Editing Crown of Creation (section)

=== Music and style ===

Stylistically, the album was the band's most diverse to date, combining the hard rock and studio experimentation of ''After Bathing at Baxter's'' with the more concise pop songwriting of ''Surrealistic Pillow''.  It was a true musical democracy of sorts, featuring songs written by every member of the band. 

The album opens with [[Grace Slick]]'s "Lather", which memorialises her then-boyfriend's thirtieth birthday while taking a jab at bassist Jack Casady's arrest for public nudity just prior to the studio sessions.  The band also recorded David Crosby's "Triad", a controversial song about a ménage à trois that had been rejected by his band [[The Byrds]] the year prior; the Airplane gave it a soft acoustic arrangement featuring Slick on lead vocals. 

Drummer Spencer Dryden contributed the brief, eerie electronic piece "Chushingura", whose title and musical inspiration was taken from the soundtrack to the 1939 Japanese film of the same name. Guitarist [[Jorma Kaukonen]] wrote "Star Track" and "Ice Cream Phoenix", the latter starting out as a ten-minute instrumental live jam but eventually pruned to three minutes with added lyrics. 

The title track, written by [[Paul Kantner]], draws its central imagery from John Wyndham's 1955 science fiction novel ''The Chrysalids'', adapting passages from the book into its lyrics. Its two singles — "Greasy Heart", released in March 1968, followed by the title track in November — were modest hits on the Hot 100 chart.