Jefferson Airplane were a giant San Francisco band, and Paul Kantner had a lot to do with that, but when I just read that he’d died today, I thought of this song.

It’s from an album by Paul Kantner, branded as Jefferson Starship called Blows Against the Empire. As an idealist 17 year old with a bent to sci fi it hit pretty much every beat in my book. Well, except for the rock one.

But the album has it’s rock-ish moments, too.

But the song I like best is the folkiest, written by Rosalie Sorrells.

In any case, Paul Kantner was a nexus for all the psychedelic San Francisco musicians, who collaborated on this album, and many other projects, that were made as art and agitprop rather than commerce. Blows Against the Empire is the one project of his that captured me. You can hear the whole thing here.

He did not have anything to do with We Built This City. RIP.