Jefferson Airplane, a leading band on San Francisco's mid-1960s rock scene, replaced singer Signe Toly Anderson with Grace Slick in October 1966 after Anderson left to focus on motherhood. Slick, previously of the band The Great Society, brought two songs she was closely associated with into her new group, and both went on to become defining hits that helped establish Jefferson Airplane on mainstream pop radio.

The two songs, "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love", featured on Jefferson Airplane's 1967 album Surrealistic Pillow and both reached the Top 10 as singles that year. "White Rabbit", written by Slick, used imagery from Alice in Wonderland to comment on drug culture, while "Somebody to Love" was written by Darby Slick, Grace's then brother-in-law, following a break-up. With Jefferson Airplane's stronger musicianship and Slick's confident vocal performances, the songs were reinvigorated, helping Surrealistic Pillow become a landmark album of the psychedelic rock movement and cementing Slick's status as one of the era's most iconic frontwomen.