Somebody to Love (Jefferson Airplane song)

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This article is about the song by The Great Society as well as Jefferson Airplane. For other uses, see Somebody to Love.

"Somebody to Love" is a well-known rock song by 1960s folk-psychedelic band The Great Society. Released in 1966 as a single on the North Beach subsidiary of Autumn Records, it received minimal circulation outside of San Francisco.

Later also recorded and issued as a single by Jefferson Airplane, their release met with far greater success, peaking at #5 on the Billboard Hot 100, and also appearing as a track on their influential album released in February of 1967, Surrealistic Pillow.

Written by Great Society guitarist Darby Slick and first performed by that band, which included his then-sister-in-law Grace Slick on vocals, the song made little impact outside of the club circuit in the Bay Area. When Grace departed to join the Airplane, she took this song with her, bringing it to the Surrealistic Pillow sessions along with her own composition "White Rabbit." Subsequently, the Airplane's more ferocious rock and roll version became the band's first and biggest hit. Driven by Slick's forceful vocal, the song's hard-rock sound stood out among the group's more folk-oriented psychedelia that made up most of the album. The lyrics, unusually, are in the second person, with each two-line verse setting a scene of alienation and despair, and the chorus repeating the title of the song, with slight variations: "... / Don't you need somebody to love? / Wouldn't you love somebody to love? / ..." Like the album on which it appeared, this song was instrumental in announcing the existence of the Haight-Ashbury counterculture to the rest of the United States.

The song later became a staple on album oriented rock and classic rock radio in the United States. It received cover versions by Mother's Finest, W.A.S.P. in 1995, The Ramones on their 1993 cover album Acid Eaters, by Jim Carrey on the soundtrack of the movie The Cable Guy, in 2003 by Boogie Pimps, and also by Kasabian on BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge. It was most recently featured on the reality show Rock Star: Supernova, performed by Patrice Pike.