Jefferson Starship - Find Your Way Back

The history of Jefferson Airplane / Jefferson Starship / Starship is a long, meandering stroll down rock and roll lane.  As many readers will know, the band started as Jefferson Airplane in San Francisco in 1965, and was an early psychedelic rock band.  In addition, Jefferson Airplane is notable as one of the first rock bands to feature a female lead singer -- the charismatic Grace Slick.  By the by, Jefferson Airplane was the model for the Dutch band Shocking Blue, who recorded the original version of "Venus" (featured along with the Bananarama cover last January).

In the early 1970s Jefferson Airplane effectively broke into two bands -- Hot Tuna and Jefferson Starship.  Jefferson Starship evolved to become a successful arena rock band in the 1970s and early 1980s, before personnel changes (and a dispute over the name) led to the band becoming Starship in the mid 1980s.  ERV readers should not worry, though, there is no way that a Starship song will ever show up on the blog (with apologies to any fans of "We Built this City" and "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now").

"Find Your Way Back" was from the 1981 Modern Times album.  It was the second album to feature lead singer Mickey Thomas, who joined the band after Marty Balin and Grace Slick quit.  Slick actually rejoined the band late in the recording session for Modern Times and was not in the original promotional materials (this is why the picture of the band at the end of the video does not include her).

The video is loaded with early 1980s goodness, including some sci-fi effects, one really skinny tie (mostly tucked in), and a cool double neck guitar.  We really do enjoy the song and video, in spite of (or perhaps because of) these elements.  Lastly, the song did turn out to be a decent FM hit -- the single hit #29 on the charts, while the Modern Times LP reached #26.

Note that Jefferson Starship's weird video for "No Way Out" was featured on ERV during our All Hallows Even celebration in 2015.