Artist: The Doors
Album: The Doors (1967)
Rating: 15.5/20 16.5/20 17/20
Favourite Song: Ouch, this is really tight. Possibly "Break On Through", but "The Crystal Ship" is hypnotic

"We chased our pleasures here / We dug our treasures there / But can you still recall / The time we cried / Break on through to the other side"

The Doors' first album is widely heralded as being one of the most impressive debuts in rock history, but at the same time, a fair few members of the web-reviewing community tend to place it a couple of pegs lower than its successor, dark-psychedlia's poster-child Strange Days. After the first couple of listens, I tended to agree, and thought this album had far too much filler to be memorable. But time has changed me, it would seem, because I have a far more positive view of it now. It may still be inferior to Strange Days, I can't quite make up my mind just yet; but I do think it would be unfair to dismiss this as noticeably flawed, and I think it's quite enjoyable actually.

I can't quite imagine what things were like in 1967, what with it being the year we had Sgt. Pepper, Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, The Velvet Underground And Nico, et al. But I think The Doors was a pretty unique sound for the time - lyrically of course, we have Morrison, who some consider probably the finest poet rock had to offer, but who others spit upon as worthless, stoned-out scum. Musically, the keyboard became the centrepiece for a lot of the melodies (and oh! what melodies!), with the band forsaking a bass guitarist. Inevitably, however, all talk of the group comes down to Morrison, about whom too much has been said. I doubt very much that he wanted to become an item of such controversy (then again, knowing him, maybe not), and it's unfortunate that the band be overshadowed by one man. I guess that's just the way it goes with such things, though. My own worthless opinion on the man's abilities as a lyricist is that he's rather good - in fact, certainly one of the top ten on my list (I'm not bold enough to place him in the top five just yet). I can't say that I have read William Blake, so I can't comment on the level of similarity between the two. Suffice to say, I don't know whether one can objectively define something as poetic or not; I don't think so, I think a lot of it is based on the reader's interpretation, and as such I think some of his writings can be deemed poetry (no "rock-" prefix here). Whether he ought to be worshipped forever as some sort of demi-god is another matter entirely, and I've said before that idol-worship is probably not the smartest thing to do, but there you go.

Onto the songs. The opener is one of the more famous Doors songs, "Break On Through". In little under 2 and a half minutes, I think this encapsulates several of the best elements of the group. The melody is of course one that you will remember forever once you've heard it (a nice little story behind this, see *), nicely backed by a distorted guitar riff and those keyboards, pure gold. Lyrically this is far from Jim's most complicated piece, in fact it's one of his more concise numbers, but I find that it perfectly captures the dark mood of the album that is created in some part by the cover. You could lose yourself gazing at the cover, I think. Beginning with the powerful images of night and day ("You know the day destroys the night / Night divides the day"), the song steams to the chorus which asks us to "Break on through to the other side". I find this to be a very powerful image, and I can't quite explain why. I suppose we all attach our own meaning to lyrics, and this is no exception. I can almost feel the epiphany with lines like "Tried to run / Tried to hide / Break on through to the other side", and love the little contrasts as with

I found an island in your arms,
A country in your eyes,
Arms that chain,
Eyes that lie,
Break on through to the other side

I may be stupid for judging this my favourite song, but in part this is due to the fact that it was the song that made me interested to hear the album in the first place. Naturally I'd heard bits and pieces before, but never the whole thing, and it was this very number that lead me to take the CD and give it a listen (and I'm glad I did!)

"Soul Kitchen" is sometimes regarded as a bit of filler, but I don't think it's possible to get the keyboard riff out of your head once you hear it, it's unbelievably catchy. Admittedly, after the cold shot of "Break On Through", this may seem a little disappointing, and indeed it isn't a great song. However, I wonder we should judge this poorly just because it has the unfortunate burden of following up a great track, hmm? In fact, one could accuse this of being nothing terribly more than a catchy pop song, and well, the thing is that The Doors really did start off as an "edgy" pop-band, or so I am told. It was only till they performed The End in all its glory that they realized what path they wanted to follow. So their debut does have a lot of songs that perhaps aren't one's typical idea of a Doors song: no complicated lyrics about death and horses drowning in the water here!

The next number is the extremely impressive "The Crystal Ship", a gorgeous, almost hypnotic ballad with some great vocals from Morrison. Certainly featuring some of the more interesting lyrics off the album, this is almost like a dark-lullably (I've figured out the key reasoning behind my Doors analysis - stick a "dark" in front of anything!). The melody works very well in this song, and the piano just helps create this other-worldly atmosphere. Lines like "The days are bright / And filled with pain / Enclose me in your gentle rain" are the sort that just stick in my head, as is the plea "Deliver me from reasons why / You'd rather cry, I'd rather fly".

I'll be darned if I know what the crystal ship is meant to represent, though. What I think of is something pure and beautiful, yet fragile too (like the very song itself); and the song certainly does deal with love, probably being lost with time (as the woman "slips into unconsciousness", the narrator wants "Another kiss / Another flashing chance at bliss"). Regardless, I adore this number, even if I am somewhat mystified about what it all means. Hypnotic is really the best way to describe it, actually, so perhaps I ought to have left it right there.

Then we have another perceived drop, with "Twentieth Century Fox", a rather tame follow-up. But yet again, I think it mostly struggles under the burden of expectation - the melody isn't all too bad, really, although the lyrics aren't all that memorable. Chalk up another pop-song, but it isn't all that bad really. It's interesting to wonder how such a song would have been treated in a different album. After all, the song is fairly catchy, and the keyboard is pretty good too. Am I being too unfair on the poor Doors? I wonder.

A strange yet charming cover of the Brecht/Weil song "Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)" follows. For starters, it's insanely catchy (like a lot of stuff here), especially with the "And if we don't find the next whiskey bar / I tell you we must die" parts. The keyboard bridge is also very simple but oh so effective, as Morrison starts telling the moon of Alabama that it knows why they must have whiskey. Heh, that sounded silly, eh? Give it a try, it's fun! Again, some would call this filler, but I don't see too many problems with it. It's hardly overlong, and the melody is certainly distinctive; I think the problem with judging this album is deciding whether you judge it with the view that it was groundbreaking. With this criteria, perhaps numbers like these are insignificant compared to the "big ones". Although, it was certainly an interesting choice of song to cover; while other groups were turning to the old R&B classics, not too many were interpreting German composers (and certainly not with such a catchy result!) As you've no doubt noticed, however, this is no proper review, and so I ignore such decisions in favour of doing what I feel is right. Always the right way to go, right?

I suppose "Light My Fire" would have to be the Doors' most well-known song, and I pity anyone who hasn't heard the intro at least once (no, not really, but I like broad, sweeping, semi-elitist statements). However, most people probably know it through the edited, radio-friendly version, not its 7-minute cousin here, featuring a lengthy organ and guitar solo. I have to admit (don't hate me here), I think this version is slightly overlong. A fair bit of the solo doesn't do too much for me - it's only when the guitar comes in that things start to get interesting, but otherwise I tend to switch off and lose interest. Yet another indication of my true immaturity as a music-listener. But all is not lost! One can sit through the whole thing, for sure. And it's worth it, if only to hear Jim shout out "Come on baby light my fiiiiire". That ending is priceless! I really like Jim's vocals, even if they can be somewhat limited - passionate is what that scream is.

The blues-cover "Back Door Man" initially seemed like the perfect chance for me to remark "Ah, ok, yet another reason why this album is no good". After all, the blues and I don't get along so good. But after a few listens, I am absolutely flustered, because this song is just so catchy it's not funny. The repetitive organ and piano line keep on comin', and Morrison really lets it all out with the vocals here, making it clear in no uncertain terms that he is a back door man. Who'd have thought the blues could be so endearing to me of all people?! A miracle is what it is. I have to stress how good the vocals are here, Morrison gives the blues a wonderful treatment. I mentioned the scream at the end of "Light My Fire" was passionate, well, that same passion is present in great abundance in this song too.

"I Looked At You" is often maligned as being trite pop-nonsense, but it's something of a guilty pleasure for me. I can actually see that the album's overall rating might hinge on whether one pronounces such numbers as stinkers or not. As with quite a few of the songs on here, I don't think it's another "Crystal Ship", but at the same time I find a discernible melody and find the lyrics quite unoffensive really. Ok, so maybe they are a tad silly and repetitive (I walked with you / You walked with me
I talked to you / You talked to me..ok, maybe really silly and repetitive), but I can sit through this stuff well enough. Classic Doors it is not, but classic trash it is not either.

The next song is the downright creepy "End Of The Night", which for some reason makes me think of large spiders just waiting to get me. I propose that this is a result of the song reminding me to "Spidergawk!" off one of Jerry Garcia's solo albums. Anyhow, this is another dark-lullaby, with deathly slow vocals and a delightful (if scary) hook. Lyrically it features such memorable lines like "Some are born to sweet delight / Some are born to the endless night", which again isn't top-drawer Morrison, but as a song it all just comes together.

The opening lines to "Take It As It Comes" are nicely done ("Time to live / Time to lie / Time to laugh / Time to die"), but I think the rest of the sing is a bit too rushed. A pity, really, because I think they could've made this into something good.

Ah, at last, what we've all really been waiting for, the Doors' most famous 11 minute epic, "The End", where Jim's poetic madness really comes through. The only problem with the song is that the instrumentation is, for the most part, not varied enough. It's only at the end that it really starts to shift tempo, but otherwise it's largely the same. Whether that matters depends on whether you hang on Morrison's every word or not. I find the lyrics to be interesting for the most part - the intro is beautiful, much like it was the first song, although here it's because of the simplicity.

This is the end, beautiful friend
This is the end, my only friend, the end
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

Perhaps it requires the listener to be in the sort of state where (s)he wants to believe that it's really the end. I find it really soothing (is that perverse or what?) hearing Morrison proclaim that it's "the end of everything that stands". That's all, no more, it's all over. And of course one can't help but admire the "my only friend" bit, that's just beautiful. The song was of course featured in the opening of Apocalypse Now, which seems rather fitting. I haven't seen the movie, so I can only imagine what the opening must be like, but that's where many people were introduced to this song. It's funny how putting a song as the backdrop to particularly potent images can give it a whole new meaning, eh?

But after the nice intro, the song starts to lose its way a bit. It's more a vehicle for Jim's poetry than anything else - no catchy hooks or the like to grab your attention, you pretty much have to be content listening to Jim recite the whole thing. It is no painful task, of course; there are plenty of interesting lines, my favourite being "All the children are insane, waiting for the summer rain". It sounds profound, and in some ways I can understand what he means. I don't know what he intended with those lines, but I am able to make some strange sense of it. But there are others like "Weird scenes inside the gold mine" that even I can't attach a meaning too, but that's ok, it's still unforgettable. It seems like a lot of the song is like this, with lots of phrases and images that sound so "weird" and yet so beautiful at the same time. A product of madness or genius!

The famed Oedipus section is thankfully not present in its full glory, it was probably a bit too shocking to include unedited, but there is enough to make one either uncomfortable (or interested). There are still timeless images, such as "The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on / He took a face from the ancient gallery", which are really in a world of their own. Such imagery takes me back to places and times in my past, and it's really amazing what meanings one can attach to carefully chosen images and phrases, isn't it? The rest is a bit unnerving, as the killer goes down the hall to his parents' room. The whole section is over with soon enough, and it's a good thing too, for I don't think I could stomach a drawn out, unedited version..

Towards the end we finally get a change in tempo, but alas it is a case of too little too late I feel. The saving grace is that Morrison still has a few lyrical tricks up his sleeve, and the song ends with possibly my favourite line:

The end of laughter and soft lies,
The end of nights we tried to die,
This is the end

The end of nights we tried to die, call me insane here but I think that's brilliant. Perhaps it takes a brooding, once manic-depressive to understand it though.

Anyhow, thus ends one of rock's more famous and impressive debuts. In over forty minutes, one probably gets the feeling that the group could have done a bit more - the talent is definitely here, but the overall mood is damped somewhat by a couple of relatively inferior numbers. Hmm, maybe the critics were right after all, and Strange Days is superior..we'll get to that later on. This album does have more than its fair share of interesting numbers though. Morrison the lyricist did burst into the scene primarily with the bombast of "The End", but there are others on here that display his talent not just for lyrics, but for solid melodies as well. A lot of the stuff here is so catchy, it's amazing! Although, it isn't the easiest listen, and some of the songs ("Back Door Man", f'rinstance) take a while to get under your skin. And when they do..oh! You too will want to shout. The rating may be a little low (is this better than On The Beach?), but heck it's just a number after all. (On reconsideration, I've decided to upgrade the rating, because I really like this album. I may as well be honest rather than think about what the rating "ought" to be, eh?) Suffice to say, this is a pretty interesting album that captures my attention for the most part, although maybe in purely objective terms it can't be considered fantastic. With Strange Days, of course, most people think the Doors got rid of all the flaws with this album, and came up with a masterpiece. My own thoughts on the matter will set the record straight sometime in the next few months (or years, depending on whether I really want to get around to it).

* I once read a review of Stephen Stills' Long May You Run. A reviewer at CDUniverse said that once you heard the title song's melody, "it will stay with you forever". Naturally, till this day, it has. So I couldn't resist playing the same game with you, gentle reader.

It takes me at least an hour to write these musings, and when I'm done I'm often surpirsed at how little there really is. I think I just have fundamental troubles when writing about music.