The Doors

 

On a whim last week I decided to listen to all the Doors releases with Jim Morrison singing, in chronological order, one album a day.

 

Why?

 

Well, way back in the day I was really into their music for about nine months, beginning in the winter of 1987. Back then, Morrison had only been dead for 17 years, so it would be like one of my daughters doing a deep dive into the music of Michael Jackson today. I had a couple of cassettes, some recordings off the local FM station, and No One Here Gets Out Alive, a biography of Morrison Santa brought me two years earlier.

 

In addition to the nostalgia factor, I wanted to see if the music still held up. Every now and then I hear “Light My Fire” or “Soul Kitchen” from the Alexa in the upstairs bathroom when occupied by my daughters, and I scratch my chin and say to myself, “I should listen to some Doors.” So I did.

 

Additionally, there was the possibility that I might uncover a hidden gem or two. Over their six studio albums they recorded 62 songs. I could probably name 20 off the top of my head, and probably 20 more I’d recall on re-hearing, but there still would be about a third of their total song count that could sound fresh to my ears.

 

So I listened to six albums over five days, some while working and some while walking, and enjoyed it immensely.

 

What did I learn?

 

In a little over four years, from January 1967 to April 1971, The Doors released six studio albums. Jim Morrison died on July 3, 1971, two and a half months after their final, L.A. Woman was released, and the remaining three members reworked semi-finished songs and released them as Other Voices in August of 1971, and followed that with the album Full Circle in August of 1972. I did not listen to these albums.

 

Of the six “canonical” Doors albums, I rank them in this personal preference:

 

   L.A. Woman (1971)

 

   The Doors (1967)

 

   Strange Days (1967)

 

   Morrison Hotel (1970)

 

   Waiting for the Sun (1968)

 

   The Soft Parade (1969)

 

 

 

But it’s only a ranking for the sake of making a ranking. Every album has great songs; every album has mediocre songs.

 

My favorite tunes have not changed. I think I’ve posted about them here at the Hopper, but for the record, my top tens would probably be something like

 

   “LA Woman”

 

   “Soul Kitchen”

 

   “Strange Days”

 

   “Moonlight Drive”

 

   “When the Music’s Over”

 

   “Waiting for the Sun”

 

   “Peace Frog”

 

   “Hello I Love You”

 

   “Five to One”

 

   “Wild Child”

 

 

 

I came away with three uncovered gems, “gems” in this case being songs I didn’t recall hearing before that stuck with me after the music was over. They are

 

   “Summer’s Almost Gone” off Waiting for the Sun

 

   “Wishful Sinful” off The Soft Parade

 

   “Hyacinth House” off L.A. Woman

 

 

 

Of the three, I find “Hyacinth House” unusually haunting. There’s that A-minor chord, there’s Morrison hitting some really low notes, there’s a neat little organ solo, and there’s kind of a plaintive cry for help as the chorus wraps up at the end of the song. I can’t shake it for some reason.

 

It was an enjoyable experience. If you like to do similar things I recommend it. The Doors were never my favorite band, but I did have a phase right after high school and I associate a lot of fun memories with their tunes. The more I grew musically the more I realized how Morrison totters along the fine edge of just staying in tune, and the older I get the more cringy I find his whole “lizard king” schtick to be. But it all worked. The faux poetry, the baritone tightrope, the carnivalesque keyboards, the jazzy drumming, and Robby Krieger’s superb and underappreciated guitar work (mostly done on a Gibson SG, my first true love in my life). It works.

 

I started doing a similar thing with Johnny Winter. I had his 1973 blues album just after this Doors phase, given to me by my lead guitarist way back then, that I listened to it a lot that summer. But I never really got into the man and his music. So I’ll do a walk through his catalogue and write down any songs I like and thoughts I come across, to be posted at a later date.

 

Happy listening!