The Doors

WOULD The Doors have become as globally famous had Jim Morrison not died very young – at the same time as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin? Some would say all three were martyrs to the cause of creating their special, inspired brand of music, and that it was the rigours in particular of live performances, and living out the “dream” of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll, which killed all three.

But each had already done enough, during their tragically short careers, to cement their positions, as it were, in Rock’s hall of fame. Indeed, as the experiences of so many of the groups I have covered so far suggest, many did their best work in the first five years of their careers, when they were at their freshest and most creative.

Strange Days was really the Doors album as far as I was concerned. It seemed to be the only one we actually had, although as mentioned earlier this was a time when records were exchanged among friends on a regular basis, or simply heard over and over again when visiting your mates or at parties. Music really was the magic in those days, and it was a shared experience. While headphones were sometimes used, the norm was for great music to be an integral part of most social events – even if in our case it often entailed lying around in that bedroom I shared with my two older brothers while spaced out on weed, or later on booze, listening to sounds on the old valve amplifier.

As a troubled teenager, battling with various demons, I could readily relate to the track, People Are Strange. “People are  strange, when you’re a stranger …” But Morrison wrote so much other fascinating material that it is fair to say he was among the most creative and inventive souls of the era. I do know much of it involved drugs, but also know that his best work would have been done with, or without, artificial stimulants. He was clearly born to produce that body of work – and fortunate in finding the ideal band, and producers, with which to achieve his destiny.

I recall, a couple of years back, reading a piece in our local Sunday Times’s award-winning Lifestyle supplement, about a visit Morrison made to Mick Jagger and his fellow Stones somewhere in France in the late Sixties. It portrayed Jagger as this strong, powerful figure, and Morrison as a weak loser. What it failed to show was that it was Morrison’s sensitivity which made him vulnerable – but which was also the very reason he was able to pen such brilliant songs, and to sing with such feeling. I mean, at times he sounded almost like Tom Jones or Engelbert Humperdinck. He simply had a lovely, rounded voice which made The Doors’ sound. 

Let’s see what the oracle has to say. Look, at the outset, I must confess that I only ever knew about Morrison. His backing band was brilliant, but taken for granted. I have recently read of attempts by remaining members to resurrect the band, which is a bit like the biblical resurrection without Christ.

Anyway, Wikipedia tells us The Doors were formed in Los Angeles in 1965 by Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger. In a nutshell they were “one of the most controversial bands of their time, due mostly to Morrison’s cryptic lyrics and unpredictable stage persona”. About the former, we fell under the spell of those lyrics. About the latter we knew little, since we were so isolated. But, as mentioned earlier, it was clearly those live shows, some details of which I have picked up on down the years, which so often are the undoing of the greatest talents. And Wikipedia seems to endorse the view that Morrison’s death in 1971 may indeed have boosted the band’s popularity. It says since the band’s dissolution and especially after Morrison’s death, interest in their music has remained high, “at times even surpassing that which the band enjoyed during its own lifetime”.

Morrison and Manzarek were University of California Los Angeles film students when they had a chance meeting on Venice Beach, California, on a hot summer’s day in July, 1965. Wikipedia says Morrison told Manzarek he had been writing some songs, and sang Moonlight Drive for him. Vox-organ player Manzarek said: Let’s form a band. But he already had one, called Rick And The Ravens, which included his brother Rick. Krieger and Densmore were with The Psychedelic Rangers and knew Manzarek from meditation classes. Densmore joined the band in August and, says Wikipedia, along with members of the Ravens and an unidentified female bass player, recorded a six-song demo on September 2. Widely bootlegged, it appears in full on a 1997 Doors box set. Kriegler’s talents were recognized and he was brought in that month, giving the band its final lineup.

Now there’s been a lot written about the origin of the band’s name. I’ve heard superficially about some process of transition from this world to another brought about by drugs. I think that was the story doing the rounds as we grew up. But it seems they took the name from the title of a book by Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception. Huxley, author of Brave New World, had borrowed the title from a line in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, a poem by 18^th century artist and poet William Blake: “If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is: infinite.” Which all seems suitably far-out and vague to be ideal for those times.

And here’s an interesting snippet. It appears that when playing live, the Doors didn’t use a bass guitar. Instead, says Wikipedia, “Manzarek played the bass lines with his left hand on the newly invented Fender Rhodes bass keyboard”, while playing the FR electric piano and other keyboards with his right. The band did, however, recruit various top-rate session musicians to “occasionally” play bass on their albums. And it is those albums which provided most of their fans around the globe with their shot of The Doors.

Morrison and Krieger, Wikipedia says, were credited with most Doors compositions, though many songs contained “harmonic and rhythmic suggestions, or even entire sections of song” by other members. Manzarek is said to have composed the famous organ introduction to Light My Fire, one of the band’s greatest songs. It seems there was also controversy over the 1968 hit, Hello, I Love You, with the Kinks’ Dave Davies claiming it was borrowed from their 1965 single, All Day And All Of The Night.

So they had a band going by 1966, but were still playing in clubs, and eventually the upmarket Whisky a Go Go. And it was while playing here that, on August 10, 1966, Elektra Records president Jac Holzman and producer Paul A Rothchild heard them. They signed them eight days later. Wikipedia says the timing couldn’t have been better, because the Whisky fired the band soon afterwards, for one of Morrison’s most famous – infamous? – on-stage bits of profanity. “… a tripping Morrison raucously recited his own rendition of the Greek drama Oedipus Rex in which the play’s protagonist Oedipus kills his father and has sex with his mother. Morrison’s version consisted of ‘Father? Yes son? I want to kill you. Mother? I want to fuck you.’ ” I recall hearing this some time many years later. What it does show is that Morrison and his mates were investigating deeply philosophical issues – even if they did couch their responses in down-to-earth language.

The Doors, their self-titled first album, was released in January 1967, and was a major hit from the outset. It was recorded in a few days in late August and early September of 1966, says Wikipedia, with “most songs captured in a single take”. And, given their film student background, Morrison and Manzarek directed “an innovative promotional film for their first single, Break On Through”. This was seen as a “significant advance in the development of the music video genre”. We’ll get back to the music contained on this album later, but it clearly was a classic, and included The End, an 11-minute “musical drama”. (Come on baby) Light My Fire, their second single, was released in April and hit the top of the charts in July. It was, however, a condensed version, with the definitive long organ solo in the middle excised. Nonetheless, this pandering to the pop market was no doubt essential in order to make bucks. And suddenly the Doors were up there with the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane as the leading West Coast US bands. And here is a collector’s item. It seems in May 1967 they recorded “a dazzling version”, according to Wikipedia, of The End, for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It was finally released as part of The Doors Soundstage Performances DVD in the early 2000s.

Sometimes, it seems, Morrison achieved notoriety unintentionally. Already a major pop sex symbol due to what Wikipedia calls his “saturnine good looks, magnetic stage presence and skin-tight leather trousers”, in September 1967 the band was invited to perform on the Ed Sullivan Show – a hallmark of success. However, apparently Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) censors demanded they change the line, “Girl, we couldn’t get much higher” to read “much better”, so as not to be seen to be promoting drugs. Morrison, however, sang the original lyrics, and because there was no time delay, it went out on air. Sullivan was mad and refused to shake the band members’ hands afterwards, and they were never invited back. Ironically, Morrison later said nerves had caused him to forget to change the line. Which is not impossible to believe, given that once you’ve rehearsed and performed something as much as they would have done, it is almost impossible to mske such an alteration without ruining the whole mood of the song. But Morrison had been cast as a rebel, and his arrest at New Haven, Connecticut, on December 10 that year for “badmouthing the police to the audience” smacks of a massive abuse of power – indeed the sort of thing one would have expected only happened in South Africa, not in the main country of the free world. Nevertheless, the Doors boosted their popularity throughout that winter with almost non-stop touring.

It was their second album, Strange Days, with its weird cover illustration featuring various circus performers, that became my Doors touchstone. Recorded in 1967, Wikipedia says it was “more subdued and less spontaneous than their debut, but … notable for its evocative lyrics and atmosphere”. Here is an interesting description. They say the lengthy closing track, the brilliant When The Music’s Over – like The End from that debut album – “helped establish Morrison’s reputation as the wild shaman of rock”. I’ll get into this album again later – I picked up the CD fairly cheaply recently – but Wikipedia records that it was “strongly commercial, and featured now-classic Doors songs such as People Are Strange and Love Me Two Times”. I remember my brothers and I visiting a friend, Gavin Love, who lived on the road between Bonza Bay and Pirates’ Creek, a few hundreds meters up the Qinerha River. This album was definitely being played during that visit, which must have been in the early 1970s.

Commercial success, it seems, immediately saw you cast out of the eden inhabited by the underground musicians. Suddenly, the Doors became hot property. Wikipedia says they even allowed Sixteen magazine to portray them as teen idols. The other side to this coin was, as so often occurred with celebrity status, a growing dependence on alcohol, which says Wikipedia, marred the recording of their third album, Waiting for the Sun, in April, 1968. Filled with freshly written material, however, this was to become their first No 1 album, while the single, Hello, I Love You was their second, and last, US No 1 single. And isn’t that a famous, immortal, song? “Hello, I love you, won’t you tell me your name …” I mean, just thinking about those lines now, for the first time, aren’t they bizarre. He loves her, but doesn’t even know her name. I’ll need to explore this a little later. Meanwhile, this success, it seems, cut them off further from the “underground cognoscenti”, as Wikipedia puts it. Lilian Roxon said in her 1969 Rock Encyclopedia that the album “strengthened dreadful suspicion that the Doors were in it just for the money”. Methinks that smacks of jealousy. The reality seems to be that no matter what they did, they were going to be successful. They turned so-called teenybopper tastes to their type of music, not the other way round. I mean this album included the classic, Not To Touch The Earth. Who on earth could construe that as selling out. It is just vintage Doors, finished and klaar, as we like to say when we’re being especially dogmatic in South Africa.

With riotous behaviour attendant on most of their US concerts, they flew to Britain for their first gigs outside of the US. The also toured Europe, and had to perform a show in Amsterdam without Morrison – could they still be called the Doors in such a case? – after the singer “collapsed from a drug binge”, according to Wikipedia. After further touring of the US, in November 1968 they began work on their fourth album. They also played a sold-out show at Madison Square Garden in New York in January, 1969, and the single Touch Me, released in December 1968, became a US No 3.

I do recall reading that Morrison “let it all hang out” once, on stage, and Wikipedia says this happened after he saw a theatre production in California that urged people to cast aside their inhibitions. The next evening, the Doors recorded a studio jam session, Rock Is Dead, which was released only in the 1997 Doors box set. But on March 1, 1969, he evidently had been drinking heavily before a performance at a packed venue in Miami, Florida. He had walked on stage and bellowed drunkenly into the microphone, urging people to lighten up. He then shouted “Anything you want! Let’s do it! Let’s do it! Let’s do it!,” before allegedly exposing himself. A trial ensued, with Morrison later saying its year-and-a-half duration had changed his “very unrealistic schoolboy attitude about the American judicial system”.

Morrison, who was said to have viewed the Doors as his surrogate family, “repeatedly turned down every solo album opportunity he was offered. And after his death, the remaining members did not replace him – as if he was replaceable. It’s like the Stones without Jagger.

Morrison was aging fast. Having kicked psychedelic drugs, he began drinking heavily, says Wikipeida, which not only affected his stage and studio performances, it also resulted in him gaining weight. The Lizard King image was soon a thing of the past, and his record company, Elektra, was forced to use earlier photographs of him for the cover of the Absolutely Live LP, released in 1970. This includes a full-length performance of The Celebration Of The Lizard. Two other CDs to look out for were released recently of concerts the band did in Chicago in July of 1970. The band, says Wikipedia, placed more emphasis on the band and fans having a good time, rather than a shamanistic experience. With a bearded Morrison wearing loose-fitting clothes, the songs had a more bluesy feel, with Morrison’s voice as powerful as ever.

I have to concede to not being entirely au fait with the full Doors discography. Their fourth album, The Soft Parade, was released in 1969, and contained, says Wikipedia, “extremely pop-orientated arrangements complete with ‘Vegas-style’ horn sections”. The single, Touch Me, featured saxophonist Curtis Amy. The website says Morrison’s drinking made him “increasingly difficult and unreliable in the studio”, which meant recording sessions dragged on, causing studio costs to rise. The band was “close to disintegrating”. Maybe The Soft Parade just wasn’t a good album. Wikipedia says critics saw it as “a weak, overproduced record”. On the other hand, some saw it as a “successful experiment in ‘quasi-prog-pop’ despite Morrison’s erratic behaviour and numerous technical challenges”. It says Touch Me and Tell All The People were commercial, but memorable, while Wild Child and Shaman’s Blues are “as stripped down and imaginative as ever, with excellent guitarwork and lyrics”.

Morrison Hotel, their next album, released in 1970, was seen as a return to form, and featured “a consistent, hard rock sound”, says Wikipedia. The opening track, Roadhouse Blues “typified the high-spirited assuredness of the entire album”. Featuring “a host of celebratory songs and a couple of lovely ballads”, it hit No 4 in the US. While Morrison was still facing trial in Miami in August for one of his numerous minor infractions, the band made it to the famous Isle of Wight Festival on August 29, 1970. They performed alongside artists like Jimi Hendrix, The Who and Joni Mitchell. A 1995 documentary, Message To Love (itself a Hendrix song title) features two songs by the Doors. Back in Miami, on September 20 Morrison was convicted of profanity and indecent exposure and jailed for eight months, but freed pending an appeal. On his 27^th birthday, December 9, 1970, he recorded another of his poetry sessions.

Morrison’s mental health, it seems, was deteriorating. At the group’s last public performance, at the Warehouse in New Orleans on December 12, 1970, he “apparently had a mental breakdown on stage, slamming the microphone numerous times into the stage floor”, says Wikipedia. However, the band was set for a resurgence in popularity with the release of L.A. Woman in 1971. This was to be a return to their blues and R&B roots, but Rothchild wanted none of it and quit, leaving the production to Bruce Botnick. He chose the wrong time to jump ship, because the album “was widely considered a classic, featuring some of the strongest material and performances since their 1967 debut”, says Wikipedia. Who can not have heard the single Riders On The Storm, which “remains a mainstay of rock radio programming”. However, Wikipedia says some critics feel the album’s “lackluster blues material” detracts from its overall quality.

Morrison finally took time off in 1971 and moved to Paris with girlfriend Pamela Courson in March. By June, says Wikipedia, he was again drinking heavily and fell from a second story window in May. Bizarrely, on June 16 he made his last known recording – with two street musicians he met at a bar and invited to a recording studio. The Lost Paris Tapes is a 1994 bootleg CD featuring those offerings.

And then, the inevitable happened. On July 3, 1971, Morrison’s body was found in the bathtub of his apartment. It was concluded he died of a heart attack, though Wikipedia says it was later revealed that no autopsy was performed before his body was buried at the Pere-Lachaise cemetery on July 7. There were various rumours about the cause of death, but the most likely reason seems to have been provided by Pamela Courson. In his book, Wonderland Avenue, former Morrison associate Danny Sugerman said he met Courson shortly before her own death from a heroin overdose, and she confessed that she had introduced Morrison to the drug and because he had a fear of needles, she had injected him with the dose that killed him.

Iggy Pop was considered as a replacement singer, but in the end Krieger and Manzarek took over Morrison’s singing duties, with the Doors releasing two more albums, Other Voices and Full Circle, and even going on tour. Thankfully, they stopped performing and recording at the end of 1972. But then again, I suppose the other guys had to keep on earning a living – even if the body of Morrison was hardly cold in its grave.

Before looking at some of those key early Doors albums, I suppose one must endure something of what transpired with the rest of the band after Morrison’s departure. Indeed, it seems their next post-Morrison album was indeed a Morrison album. An American Prayer (1978) consisted of the band “adding a musical track to recently rediscovered spoken-word recordings of Morrison reciting his own poetry”. The album was “a considerable commercial success”, and the Doors’ music remained “a staple of 1970s and 1980s FM rock radio”. And guess who was at film school with Morrison way back in the 1960s? One Francis Ford Coppola who, in 1979, used The End as a key part of the soundtrack for his film, Apocalypse Now, about the Vietnam war. Indeed, looking back to those days, when we had our own “Nam” war raging in what would become Namibia, the desolation engendered by that song, in the context of that grim film, was enough to fill one with lashings of hubris about one’s future in southern Africa.

Other landmarks in the deification of Morrison and the Doors included the 1983 release of Alive, She Cried, which included a cover version of the Them hit Gloria. Then in 1991, Oliver Stone released a film, The Doors, starring Val Kilmer as Morrison, with cameos by Krieger and Densmore. The film, says Wikipedia, had “numerous inaccuracies”, and band members criticized its portrayal of Morrison “which at times made him look like an out-of-control sociopath”.

Of course there was the inevitable “reunion” in 2002, with Manzarek and Krieger forming The Doors of the 21^st Century. They were the only original members. This led to numerous lawsuits and recriminations. One interesting aspect is Densmore’s refusal to allow the Doors’ music to be used in television commercials, including a $15-million offer from Cadillac to use the song Break On Through (To The Other Side). He felt it would be a violation of the spirit in which the music was created, says Wikipedia. The others, however, believed their playing the Doors music and allowing the material to be used commercially, would keep Morrison’s words alive.

With the band’s early works continuing to remain popular, in 2004 Rolling Stone magazine ranked them No 41 on the list of the 100 greatest artists of all time. Forty years after the release of their first album, The Doors – along with the Grateful Dead and Joan Baez – received a lifetime achievement award at the 2007 Grammy Awards. On February 28, 2007, they received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Yet, in the end, it is only their music that is important, and that will survive. For us, growing up at that time, an album like Strange Days was something without which those days would indeed not have been as strangely strange as they were. The Doors contributed a unique element to the diverse range of music that was being produced by a phenomenal group of geniuses, all at roughly the same time. Wikipedia offers a section that needs “verification”, but seems fairly sure of its facts, about the numerous sanctioned CDs and bootlegs that have been doing the rounds. Clearly if you are an obsessive Doors fan, these are for you. But, as an aging eclectic, I’m happy to go with the stuff I heard as a youngster, when the music was still fresh and relevant. It is time to give some of those discs a spin and assess anew their quality.

The Doors

You know how it is with albums. I honestly lost contact with the Doors’ music from the mid-1970s till the mid-1980s. The whole New Wave thing took over, with the likes of Dire Straits and The Police, Joe Jackson and Elvis Costello leading the new assault from the British and Irish isles. But there came a time, in the late 1980s, when my wife to be Robyn and I were hanging out with the “trendy lefties” of Port Elizabeth, that for some reason I made a tape of someone’s copy of The Doors Greatest Hits, a 1980 compilation. This contains tantalizing snippets from those five Morrison-led Doors albums which are part of rock’s list of immortal music. I only know I made the tape then because the other side contains Tracy Chapman’s second album, Crossroads, from 1989. Then I picked up on a sale CDs of that great album, Strange Days and Morrison Hotel, a few years back, which rekindled my love for the band. Sadly, I could not extend myself to buying others, which were also going for about R80 a piece. But I have enough to go on with, and enough to re-evaluate the band based on the only really important criterion – their music – though my small collection is sadly lacking in terms of live recordings.

“Come on baby, light my fire / Try to set the night on fire!” Those lines from Light My Fire, the Doors breakthrough single off their 1967 debut album, The Doors, are probably as easily identifiable with the Doors as a song like Satisfaction is with the Rolling Stones. Written by Morrison and Robby Krieger, it is just one of literally dozens of songs by the Doors which have gained immortality, and was their breakthrough single, although the key organ solo was omitted on the single release. The Morrison/Krieger chemistry must, in a way, have been a bit like that between Lennon and McCartney, although here it is Morrison who dominates the vocal duties. Precisely who wrote the lyrics and who the music is not clear, but the two are obviously inseparable. Of vital importance on the first Doors albums is the sound of Ray Manzarek’s organ, with which this track opens. It is over seven minutes long and asserts itself immediately as one of the defining sounds in the history of modern music. “You know that it would be untrue / You know that I would be a liar / If I was to say to you / Girl, we couldn’t get much higher”. Then that famous chorus: “Come on baby, light my fire / Come on baby, light my fire / Try to set the night on fire.” Take away Morrison’s vocals, however, and would the song remain the same? Hardly. The Morrison sound was the Doors, end of story. “The time to hesitate is through / No time to wallow in the mire / Try now we can only lose / And our love become a funeral pyre.” But one always gets a sense that Morrison accepted, as noted earlier, that he was just a part of the total sound. The musicians had an equally vital role to play – obviously – and this they do especially in those long, mellow organ solos which later quieten to accommodate an equally bluesy lead guitar solo by Robby Krieger, which builds ineluctably before the famous melody returns courtesy of that organ.

But of course the album doesn’t open with that famous track. It is probably their most defining track, a Jim Morrison-composed Doors anthem which was first heard by a receptive global youth audience as they spun this album for the first time. Break On Through (To The Other Side) was just 2:25 minutes long, but it somehow encapsulates the Doors ouvre. It opens with a driving rhythm, a fuzzy sounding lead guitar and organ setting the stage for a Morrison tour de force: “You know the day destroys the night / Night divides the day / Tried to run / Tried to hide / Break on through to the other side / Break on through to the other side / Break on through to the other side, yeah?” You are suddenly locked into this pulsating sound, tied to Morrison’s voice: “We chased our pleasures here / Dug our treasures there / But can you still recall / The time we cried / Break on through to the other side / Break on through to the other side / Yeah! / C’mon, yeah.”  Yet how many of us, at the time, knew precisely what he was singing? Not I, said the fly. So I find it enthralling to see the words finally, allowing them to make sense for me in their own right, or write, as Lennon would have it. I love these lines: “I found an island in your arms / Country in your eyes / Arms that chain / Eyes that lie / Break on through to the other side / Break on through to the other side …”

This album is so familiar, yet we did not have it. I’d love to hear it in toto, and I’m sure bells would ring for those other tracks, like Soul Kitchen, The Crystal Ship, Twentieth Century Fox, Alabama Song and so on. But what about The End, all 11:35 minutes of it? This is the one used in Apocalypse Now, so everyone knows it. Wikipedia talks about its Oedipal spoken-word section, so let’s have a fresh look at those lyrics. But I need to hear the song, to get its mood. It certainly fitted perfectly into that film, that I do recall. “This is the end / Beautiful friend / This is the end / My only friend, the end.” You don’t get more depressingly soulful than that, and that is what the Vietnam war was all about, surely. “Of our elaborate plans, the end / Of everything that stands, the end / No safety or surprise, the end / I’ll never look into your eyes ... again.” I couldn’t help thinking that Bruce Springsteen might have got an idea from the opening line of this verse: “There’s danger on the edge of town / Ride the King’s highway, baby / Weird scenes inside the gold mine / Ride the highway west, baby.” The spoken section is the Oedipal one that caused all the trouble: “The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on / He took a face from the ancient gallery / And he walked on down the hall / He went into the room where his sister lived, and ... then he / Paid a visit to his brother, and then he / He walked on down the hall, and / And he came to a door ... and he looked inside / Father, yes son, I want to kill you / Mother ... I want to...fuck you.” Coppola would have liked the appositeness, for his film, of the concluding lines: “Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill / This is the end / Beautiful friend / This is the end / My only friend, the end / It hurts to set you free / But you’ll never follow me / The end of laughter and soft lies / The end of nights we tried to die / This is the end.”

Wikipedia says the album’s “dark tone and frontman Jim Morrison’s sexual charisma and wild lifestyle influenced much of rock and roll to come”. The album was said to be one of the greatest debut albums by any band, and in 2003 was No 42 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Interestingly, I see Ray Manzarek, apart from playing organ, piano and keyboards, also played bass on this album which, as noted earlier, reached No 2 on the US charts, while Light My Fire reached No 1 on the single charts in the US.

Strange Days

It could just be nostalgia, but for me Strange Days will always be the definitive Doors album. It is the one that inveigled its way into my heart in its entirety, from the opening notes of the title track, to the final gasps of the epic When The Music’s Over. Yet, I see from Wikipedia that the album, released in October 1967, “partially consists of songs that did not make it onto their debut album”. Strange, really, because to me the album has a strong sense of the connectedness of its songs – which could, I suppose, just be the product of my familiarity with that song sequence. But there does seem to be a consistent atmosphere of disconnectedness, which paradoxically connects each song to the next. The album, for all it being touted – like its predecessor – as psychedelic rock, for me has a mellow, laid-back quality, despite the jarring intrusion of Horse Latitudes, which wouldn’t have fitted neatly onto any album. All the band members are credited with the compositions, apart from Krieger’s Love Me Two Times and Moonlight Drive, which was one of the first songs Morrison wrote alone for the Doors. Wikipedia says a demo recording of it was made way back in 1965, with another version made in 1966, before the final rendition was recorded the following year for Strange Days.

Having just given the CD a spin – do they in fact spin? – I was struck again by how pleasant an album this is to listen to, and even Horse Latitudes, listened to in context, doesn’t jar unduly. Indeed, it serves as the ideal foil to the following song into which it evolves, the magical Moonlight Drive.

But let’s take the album chronologically. If 1967 was the year the rock world went psychedelic, then the Doors managed to do it in an incredibly refined way. A feature of this album, to my mind, is its intrinsic good taste. It is beautifully understated, with Morrison’s powerful voice – like Janis Joplin did – serving as an inspiration, an instigator, for the creative musical forces with which he was happily surrounded. The opening track, Strange Days, sets the tone. The best Doors songs have a sort of pattern, or template, which gives them their strength. This structure entails an opening melody, usually played on organ or guitar, followed by drums and bass. On this song there is an echoing sound like a giant Jew’s harp. Morrison’s vocals begin, low-key, relaxed: “Strange days have found us / Strange days have tracked us down / They’re going to destroy / Our casual joys / We shall go on playing / Or find a new town / 

Yeah!” Fascinating. This is the first time I’ve noted the lyrics beyond the first two lines. I’m not sure what they mean, but the song is certainly darker than I realised. But as I said, the process entails the song becoming more and more aggressive until a mini-crescendo is reached, at which point there is a pregnant pause, before a new verse, a new journey, is embarked on. Let’s see where the next one takes us: “Strange eyes fill strange rooms / Voices will signal their tired end / The hostess is grinning / Her guests sleep from sinning / Hear me talk of sin / And you know this is it / 

Yeah!”  The sense of dislocation is continued in the final verse: “Strange days have found us / And through their strange hours / We linger alone / Bodies confused / Memories misused / As we run from the day / To a strange night of stone.”

Slow, gentle bass notes and then equally soothing guitar kick off the second track, You’re Lost Little Girl, which is a beautiful ballad. Again, the song is built around a building up and receding of tension. Looking at the lyrics, and having heard this song so often, its momentum becomes almost self-evident. “You’re lost little girl / You’re lost little girl / You’re lost / Tell me who / Are you?” The second verse is ingrained, but it’s only when you see it written that you really start to look at meaning: “I think that you know what to do / Impossible? Yes, but it’s true / I think that you know what to do, yeah / I’m sure that you know what to do.”

Love Me Two Times is a Krieger composition, and it is every bit as good as the rest. It starts with some sprightly guitar, joined by drums and bass. A simple device, moving a finger up and down on one note on the fretboard, is a signature of this song, which again is tight, professional and flawless, with Morrison’s voice holding the thing together effortlessly. Again, like the best blues songs, this is about love: “Love me two times, baby / Love me twice today / Love me two times, girl / I’m goin’ away / Love me two times, girl / One for tomorrow / One just for today / Love me two times / I’m goin’ away.” Contained in those lines is that template I spoke of, as the urgency increases, only to fade before rising again, keeping one locked into the song.  Again, I see the lyrics now for the first time, and it’s a joy finally to see what was being sung: “Love me one time / I could not speak / Love me one time / Yeah, my knees got weak / But love me two times, girl / Last me all through the week / Love me two times / I’m goin’ away / Love me two times / I’m goin’ away.” Then the inevitable “Oh, yes” leads into a great keyboard solo before the verses are repeated, though in a way that only increases the song’s tensile strength.

Strawbs would achieve similar sounds to those strange echoings achieved on Unhappy Girl, the next track, which starts with some mellow keyboard action. “Unhappy girl / Left all alone / Playing solitaire / Playing warden to your soul / You are locked in a prison / Of your own devise / And you can’t believe / What it does to me / To see you / Crying.” Great lyrics, with that understated Doors music giving the Morrison vocals perfect support. Again, I’ve heard these words so often, but only now do I see them in full: “Unhappy girl / Tear your web away / Saw thru all your bars / Melt your cell today / You are caught in a prison / Of your own devise.” It seems like a cleverly worded ploy to get her to cast off her inhibitions. And what red-blooded male hasn’t had those sentiments when encountering an “unhappy” – read reluctant – girl?  Let’s see where it leads: “Unhappy girl / Fly fast away / Don’t miss your chance / To swim in mystery / You are dying in a prison / Of your own device.” They clearly loved that line – a prison of your own device.

Then, dare I say it, we enter the Horse Latitudes. This was a section of the album that my ebullient brother Alistair used to love, and to recite with gusto when the song was playing – and even when it wasn’t. It starts with the sounds of wind and surging surf, along with a myriad other psychedelic effects created by what – keyboards, synthesisers, guitars? Anyway, as the tension mounts, Morrison recites in his most volatile way, the following: “When the still sea conspires an armour / And her sullen and aborted / Currents breed tiny monsters / True sailing is dead / Awkward instant / And the first animal is jettisoned / Legs furiously pumping / Their stiff green gallop / And heads bob up / Poise / Delicate  … / Consent / In mute nostril agony / Carefully refined / And sealed over …” It is a tragic image, to me, of a shipping disaster, and of the shocking image of terrified animals – horses – battling to keep afloat – “their stiff green gallop” – until they are “sealed over”.

As I said earlier, arising out of this ghastly image is one of great poetic beauty – in the form of Moonlight Drive. Here, the trademark slide-guitar sound of the Doors is used to full effect. “Let’s swim to the moon, uh huh / Let’s climb through the tide” Isn’t that a clever image, given that the tides are caused by the moon. “Penetrate the evenin’ that the / City sleeps to hide / Let’s swim out tonight, love / It’s our turn to try / Parked beside the ocean / On our moonlight drive.” As one who grew up next to an almost sub-tropical sea, I can appreciate, I think, the import of these lines. The sea has a marvellously pacific effect, and with a full moon rising over it, can certainly lull you into believing there are indeed no demons about. Where, though, does this song go: “Let’s swim to the moon, uh huh / Let’s climb through the tide / Surrender to the waiting worlds / That lap against our side/ Nothin’ left open / And no time to decide / We’ve stepped into a river / On our moonlight drive.” The romantic imagery continues through another verse or two before there is a change of mood, evoked by Morrison taking on a sort of narrative tone: “Come on, baby, gonna take a little ride / Down, down by the ocean side / Gonna get real close / Get real tight / Baby gonna drown tonight / Goin’ down, down, down.” That is a shocking conclusion. I’m hoping he means drown in their love, and not literally, like the horses on the, well, Horse Latitudes. Indeed, I remember us researching those latitudes even back then, around 1970, when we first heard this album. And what are the Horse Latitudes? Wikipedia tells us they are the subtropical latitudes between 30 and 35 degrees north and south. Also known as a subtropical high, this region, under a ridge of high pressure called the Subtropical ridge, receives little rain and has variable winds mixed with calm. “It may owe its name to the fact that the confused sea, muggy heat, and rolling and pitching of waves (variably stilled and aerated by winds) often slowed colonial ships for days to weeks due to lack of propulsion. In order to reduce the weight of the ship and to conserve water, the crew would throw horses overboard, subsequently increasing the speed of the ship in the low winds.” But the name may be even older. Wikipedia says: “Alternately, the ancient Persian navigator and general Sataspes, whose name was derived from his command of a Persian horse cavalry unit (sat was the unit size and asp(es) was the Persian word for horse), has been credited by some historians as the progenitor of the term. Sataspes was the leading explorer and navigator of this day, circumnavigating Africa as well as mapping out the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Verde. Mariners navigating ancient waters may have referred to the mid-latitudes as those mapped by Sataspes, whose name was translated as ‘horse’.”

The next song, People Are Strange, as I said earlier, was something I could relate to in my dissipated and dislocated teenage years. It starts with just a guitar and Morrison singing to the melody. “People are strange when you’re a stranger / Faces look ugly when you’re alone / Women seem wicked when you’re unwanted / Streets are uneven when you’re down.” See, I had never heard that last line correctly. For some reason I was hearing “street are up, even when they’re down”, thinking about finding adversity even when things should be smooth sailing. There is a lovely guitar solo and slow, bluesy piano on this song, which uses jazzy, clipped guitar chords to good effect. “When you’re strange / Faces come out of the rain / When you’re strange / No one remembers your name / When you’re strange / When you’re strange / When you’re strange.”

But it is the next song, My Eyes Have Seen You, which takes the Doors sound to a higher level. Here bass notes and cymbals, crisp drum rolls (not to be eaten) and incisive guitarwork set the scene. “My eyes have seen you / My eyes have seen you / My eyes have seen you / Stand in your door / When we meet inside / Show me some more / Show me some more / Show me some more.” The insistent nature of the lyrics is echoed in the music, which surges into a fairly heavy bit of rock, only for it to slow again, in typical Doors fashion, for a new rebuilding process. “My eyes have seen you (da-de-da-dum) / My eyes have seen you (da-de-da-dum) / My eyes have seen you / Turn and stare / Fix your hair / Move upstairs / Move upstairs / Move upstairs.” I like the image in the next verse. After the “my eyes have seen you” lines, he adds: “Free from disguise / Gazing on a city under / Television skies / Television skies / Television skies.” Those words, sung in a brash, brazen voice, are etched on my mind; placed there in my youth when the territory was still fertile.

From there, though, it is inevitable that the next song has to be a quiet one. Slide guitar and keyboards set the slow scene for the bluesy, I Can’t See Your Face In My Mind. There is a lovely combination of guitar and keyboards here, with the bass consistently impressive throughout. This could just be another love song, but with Morrison at the helm and the musicianship so different and original, there is no chance of it slipping into mediocrity. “I can’t see your face in my mind / I can’t see your face in my mind / Carnival dogs / Consume the lines / Can’t see your face in my mind.” This is another of those great poems where a good reading of it only increases the sense of mystery – which I suppose is what love is often about; a kind of hopeless, helpless sense of super-powerful disempowerment. “Don’t you cry / Baby, please don’t cry / And don’t look at me / With your eyes.” As good as the “carnival dogs” line are the following: “I can’t seem to find the right lie / I can’t seem to find the right lie / Insanity’s horse / Adorns the sky / Can’t seem to find the right lie.” It’s pure imagery, but I like it. I enjoy the feeling of anarchic abandon, as if the senses alone will be able to resolve the conundrum.

And then, finally, there’s the closing opus, When The Music’s Over – all 11 minutes of it. Sharp organ bursts and a snappy snare drum, then some big bass notes and heavier drums, before that famous Morrison cry: “Yeah!” A fuzzy lead guitar then sets the ship a-sail. Again, the arrangement is brilliant, with mini-climaxes and pregnant pauses taking one on a roller-coaster ride … through what? The opening lines imply some post-party, post-music activities in the dark: “When the music’s over / When the music’s over, yeah / When the music’s over / Turn out the lights / Turn out the lights / Turn out the lights, yeah.” But then he reflects: “For the music is your special friend / Dance on fire as it intends / Music is your only friend / Until the end / Until the end / Until the end.” Like The End, that other epic, this song has an apocalyptic quality – but it was also simply a lot of fun to make. That, surely, is the hallmark of good music, and poetry. Art is creative people at play. Great art is very creative people at play. Consider these lines, blurted out by Morrison as the mood switches: “Cancel my subscription to the Resurrection / Send my credentials to the House of Detention / I got some friends inside …” Then, with that jazzy guitar always in attendance, he continues: “The face in the mirror won’t stop / The girl in the window won’t drop / A feast of friends / ‘Alive!’ she cried / Waitin’ for me / Outside!” Each time, after the intensity of the lyrics, one is swept back into a swooning, booming bass-led journey. Morrison takes your ear and bends it to his will: “Before I sink / Into the big sleep / I want to hear / I want to hear / The scream of the butterfly.” And the guitar, or was it a keyboard sound, offers just that, a sort of stifled, wing-flapping cry. “Come back, baby / Back into my arm / We’re getting’ tired of hangin’ around / Waitin’ around with our heads to the ground.” Then, as the song subsides to just bass and some frenetic drums, he continues: “I hear a very gentle sound / Very near yet very far / Very soft, yeah, very clear / Come today, come today.” But not for long are you lulled into this euphoric state. “What have they done to the earth? / What have they done to our fair sister? / Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her / Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn / And tied her with fences and dragged her down.” For the first time, here, I discover that this is a graphic metaphor for the ecological rape of “our fair sister”, the Earth. Then the riposte: “I hear a very gentle sound / With your ear down to the ground / We want the world and we want it ... / We want the world and we want it ... / Now / Now? (heavy drum roll ….) / Now!” This is followed by a full, gritty, gutsy bit of grungy rock, with guitar and organ vectors soaring and competing, before the denouement: “Well the music is your special friend / Dance on fire as it intends / Music is your only friend / Until the end / Until the end / Until the end!”

All that incredible music, I note, is made by just Robby Kriger on guitars, John Densmore on drums, Douglas Lubahn on “occasional bass guitar” – and brilliant, we might add – and Ray Manzarek, who played keyboards and marimba, which is a kind of xylophone.

This fine album, one of my most treasured youth experiences, reached No 3 in the US in 1967, and is ranked No 407 on Rolling Stone’s top 500 albums list. People Are Strange reached No 12 in the US, with Love Me Two Times reaching No 25. But no amount of statistics can account for what an impact Strange Days had on us. It was another of those iconic albums that characterised that great decade.

Waiting for the Sun

The bizarrest thing about the Doors’ third album, Waiting for the Sun, is that the famous song by that title does not appear on the album. How that came about, I hope to discover.

Wikipedia says it became their first No 1 album, which also provided their second No 1 single, Hellow, I Love You, after Light My Fire. Interestingly, it seems most of the songs were written “around and before the time of the group’s formation, most notably Not To Touch The Earth, which was taken from Morrison’s epic poem, Celebration of the Lizard”. While the poem should have taken up a whole side, the group never got it right, though Wikipedia says they did give it its full-length desserts on the 1970 album Absolutely Live, which I have not heard.

The critics, says Wikipedia, found the album strong lyrically, but criticised it’s “softer, mellow sound, a departure from the edgier, more ambitions sound that the band had become well-known (and notorious) for”. It cites as “rarely disputed classics” the “menacing” Five To One and the “evocative” Not To Touch The Earth. I have not, I think, had the pleasure of being menaced by Five To One – though would surely recognise it if I heard it again. Not To Touch The Earth is, however, very familiar territory for any Doors fan. It also happens to be on that Greatest Hits tape.

Also on that tape is the catchy Hello, I Love You, which many acid heads would probably see as the first sign that the Doors, and Morrison in particular, were “selling out” to commercialism. But could they be criticised for coming up with a song that seemed to emerge spontaneously from their joint genius? It is as simple a song as any of the great Beatles classics, and for that reason the Morrison/Krieger composition must rank alongside them. The typical Doors rhythm immediately locks you into the thing, and then you’re swept along: “Hello, I love you / Won’t you tell me your name? / Hello, I love you / Let me jump in your game …” This is repeated before the chorus: “She’s walking down the street / Blind to every eye she meets / Do you think you’ll be the guy / To make the queen of the angels sigh?” How many of my generation who grew up with this song, actually HEARD those lyrics? I’m reading them here for the first time. The next verse also speaks of a typical male reaction to female beauty: “She holds her head so high / Like a statue in the sky / Her arms are wicked, and her legs are long / When she moves my brain screams out this song …” Even inanimate objects cower in her presence, it seems: “Sidewalk crouches at her feet / Like a dog that begs for something sweet / Do you hope to make her see, you fool? / Do you hope to pluck this dusky jewel?” It’s good poetry, and that’s what lay at the heart of the Doors’ success. They weren’t prepared to accept mediocrity.

As to the other tracks on the album, I’ll only know if I’ve heard them before if I hear the album. And what of the song, Waiting For The Sun, from which the album gets its title? All Wikipedia has to say is that it “did not appear until the 1970 album Morrison Hotel”. Why not is not explained. Perhaps I’ll find out elsewhere …

The Soft Parade

One of the most striking things about the 1969 album, The Soft Parade, is that the Doors suddenly expanded their lineup considerably, bringing in all manner of guest musicians. Indeed, Wikipedia says the album was “not as successful as their previous records due to its inclusion of brass and string instrument arrangements”. Fans also found the songs “too trite” and not innovative. Another alleged drawback was the fact that Kriger wrote “a number of the song lyrics”, partly because Morrison was working on a pair of poetry books. The next albums, Morrison Hotel and L.A. Woman, would see them return to their earlier, simpler style. The only song that is instantly recognisable to me is the famous Touch Me, which was not a Krieger composition. It is on that Greatest Hits tape. It was like the best of the Beatles, one of those instantly successful songs which seemed to emerge spontaneously from the very existence of the Doors as a group. After those famous opening notes, Morrison assails us with: “Yeah! Come on, come on, come on, come on / Now touch me, baby / Can’t you see that I am not afraid? / What was that promise that you made? / Why won’t you tell me what she said? / What was that promise that you made?” Then, to the accompaniment, would you believe, of strings, the song becomes quite soppy: “Now, I’m gonna love you / Till the heavens stop the rain / I’m gonna love you / Till the stars fall from the sky for you and I.” But I can forgive the Doors this bit of indulgence, because later on they introduce the first sax solo I’ve heard on a Doors song, by Curtis Amy, and it is superb. Naturally, I’d love to hear the rest of the album, despite the critics’ reservations. And, given the precedents set on the other albums, the concluding title track, at over eight minutes, is no doubt another epic. And if this album is anything like the others, all the songs will be wonderfully accessible.

Morrison Hotel

So, for about R50, about $7 at the time, I picked up a copy of Morrison Hotel on CD a few years ago. This is the album where the band, with Morrison in front in a white shirt, stare out the window of a hotel on which the words Morrison Hotel are painted. But it also has acquired the name, Hard Rock Café, and on the back, one half of the tracks are under that title, and the second half, from 7 to 11, under Morrison Hotel. Why? I wonder.

Released in 1970, the album saw the band going “back to basics and back to their roots” following The Soft Parade, which Wikipedia calls their “experimental work”. As I too noted on listening to it, the album has the strongest blues influence of all those I’ve heard, largely due to the dominant role played by the harmonica, or blues harp. This blues direction was followed further on L.A. Woman. Ah, and thanks to Wikipedia, I see that one G Puglese played harmonica. He is better known as John Sebastian, one of the heroes, for us anyway, of the Woodstock festival. They also brought in blues bassist Lonnie Mack. Oh and Morrison Hotel really does exist. Wikipedia says the picture was taken at a hotel by that name in South Hope Street, Los Angeles. Apparently they first asked permission from the owners to take the picture, and when they refused they sneaked inside and quickly had it taken.

This album was not part of our youthful experience, though many of the songs were. Waiting For The Sun and Land Ho! stand out strongly in my memory, as of course does the opening track, Roadhouse Blues, though the title itself does not ring a bell. But, as with so many Doors songs, when you hear it there is instant recognition. This starts with a heavy blues-rock, led by harmonica and piano. The most famous line from the song: “Let it roll, baby roll … all night long.” Suddenly the band has acquired a tougher edge, with the lead guitar and harmonica giving Morrison the kind of support he deserves. “Yeah / Yeah, keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel / Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel / Yeah, we’re goin’ to the Roadhouse / We’re gonna have a real / Good time.” It isn’t memorable, lyrically, though the chorus is a classic: “Let it roll, baby, roll / Let it roll, baby, roll / Let it roll, baby, roll / Let it roll, all night long.” After that, for a while, the song descends into virtual gibberish: “You gotta beep a gunk a chucha / Honk konk konk / You gotta each you puna / Each ya bop a luba / Each yall bump a kechonk / Ease sum konk / Ya, ride.” Fortunately, it returns to sanity with the lovely words: “Ashen lady, Ashen lady / Give up your vows, give up your vows / Save our city, save our city / Right now.” Then, for any self-respecting, self-destroying young man, the next lines point all too clearly to the perils of heavy boozing: “Well, I woke up this morning, I got myself a beer / Well, I woke up this morning, and I got myself a beer / The future's uncertain, and the end is always near.” Of course that was all too tragically prophetic for Morrison.

But what of that wonderful song, used for the title of an earlier album, but now finally making it onto another album? Waiting For The Sun is another of those iconic Doors songs. It is something we’ll listen to for generations to come, and we’ll remember those heady days in the late 1960s when men like these dedicated their lives to making incredible music. That slide-guitar is again to the fore on a song which has a rich Doors texture. But how many people have truly heard those opening lines? I certainly had not. Well I heard them, but could not pin them down, till now: “At first flash of Eden / We race down to the sea / Standing there on freedom’s shore …” Then, like all their other “hits” – for want of a better word – comes the chorus: “Waiting for the sun / Waiting for the sun / Waiting for the sun.” It’s so simple, yet so effective, with Morrison’s vocals again the driving force. And the lyrics are quite poetic: “Can you feel it / Now that Spring has come / That it’s time to live in the scattered sun…” The next chorus ends with the word waiting repeated, and then it emerges that he is waiting, not so much for the sun, as for the girl. “Waiting for you to come along / Waiting for you to hear my song / Waiting for you to come along / Waiting for you to tell me what went wrong.” Why was the song only released on this album? There is a one-line explanation on the Wikipedia track list. It says the song was “begun during the Doors’ sessions for Waiting for the Sun in 1968”. So it seems they liked the song title so much they decided to commandeer it for the album title. Strange days indeed.

After the relatively mellow sounds of Waiting, the next track, You Make Me Real, starts with high-tempo, almost honky-tonk piano. Do you know the song? It is again one of those that you wouldn’t instantly recognise from its title, but as soon as you hear it you know it is another Doors classic. The return to more traditional blues is clear on this song, which reminds me of both the Stones and the Beatles. At times the piano playing has echoes of Little Richard, while the guitar is typical of blues-based rock. It starts: “I really want you, really do / Really need you, baby, God knows I do / cause I’m not real enough without you / Oh, what can I do. / You make me real, you make me feel / Like lovers feel. / You make me throw away mistaken misery / Make me feel love / Make me free.”

The bizarrely titled Peace Frog is an up-tempo track with wah-wah-sounding guitar, and solid keyboard, bass and drums backing. But it is most remarkable for its lyrics, which have a strong political message. And could Dave Cousins of Strawbs have been inspired to borrow the first few words from the opening line of this song for his Brave New World – “There’s blood in the dust, where the city’s heart beats”. But here, the Doors sing of a more personal, less literary sort of carnage: “There’s blood in the streets, its up to my ankles / She came / There’s blood on the streets, its up to my knee / She came / Blood on the streets in the town of Chicago / She came / Blood on the rise, its following me / Think about the break of day / She came and then she drove away / Sunlight in her hair / She came / Blood in the streets runs a river of sadness / She came / Blood in the streets its up to my thigh / She came / Yeah the river runs down the legs of the city / She came / The women are crying red rivers of weepin / She came into town and then she drove away / Sunlight in her hair …” Then the spoken words, “Indians scattered on dawns highway bleeding / Ghosts crowd the young child’s fragile eggshell mind”, before a resumption of this carnage description. “Blood in the streets in the town of New Haven / Blood stains the roofs and the palm trees of Venice / Blood in my love in the terrible summer / Bloody red sun of phantastic L.A. / Blood streams her brain as they chop off her fingers / Blood will be born in the birth of a nation /  Blood is the rose of mysterious union / There’s blood in the streets, its up to my ankles / Blood in the streets, its up to my knee / Blood in the streets in the town of Chicago / Blood on the rise, its following me.” It’s a gory, harrowing, visceral combination, it seems to me, of political and menstrual imagery, perhaps underscoring the vulnerability of women in times of upheaval. I’d be interested to see if this song relates to actual events at the time. According to the Songfacts website, the lyrics are based on a Morrison poem, Abortion Stories, “which is where the bloody images come from”. Why didn’t I think of that? So this isn’t about menstruation, but the violent act of abortion. And Morrison was clearly opposed to it. Apparently, Krieger came up with the guitar riff and then they scoured Morrison’s notebooks and found a poem to fit in. The Indians mentioned related to a car accident Morrison came upon involving native Americans while Morrison was still a child. He later felt their ghosts “took up residence in his soul”, says the website. The scene is, it says, portrayed at the start of Oliver Stone’s movie, The Doors. And I was right, there is politics here too. The blood in the Chicago “refers to the 1968 Democratic convention”, while that in New Haven “refers to Morrison’s arrest there in 1967. Police were called when Morrison was seen getting intimate with a young girl before the show. An officer confronted Morrison, who was arrested on stage after he exposed himself and went on a rant against the police.”

And, as I noted when I gave this a listen, the next song, Blue Sunday, is in fact an extension of Peace Frog. The website says radio stations “usually play (it) together with Blue Sunday”. What happens is that after the trauma and Angst of Peace Frog, the song suddenly switches to a slow, organ-driven tune, with jazz-influenced drumming: “I found my own true love was on a Blue Sunday. / She looked at me and told me / I was the only, / One in the world. / Now I have found my girl. / My girl awaits for me in tender times / My girl is mine, She is the world / She is my girl. / La, la, la, la / My girl awaits for me in tender times / My girl is mine, She is the world / She is my girl.” It is a strange turn to take, after Peace Frog, but then again this reverence for a woman, this obsessive possessiveness – “my girl is mine” – is, for me, the product of a generalised respect for women, even if is couched in a respect for their sexuality. It is also the progenitor of jealousy.

A concern about the environment may seem a strange proclivity for a young rock group, but Ship Of Fools shows that even back then, pollution and the other nefarious effects of our industrialised, consumption-driven world were starting to be felt. A gentle blues number, the lyrics are stark indeed: “The human race was dyin’ out / No one left to scream and shout / People walking on the moon / Smog will get you pretty soon.” Interesting link that, between the recent technological “giant leap” to get a man on the moon, and a concern about smog. Even apparently laudatory achievements, like space travel, clearly have their drawbacks. Given the ongoing cold war, this song speaks of a global fragility. “Everyone was hanging out / Hanging up and hanging down / Hanging in and holding fast / Hope our little world will last.”  The allusion to space travel, encountered with other bands like the Moody Blues, seems to overlap with the contemporary obsession with space travel. “Yeah, along came Mr Goodtrips / Looking for a new a ship / Come on, people better climb on board / Come on, baby, now we’re going home / Ship of fools, ship of fools.”

Another journey is encountered on the famous song, Land Ho, with its organ, guitar and bass-driven rhythm, which so perfectly matches the rhythm of the lyrics. “Grandma loved a sailor, who sailed the frozen sea / Grandpa was that whaler and he took me on his knee / He said: ‘Son, I’m going crazy from livin’ on the land / Got to find my shipmates and walk on foreign sands’ ”  This has to be one of the only story-type Doors songs in the folk music tradition. “This old man was graceful with silver in his smile / He smoked a briar pipe and he walked four country miles / Singing songs of shady sisters and old time liberty / Songs of love and songs of death and songs to set men free / Ya!” So the veteran sailor prepares to set a new course: “I’ve got three ships and sixteen men / A course for ports unread / I’ll stand at mast, let north winds blow / Till half of us are dead / Land ho!” But, as with all songs about going away, back home always has its allure: “Well, if I get my hands on a dollar bill gonna buy a bottle and drink my fill / If I get my hands on a number five gonna skin that little girl alive / If I get my hand on a number two come back home and marry you / Marry you, marry you / Alright! / Land ho!” This cry, set to interesting guitarwork, creates a lovely sense of travel and arriving at a destination.

Low, slow, bluesy piano characterises the complex musical arrangement on The Spy, which again has fascinating lyrics. “I’m a spy in the house of love / I know the dream, that you’re dreamin’ of / I know the word that you long to hear / I know your deepest, secret fear.” After these lines are repeated, in a lovely warm baritone, the love-obsessed lad continues: “I know everything / Everything you do / Everywhere you go / Everyone you know.” This is scary, and smacks of stalking, or secret surveillance. But if you’ve ever had a crush on someone, perhaps the analogy is not that odd. Again, though, it is Morrison’s vocals here that transform a simple song into something timelessly brilliant. And it is the band which works so perfectly with that voice – especially the desultory drumming near the end – that give the song its unique timbre, or texture.

Quick-paced drumbeats kick Queen Of The Highwy into motion. This is another fine song with enigmatic lyrics about a relationship. It is followed by the slower Indian Summer, which has a similar gentle blues-rock quality. I see it was actually an outtake from the Doors’ debut album sessions and recorded back in 1966. The final track on the album is Maggie McGill, which starts with strident blues-rock guitar, but goes through the typical Doors gamut of surges and lulls, with slide and fuzz guitar, again beautifully understated. In all, then, a lovely bluesy album and, given classics like Roadhouse Blues, Waiting For The Sun and Land Ho, it remains one of the great albums of the era. Oh and of course the restaurant chain, Hard Rock Café, is said to have been named after the first side of the album.

L.A. Woman

It is for Riders On The Storm, Love Her Madly and the title track that L.A. Woman, released in April 1971, is best remembered. And the fact that it was the last album recorded by the band before Morrison’s death. Having not owned this album, I was interested to see that it featured a picture on the inside sleeve of a woman crucified on a telephone pole. It is fitting, perhaps, that Morrison should have gone out on such a controversial note. The music, says Wikipedia, is “arguably the most blues-like of the band’s catalogue”. But, for the first time, no concert tour following its release was arranged. Morrison had moved to Paris, where he died a few months after its release. It was ranked No 362 on Rolling Stone’s 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Surprisingly, Love Her Madly, which was very popular at the time, is not included on that Greatest Hits album. But it does have L.A. Woman, a slowish blues, with jazzy drumming. And it’s the song about the Mojo, which I hope to decipher. It seems again to be about picking up chicks. “Well, I just got into town about an hour ago / Took a look around, see which way the wind blow / Where the little girls in their Hollywood bungalows.” This has no verb, but it seemed not to have mattered, because the target was found: “Are you a lucky little lady in the City of Light / Or just another lost angel ... City of Night / City of Night, City of Night, City of Night, woo, c’mon.” Then that immortal chorus line: “L.A. Woman, L.A. Woman / L.A. Woman Sunday afternoon / L.A. Woman Sunday afternoon / L.A. Woman Sunday afternoon / Drive thru your suburbs / Into your blues, into your blues, yeah / Into your blue-blue Blues / Into your blues, ohh, yeah.” I loved the lilting melody here. Morrison was adept at making songs sound pleasant, and relishing the words he sang: “I see your hair is burnin’ / Hills are filled with fire / If they say I never loved you / You know they are a liar …” This is poor grammar – “they are a liar” – but so what, it’s called poetic licence. “Drivin’ down your freeways / Midnite alleys roam / Cops in cars, the topless bars / Never saw a woman ... / So alone, so alone / So alone, so alone / Motel Money Murder Madness / Let’s change the mood from glad to sadness.” And then comes those strange, oft-repeated lines about old Mojo. “Mr Mojo Risin’, Mr Mojo Risin’ / Mr Mojo Risin’, Mr Mojo Risin’ / Got to keep on risin’ / Mr Mojo Risin’, Mr Mojo Risin’ / Mojo Risin’, gotta Mojo Risin’ / Mr Mojo Risin’, gotta keep on risin’ …” And so on. What the heck is that all about? Well Wikipedia tells us that Mojo is “a term commonly encountered in the African-American folk belief called hoodoo. A mojo is a type of magic charm, often of red flannel cloth and tied with a drawstring, containing botanical, zoological and/or mineral curios, petition papers, and the like. It is typically worn under clothing.” Morrison clearly enjoyed the mysticism associated with the term, but I discover further that Mr Mojo Risin is an anagram for Jim Morrison. This song was a superb example of how Morrison used his voice in tandem with Kriegler’s guitar, with each playing off the other, spurring the other on.

As to the rest of the album, again, I’m sure I’d be on fairly familiar ground were I to hear The Changeline, Been Down So Long, Cars Hiss By My Window, L’America, Hyacinth House, Crawling King Snake and The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat). But it is to Riders On The Storm that we must look for the Morrison finale. This was the last track on his last album, so for sentimental reasons alone it is essential listening. I know this song has been used, in a modern format, as musical backing for some computer car-chase games. But how good to hear it in its original form. It starts with the thunderous sounds of a storm, before a slow, mellow bass and electric piano set the rhythm, which is retained virtually throughout. “Riders on the storm / Riders on the storm / Into this house we’re born / Into this world we’re thrown / Like a dog without a bone / An actor out alone / Riders on the storm.” So there we are, “thrown” into this world, alone and hungry, there to ride out the storm. And it’s not an easy ride because: “There’s a killer on the road / His brain is squirmin’ like a toad / Take a long holiday / Let your children play / If ya give this man a ride / Sweet memory will die / Killer on the road, yeah.” There are mixed messages here. A happy holiday trip seems threatened by a homicidal maniac. Then out of the blue, comes the admonition: “Girl ya gotta love your man / Girl ya gotta love your man / Take him by the hand / Make him understand / The world on you depends / Our life will never end / Gotta love your man, yeah / Wow!” Wow, indeed. This verse does seem a trifle forced, manufactured. So it’s good to return to that relentless chorus: “Riders on the storm  / Riders on the storm …” It is one of the most evocative songs in modern music. The Doors certainly did open doors into our psyches with songs like this, which somehow almost intuitively, set our souls exploring new dimensions of experience beyond the purely physical.

James Douglas Morrison

However, before I close the door, as it were, on this great band, I thought I should try to find out a bit more about Morrison himself – because without him, clearly, this phenomenon would never have happened.

He was born James Douglas Morrison on December 8, 1943, which means in 2009 he would only have been in his late-60s. But can you imagine him as an old man? Nah, like Hendrix and Joplin, his early death means, paradoxically, that he’ll stay “forever young”. He was born in Melbourne – not Australia, but Florida – to Admiral George Stephen and Clara Clarke Morrison. He had a younger sister and brother and the family were of Scots-Irish descent. It seems, according to Wikipedia, that his witnessing the aftermath of a car crash in 1947 when Native Americans were either killed or injured, had a profound effect on him. “Indians scattered on dawn’s highway bleeding / Ghosts crowd the young child’s fragile eggshell mind.” Those lines from Dawn’s Highway have echoes in several other songs and poems.

As a naval family, they often moved, and Morrison graduated from high school in Alexandria, Virginia, in June 1961. He lived with his paternal grandparents in Clearwater, Florida, where he attended college, but transferred to Florida State University. But in January 1964 he move to Los Angeles where he completed an undergraduate degree at UCLA’s film school in 1965. He made two films while there.

Then, in 1965, he and fellow student Ray Manzarek formed The Doors, and the rest, as they say, is history, albeit a very short history. Yet events or achievements, in order to achieve historical status, require that they be remarkable. Few could argue that the story of the Doors, and especially the musical legacy they have left us, more than qualifies them for recognition as one of the greatest bands of all time.

And, as Wikipedia notes in a biography on Morrison, he remains “one of the most popular and influential singers/writers in rock history… To this day he is widely regarded as the prototypical rock star: surly, sexy, scandalous and mysterious, the necessary criteria for all ‘rock gods’ to follow”.

But, as I have stressed all along, with each band covered, none of this “image” fixation, for me, is as significant as the musical substance that Morrison brought to the world. Sure this wild-god-of-rock persona was newsworthy and made him a rock icon, but the bottom line was that without his brilliance as a vocalist and songwriter, the rest would never have been possible.