Be Hap­py,” a cul­tur­al jug­ger­naut of a dif­fer­ent stripe.)

A few days ago, Chap­man reprised “Fast Car” at the 2024 Gram­mys as a duet with Combs, an inter­pre­ta­tion that impressed the New York Times’ pop music crit­ic Lind­say Zoladz as “wel­com­ing and expan­sive enough to hold every sin­gle per­son (the song) had ever touched, regard­less of the mark­ers of iden­ti­ty that so often divide us:”

It was a rare reminder of music’s unique abil­i­ty to oblit­er­ate exter­nal dif­fer­ences. “Fast Car” is about some­thing more inter­nal and uni­ver­sal. It is a song about the wants and needs that make us human: the desire to be hap­py, to be loved, to be free.

That’s cer­tain­ly one inter­pre­ta­tion, but per­haps the artist who wrote it should have the final word:

I nev­er had a Fast Car, it’s just a sto­ry about a cou­ple, how they are try­ing to make a life togeth­er and they face chal­lenges…At the time that I wrote the song, I actu­al­ly didn’t real­ly know who I was writ­ing about. Look­ing back at it, and this hap­pens with oth­er songs as well, that I feel like I under­stand it only lat­er… I think that it was a song about my par­ents… And about how when they met each oth­er they were very young and they want­ed to start a new life togeth­er and my moth­er was anx­ious to leave home. My par­ents got mar­ried and went out into the world to try to make a place for them­selves and it was very dif­fi­cult going.

My moth­er didn’t have a high school diplo­ma and my father was a few years old­er. It was hard for him to cre­ate the kind of life that he dreamed of… With the edu­ca­tion that he had…. With the oppor­tu­ni­ties that were avail­able to him… In a sense I think they came togeth­er think­ing that togeth­er they would have a bet­ter chance at mak­ing it.

– Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo and Cre­ative, Not Famous Activ­i­ty Book. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday. Over and out.