The original Doors album is over 40 years old, but that did not stop Elektra from remastering this magical classic for die-hard fans from the hippie era. The remix brings back the original speeds, correct pitch and questionable original lyrics which were altered on the 1967 initial release. The Doors are considered the group that started the counter-culture music movement of the 60s and why this collection containing all the favorites should be included on every collector's shelf.
The wonderful thing about this remaster is we have several great photos, a biography and lyrics for the songs included. All the favorites are here including Break On Through (To the other Side). It is helpful to understand at this point that the Doors took their group name from the infamous English writer Aldous Huxley's 1954 book on mescaline use "The Doors of Perception." The writer most famous for the classic Brave New World, tells us here, "if the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite." This is the overall theme for the Doors' mysticism, humanism and non-violent Take it As It Comes philosophy.
The Doors by the Doors contains 11 hits and 3 bonus tracks.
Soul Kitchen is my favorite because of the great organ/keyboard entry into the song. "Well the clock says its time to close now, I guess I better go now." If songs, like film noir, can have a dark side, then the Doors definitely generate that kind of genre. The songs reflect the band's psychodelic drug use and what made the tunes so unusual and one of kind in its day. We simply had never heard anything like this kind of mind-altering music before nor does it exist today since we now understand the idiotic perils of LSD use.
The radio stations could never get enough out of The End and its 11-minute dramatic soul wrenching guitar-sitar sound which was so traumatic it was included in the war-time classic movie Apocalypse Now. The lyrics "This is the end, my only friend, the end," might have been laughingly delightful as a 60s teenager to sing along to but are near impossible to bear as an aging old Bohemian today.
The Crystal Ship which has new meaning for a younger generation, was more of a poem directed towards groupies way back when. One thing about Los Angeles bands from the 60s, they were literature lovers and experts at nonsense language. Of course, the lyrics made perfect sense to anyone who was an insider or stoned or both.
Everyone's favorite is Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar) written by Kurt Weill and Bertholdt Brecht accompanied by the baroque organ with a kind of polka parody sound. The words to this song are conspicuously absent from the jacket insert. "Show me the way to the next whiskey bar, oh don't ask why."
Twentieth Century Fox was written by Jim Morrison, lead singer, for his girlfriend Pamela Courson. He died at the age of 27 in 1971 in Paris where his cause of death is still shrouded in mystery.
Robby Krieger, guitar, helped write Light My Fire, which was Billboard's number one hit. "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." It was lyrics like those that drove television and radio hosts bonkers. It is said Ed Sullivan refused to shake hands with the group after an appearance because they refused to alter the words for the show (The Doors autobiography, 2006 Hyperion Publishing).
John Densmore plays drums and Ray Manzarek, keyboard. Ray met Jim Morrison at UCLA in Southern California. While Jim studied film, Ray dropped out of law school to enlist in the Army and was sent to Thailand where he further imploded his mental outlook. The two met up once again at Venice Beach in 1965 and the rest is history. The group went on to make six albums. They have a website at http://www.thedoors.com which is as complicated and fraught with complexity as their minds apparently.
Since this is a new release of an older album it is easy to find and relatively inexpensive. Still, pound for head-pound, worth every penny since it will definitely take you back to a lost place in time.
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