The Official Doors Thread

[The Real McCoy]

In addition to everything else they achieved, they were one of the best Blues bands ever. Like Hendrix and the Stones, they had their own spin on it. Also, I never buy the line that Jim was not a good singer. His voice had a beautiful, deep tone and he was versatile. He could sing gentle, poem-like ballads and do Howlin' Wolf style belting with the best of em.

Jim was authentic. No doubt about it.

[Guest Len B'stard]

In addition to everything else they achieved, they were one of the best Blues bands ever. Like Hendrix and the Stones, they had their own spin on it. Also, I never buy the line that Jim was not a good singer. His voice had a beautiful, deep tone and he was versatile. He could sing gentle, poem-like ballads and do Howlin' Wolf style belting with the best of em.

Definitely! And the beauty of it all is that it weren't the only string to their bow. Most bands, if they're lucky, will nail one style of music primarily and that'll be their lot but The Doors kinda had a foot in each door and not only that but were like, among the best in each of those little niches.

You could tie em into like, acid rock and psychedelic shit and they were among the best of em and substancial with it, it weren't wishy washy. Then the Blues, then that whole poetry in rock angle, then pop music, i mean fuck me, Light My Fire (the radio edit at least), Touch Me, Break On Through, pure fuckin pop songs and brilliant with it. There was touches of jazz in there and, y'know, all sorts, i really hate this notion that they're some puerile fuckin stoner band that anybody over the age of 13 should be ashamed of listening too, goes to show how damaging mythology can be to a band or the deification of a particular member. Basically people judge The Doors music cuz Morrison weren't fuckin Keats and they think his poetry is like, lame, thats the feeling i get. And i'm someone who thinks his poetry was majestic. I mean don't get me wrong, he weren't no Walt Whitman but for what he was and where he was and what he was supposed to be doing it certainly raised the fuckin bar somewhat in terms of standards expected from rock lyricists.

[Chinaski]

I don't get it when people criticize Morrison for writing high-school poetry (or usually some variation on those words.) I have read his poetry and don't often think much of it, although he quite clearly has a way with words. What is grown up poetry anyway? Who wants middle-aged poetry? Granted it becomes pretty self-indulgent but the music has a lot of drama (and at times melodrama in it) and it all came with some heavy doses of grandeur. Having said that, as people mentioned above, they could still be an out and out great blues band when they wanted to. I think their Back Door Man is sexy as fuck.

The thing is, Jim died age twenty seven, every single thing you have by him, every single thing you can cross reference amongst his output was created by a very young man and it is quite easy for forget that I think. It always amuses me in Doors biographies when they go on about 'periods' where they were struggling to come up with new material. To them it may have seemed like that, but they released a string of fucking great albums in a really short space of time. What's that new incredibly dull Greil Marcus book say? Something about a lifetime of listening to five years of music. That is all it was. Five years. Magic.

I saw ROTS a couple of years back, and watching Manzerak and Krieger interact with each other was still something pretty special. It made me want to be in a band just to have that level of cohesiveness with someone else.

I've got that record where there is sort of a mish-mash of Jim's voice over music the Doors put in but never really thought much of it. Other than that I have never really sought anything post Jim a chance nor does it really figure in my brain as anything to do with The Doors for some reason.

Edited May 23, 2012 by Chinaski

[Guest Len B'stard]

I don't get it when people criticize Morrison for writing high-school poetry (or usually some variation on those words.) I have read his poetry and don't often think much of it, although he quite clearly has a way with words. What is grown up poetry anyway? Who wants middle-aged poetry?

The idea basically is that poetry is something that is refined, worked over, obssessed over, pored over and your more high school type poetry is just, it gives the feeling of reeled off prose but see, Morrison considered himself in the Kerouacian tradition of like, spontaeneous prose and also, in the mans own words "poetry doesn't really have to say anything, it just ticks off the possibilities" which says more about his work than any one statement, i think. The Lords i think, particularly out of his works, is quite brilliant, the observations on cinema and the camera and what-not.

The thing is, Jim died age twenty seven, every single thing you have by him, every single thing you can cross reference amongst his output was created by a very young man and it is quite easy for forget that I think. It always amuses me in Doors biographies when they go on about 'periods' where they were struggling to come up with new material. To them it may have seemed like that, but they released a string of fucking great albums in a really short space of time. What's that new incredibly dull Greil Marcus book say? Something about a lifetime of listening to five years of music. That is all it was. Five years. Magic.

I think when the various books say that they say it with a view to the prodigious level of output that bands of that time generally had. i mean compared to nowadays, The Doors really belted em out. I mean The Beatles had 6 months off before Sgt Peppers, it was 6 months in the making i believe and people were like, y'know, it was considered a fair timespan. Fuck me, they should have a word with Axl

I've got that record where there is sort of a mish-mash of Jim's voice over music the Doors put in but never really thought much of it.

You mean American Prayer? God, i fuckin' loved that!

[Chinaski]

Morrison considered himself in the Kerouacian tradition of like, spontaeneous prose and also, in the mans own words "poetry doesn't really have to say anything, it just ticks off the possibilities" which says more about his work than any one statement, i think.

Did he say that? That's an interesting line and certainly says a lot. He does kind of sketch rather than specify. I have never seen him to have much in common with Kerouac in a linguistic sense but certainly you can tell spiritually they were on the same page. Morrison seems to covert more classical sounding images to my mind. Rimbaud never thought his writing was abstract because it was just how he saw and presented things.

You mean American Prayer? God, i fuckin' loved that!

Yeah that's the one. Do you ever go into a record with preconceptions and find it hard to shake them? I had bought The Doors boxset with all the full albums in then tracked that down afterwards so I probably was already just thinking of it as not a real album. Then I had already heard lots of the words on it elsewhere so it just seemed a little irrelevant to me. I remember thinking that what they had done to Awake (I think it's called that - the 'shake dreams from your hair' poem) was pretty funky.

I always loved Orange County Suite as one of the bonus tracks on L.A Woman (I think). I know plenty of people think it's kind of plodding and aimless but it's almost hypnotic in its rhythms and kind of pretty relaxing but still stirring something. I have always thought Yes, The River Knows and The Spy showed what a rich voice he had at times.

I think when the various books say that they say it with a view to the prodigious level of output that bands of that time generally had. i mean compared to nowadays, The Doors really belted em out. I mean The Beatles had 6 months off before Sgt Peppers, it was 6 months in the making i believe and people were like, y'know, it was considered a fair timespan. Fuck me, they should have a word with Axl

Perhaps it also comes from them struggling to nail down a studio version of Celebration of the Lizard and having to quickly bash out some other songs instead. Personally I always thought the version on Absolutely Live was actually pretty great.

[Guest Len B'stard]

Did he say that? That's an interesting line and certainly says a lot. He does kind of sketch rather than specify. I have never seen him to have much in common with Kerouac in a linguistic sense but certainly you can tell spiritually they were on the same page. Morrison seems to covert more classical sounding images to my mind. Rimbaud never thought his writing was abstract because it was just how he saw and presented things.

I believe the exact quote is something like "listen, real poetry doesn't say anything, it just ticks off the possibilitys, open every door and choose which one you wanna walk through" or something along those lines. There's a school of thought that the guy was just like, trying to be Neal Cassady, that is to say Dean Moriarty. But yeah, says a great deal about his style.

Yeah that's the one. Do you ever go into a record with preconceptions and find it hard to shake them? I had bought The Doors boxset with all the full albums in then tracked that down afterwards so I probably was already just thinking of it as not a real album. Then I had already heard lots of the words on it elsewhere so it just seemed a little irrelevant to me. I remember thinking that what they had done to Awake (I think it's called that - the 'shake dreams from your hair' poem) was pretty funky.

American Prayer was the first Doors thing i ever had so i didn't really suffer so much from what you're describing but i can see how it would if i'd not've listened to them in the order that i did.

always loved Orange County Suite as one of the bonus tracks on L.A Woman (I think). I know plenty of people think it's kind of plodding and aimless but it's almost hypnotic in its rhythms and kind of pretty relaxing but still stirring something. I have always thought Yes, The River Knows and The Spy showed what a rich voice he had at times.

I REALLY loved Rock is Dead? Thought it was magnificent. And yeah, the richness of Jimbo's voice, shines through in like, The Spy, Queen of the Highway, or Blue Monday...Spanish Caravan is fuckin orgasmic, it's like waves of music that Jims voice just rides, it's beautiful. Or that one that goes "da-da-ra dance m'dear, winters so cold this year and you are so warm my wintertime love to me" And Blue Monday. He could do his shit without music, just pure vocals and it was the fucking mutts nuts, like that Bird of Prey thing. Brilliant.

Perhaps it also comes from them struggling to nail down a studio version of Celebration of the Lizard and having to quickly bash out some other songs instead. Personally I always thought the version on Absolutely Live was actually pretty great.

i dunno if i remember this correctly cuz i'm getting on a bit but there's um, wasn't there some kind of thing where Jimbo wanted it to be part of a much longer sort of opus piece set to music cuz if you read the entire piece that COTL was extracted from it's a lot longer and the boys kinda balked and going that far out with the whole thing and that was a bit of thing between em all.