In 1965, two guys who had known each other from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) ran into each other on Venice Beach. They had known each other casually in college, but they were acquainted well enough to stop and chat. One of them described his post-college poetry and songwriting efforts. The other young man was intrigued enough to suggest they form a band.
The poet and songwriter was named Jim Morrison. The listener was Ray Manzarek. The two decided that starting a band was indeed a good idea, and with Morrison on vocals and Manzarek on keyboards, they recruited John Densmore for drums and Robby Krieger for guitar. The band formed, calling themselves Rick & the Ravens, but in October of 1965, around the time I was enjoying my fourth birthday, Jim Morrison suggested a new name.
That name? The Doors. They hit it big in 1967, with songs from their first album, The Doors, blasting them onto the charts. They played, from success to success, until Jim Morrison’s sudden death at age 27.
Now, there’s no way I could limit The Doors to six songs. I barely managed to scratch it down to eight. Here they are.
The End (1967): This tune began while the band was playing live sets at a Los Angeles club called Whisky a Go Go, which is about as 1960s as you can get in that groovy scene. Jim Morrison reportedly intended the song to be a farewell to his girlfriend Mary Werbelow, but it ended up meaning whatever people interpreted it to be – mostly a song about death. That’s suitable, when you consider the somewhat doleful sound of the song.
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Love Me Two Times (1967): Now this one is a little more cheerful. Written by guitar player Robby Krieger, after Ray Manzarek pleaded with the band members to write some more songs. Krieger came up with not only this tune but also the fabulous Light My Fire in about an hour.
Break On Through (1967): If I had to pick one favorite from The Doors, I think this might be it. This was the first song on The Doors' first album, their first single, and when it started blowing up Los Angeles radio stations, that was the band’s big break. Jim Morrison, who wrote the song, later made some vivid remarks about it:People Are Strange (1967): Boy, if being in my line of work won’t make you realize how much truth is packed in that lyric, I don’t know what might. This is a fun song, but it started with Jim Morrison confessing his fight with depression to Robbie Krieger:In 1967, Jim Morrison did an interview with Hit Parader magazine where he said that he wrote this song while crossing canals in Venice. "I was walking over a bridge," he said. "I guess it's one girl, a girl I knew at the time."
Jim Morrison was depressed. He went to Robby Krieger's house, they went to a canyon to watch a sunset, at which time Jim realized he was depressed because "if you're strange, people are strange." He then wrote the rest of the lyrics, which are about feeling alienated.
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Light My Fire (1967): Robby Kreiger wrote this one, looking at a song about one of the elements, fire, air, earth and water. He later said:
Gloria (1969): This one’s actually a cover of a Van Morrison song. It’s generally seen with a release date of 1983, which is odd because Jim Morrison had been dead for some time by then; we do know that The Doors appeared live with Van Morrison’s band Them in 1966, and they did this song, among others.L.A. Woman (1971): One of the recurring lines in this song, “Mr. Mojo Risin,” is an anagram for Jim Morrison. Years after the song was written, Ray Manzarek said about the tune:I was living with my parents in Pacific Palisades – I had my amp and SG. I asked Jim, what should I write about? He said, 'Something universal, which won't disappear two years from now. Something that people can interpret themselves.' I said to myself I'd write about the four elements; earth, air, fire, water, I picked fire, as I loved the Stones song, 'Play With Fire,' and that's how that came about.
A song about driving madly down the LA freeway - either heading into LA or going out on the 405 up to San Francisco. You're a beatnik on the road, like Kerouac and Neal Cassady, barreling down the freeway as fast as you can go.
This song, interestingly, was only performed live once, in a performance at the State Fair Music Hall in Dallas, Texas.
Riders On The Storm (1971): This was, sadly, the last song Jim Morrison recorded. It was released as a single a few weeks before his death. Morrison, who also wrote this one, described it as autobiographical; the line “there’s a killer on the road” was a reference to a screenplay he had written, called The Hitchhiker.The Doors were near-omnipresent when I was young. They still pop up on playlists and soundtracks today. Anyone who is into rock & roll has an opinion about The Doors and some favorite tunes from this groundbreaking band.
Well, go on. Tell us your opinions, your stories, and your favorite songs by The Doors. The comments, once more, are all yours.
