We Built This City

This song came from an assemblage of top-tier songwriting and production talent. Elton John's songwriting partner Bernie Taupin wrote the lyrics, which he gave to Martin Page, who put music to the words and made a demo. Page, who later had a hit with "In the House of Stone and Light," garnered attention after the Los Angeles radio station KROQ started playing "Dancing In Heaven (Orbital Be-Bop)" by Martin's group Q-Feel. Taupin, who needed someone other than Elton John to write music for this lyric, asked Martin to do it. Once the demo was made, Starship's producers Dennis Lambert and Peter Wolf (not the J. Geils frontman) decided to record the song with the group on the condition that they make some changes. The most significant alterations were more repetitions of the chorus and the addition of the DJ/announcer who placed the song in San Francisco ("Looking out over that Golden Gate bridge..."), where the band formed in the '60s as Jefferson Airplane, becoming key contributors to the vibrant and eclectic music scene there. This provided a handy backstory for the band, who when asked about the song would sometimes say that it was based on an incident in 1977 when Jefferson Airplane was not allowed to play a free concert in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park (a more compelling answer than "our producers picked the song from some demos"). As part of the arrangement, Lambert and Wolf received composer credits on the song along with Taupin and Page. Even though they had to share their writers credits, both Taupin and Page have said that while the changes veered the song away from their original vision, Lambert and Wolf gave it tremendous popular appeal, and they appreciate the hit. "It will probably help send my children to college," Taupin said. Page added, "It was very wise, because I know they wanted to have a hit. Our thing is a little bit more esoteric."

By opening this song with Grace Slick and Mickey Thomas singing the chorus together, Starship's producers used those two powerful voices (check out Thomas on the song "Fooled Around And Fell In Love") to create an immediate impression. Few bands have the vocal talent to pull this off, but by getting the chorus (with the title) up front, it allowed for more repetitions, which is a key component when structuring a hit song.

The disc jockey interlude was not part of the original demo. In that spot, the song's co-writer Martin Page had put a police report broadcasting news of a riot in Los Angeles - something that came on when he turned on the radio looking for something to fill that part of the song. The police report made the song far more ominous and stuck to the original vision as written by Bernie Taupin. Starship's producers replaced this part with a sunny announcer taking about "another gorgeous sunny Saturday" and delivering standard DJ patter ("the city that rocks, the city that never sleeps!"), changing the complexion of the song. The DJ on the song is Les Garland, who was an executive at MTV at the time - a good guy to know if you want your video played. Garland not only put the video in hot rotation on MTV, he gave Grace Slick and Paul Kantner's daughter China Kantner a gig on the network, making her the youngest VJ they ever had. Slick and Kantner were early members of Jefferson Starship, and Slick was still with the band when they recorded this song.