If I were to casually name-drop Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow (1967), you might find yourself thinking about Grace Slick’s voice bellowing through Somebody to Love, or the rolling-drum acid-trip stylings of White Rabbit. God knows those are the rompers that carried the whole thing up the charts. Which isn’t to say there’s anything wrong with them: far from it. But when things stand out so much for so long, you end up casting your eyes off to the edges so you’ll still feel good and clever.
Enter Comin’ Back to Me. Surrealistic Pillow starts strong and ends strong, but somewhere around the middle, it gets quiet. And while most of the songs on there barely make it past the 3-minute mark, Comin’ Back to Me boasts a whopping 5 minutes. It is slow, dreamy, at times ominous. There’s a terrible beauty to it: from an almost saccharine sweetness to a stone-cold finality.
It’s the kind of song that shouldn’t work. Three chords, like just about everything, although if you’re feeling mean, it’s really two chords and a friend that occasionally visits. There’s a chorus, but it’s more of a bookend than a chorus. The lyrics at first glance appear to consist of dream-like, sprawling imagery haphazardly thrown together. The track also features everyone’s first go-to idea for instrumentation: “let’s get Grace Slick on the recorder“. Yet all these elements merge into something I can’t describe as anything but arresting.
If you make the mistake of glancing at its origin story, you might come across a quote that claims the song was written in one sitting after Jefferson Airplane’s Marty Balin indulged in some, and I quote, “primo-grade marijuana given to him by blues singer Paul Butterfield“. I resent that. I resent Paul Butterfield’s primo-anything butting into my inner landscape. But I’m not surprised that such a sparse unity as this one came tumbling out in one sitting; they often do.
Here’s a taste: “The summer had inhaled and held its breath too long / The winter looked the same as if it never had gone / And through an open window where no curtain hung / I saw you / I saw you / Comin’ back to me.”
Marty Balin’s voice is trudging along at barely more than a whisper. He sounds preoccupied with something else. Remembering. There’s this vision of someone he just can’t work out. Is it a premonition? And if so, has he had it before? Did it mean anything then? It beats me. I hear the picking of that acoustic guitar often. I think about it on mountain tops. The song’s subject matter also beats Marty Balin as he sings it, and he’s not about to go and hide that. Whatever it was, primo-marijuana or not, he saw it. And is there anything more human than just not knowing?
While we’re here, well done Marty, for summarising the experience of your song within the song: “The shape of sleepy music / and suddenly you’re hooked“.
I’m hooked. And I’m glad you snuck this one on there.
