(Credits: Far Out / RCA Records / Herb Greene / Anefo / Nationaal Archief)
Sun 15 March 2026 3:00, UK
“To be living for you is all I want to do,” the Jefferson Airplane proclaims on their song ‘Today’, a folk-rooted love ballad from their era-defining album, 1967’s Surrealistic Pillow. “To be loving you, it’ll all be there when my dreams come true…”
While not achieving quite the same prominence on the charts as their two best-known top ten singles from the album, their chilling retelling of Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland on ‘White Rabbit’ and their antithesis to the “free love” movement on ‘Somebody to Love’, ‘Today’ hears a gentler rendition of their folk-psychedelia that came to surmise their generation’s music, told through a story of complete devotion.
With Surrealistic Pillow released to the world just before the Summer of Love, the Jefferson Airplane was soon synonymous with their countercultural enclave in San Francisco, and ‘Today’ can very well be considered their most beautiful offering.
Two weeks after frontwoman Grace Slick joined the band in 1966, the Jefferson Airplane ventured to Hollywood’s RCA Victor studios on Halloween to begin recording what would become Surrealistic Pillow. On November 2nd, they would record ‘Today’, alongside their credited “Spiritual Advisor” on the record, the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia, who they brought along with them to Los Angeles.
Whether or not Garcia contributed any guitars to Surrealistic Pillow is contested: he is listed in RCA’s paperwork for the album as a player, and the band have claimed that he did contribute, as did their road manager, Bill Thompson, in the album’s liner notes in 2003. But, RCA’s Rick Jarrard and Pat ‘Maurice’ Ieraci both asserted that they never saw Garcia during production.
“If Jerry Garcia was there, he was certainly in his spirit form,” Jarrad claimed, quoted in the liner notes.
One undisputed contribution from Garcia, however, is his naming of the album itself. A comment to Balin of the music being “as surrealistic as a pillow” was adopted by the band and transformed into the album’s moniker.
Garcia is believed to have lent his guitar to ‘Today’, the unforgettable opening riff. The song was co-written by guitarist/vocalist Marty Balin and lead guitarist Paul Kantner, and Balin found an unlikely muse in none other than the legendary singer, Tony Bennett. “I wrote it to try to meet Tony Bennett,” Balin revealed in the album’s liner notes. “He was recording in the next studio. I admired him, so I thought I’d write him a song. I never got to meet him, but the Airplane ended up doing it.”
Deciding to sing his ode for Tony Bennett himself, Balin crafted one of his most gorgeous accomplishments. ‘Today’ is an unabashed love song, with declarations of, “I’m so full of love, I could burst apart and start to cry,” sung by Balin – with backing harmonies from Slick and Kantner – with a charming waver in his voice.
“With you standing here, I could tell the world what it means to love,” he sings, consumed in a rose-coloured daze, before pleading with his lover for their attention, culminating in the final echo of, “And it’s all for you, all for you.”
While indebted to Tony Bennett, ‘Today’ found perfection staying in the hands of the Jefferson Airplane, who are perhaps the only musicians who can fully secure the song’s emotion.