Terry K. Fultepth’s Superlative Album Guides Presents: The Superlative Album Guide to the Doors, by Gary
(above: The Doors)
Is there a human being in the entire world who doesn’t love the legendary music group known (and loved) the world over as The Doors? The answer is: yes. Stephanie Harsten of Dover Beach, MD.
But even though the rest of us love them, a lot of us only know the “hits,” or the songs that appeared on Friends, or “Riders on the Storm,” or maybe we just like the pictures on the album covers. Which is fine and I’m not getting on your case! But for the extra-curious — not to say the adventurous! — I (me) would like to present you with my E-Z guide to the disco-graphy of what is truly history’s finest pop combo: Tears for Fe— I mean The Doors.
THE DOORS: THE DOORS (196?): First up is the Doors’s first album entitled, simply, The Doors, released in the nineteen-sixties to wild acclaim and even wilder sales at the box office. Before getting into the music, however, let’s look at the cover.
As you can see it’s an album cover that’s all about FACES. Four faces, to be exact, though as Dale Carnegie once uttered, “All faces are not created equal” and such is the case with these faces because one is considerably larger than the others. The biggest face, obviously, goes to singer Jim “Van” Morrison because as the singer of the band he uses his mouth (which is on the face) more than the other members. If this cover had featured hands instead of faces, his hands would have been the smallest because the only thing he uses his hands for is holding the microphone. And clapping, maybe. But it’s faces and his is biggest.
As for the music, well, there’s no question that the music on this album is of the Good variety. In fact, all of the songs are good. If you had to pick a bad one, you’d be s#&!t out of luck because none of them are bad.
The first good song is called “Break On Through” and that’s just what it does: it breaks you through to the second song which is called “Soul Kitchen” which is all about FOOD. Now, a lot of great songs have been written about food (“Potatoes,” “Hamburgers,” “Carrot Cake”, “Chicken Salad,” the list goes on…), but few feature such great singing as this one. When Jim intones, “The cars crawl past all stuffed with ice” your stomach starts growling because he has such a great voice and also there’s organ and everybody knows the stomach is an organ, too.
Another song on The Doors is called “Twentieth Century Fox” which is a play on words because it can mean either the famous movie studio or the animal. The Doors hail from California (I think) so they were very familiar with the movie business and they even made a movie about their lives (coincidentally named after this, their first, album) and drummer John Densmore was a bit of a movie star himself, having appeared in such TV programs as Beverly Hills 90210 and no others, as far as I know. The “fox” part is a metaphor for surviving in the wilderness, tying it into other 60’s wild-animals-in-the-wild songs like “Gorillas” and “A Bear” and “Potatoes.”
Another song on this one is called “I Looked At You” and it’s really good. All the other songs are really good, too. But it’s time to move onto Album #2!
THE DOORS: STRANGE DAYS (1967): After their first album (The Doors) was such a big, big success, it was time for the band to make another album. The hope was that the music would be as good as it was on the first one. Lucky for us, the listener, it was.
The first song on Strange Days, unlike the first song on The Doors, is called “Strange Days.” It achieves its “strange” effect by using an organ and having singer Jim sing through some kind of glass tube with water in it. This song was a big hit for Herb Alpert several years later (retitled “Belz Mein Shtetele Belz”).
All of the tunes on this second album feature sad lyrics, which tells us that all was not well with The Doors at this time. (I never thought I’d say this, but “lighten up, Doors!” j/k) Take for example, “Unhappy Girl.” It might as well have been called “Sad Girl” because aside from being unhappy, the girl in this song could only be described as SAD.
Also sad is the song “Horse Latitudes.” The title might be a typo because the song seems to be more about “attitudes” than “latitudes” (whatever those are!!) and these horses attitudes are of a distinctly sad nature. Why? Because they’re getting thrown into the sea to drown.
Keeping up the sad mood are the songs “My Eyes Have Seen You” and “I Can’t See Your Face In My Mind.” You’ll notice, both songs have to do with seeing things. Except in the one song, it’s in the past tense that the seeing is happening and in the other it’s actually about NOT being able to see something (in your mind), suggesting that by the end of the album somebody has gone blind (figuratively). If there’s anything almost as sad as a dead horse, it’s blindness, and don’t The Doors know it!
Appropriately, the last song is called “When the Music’s Over” and when this song is over, so is the music on the album. Pianist Ray Manzanera famously said of this song, “It is ten minutes and fifty-eight seconds long.”
In conclusion, Strange Days is a great album and a great addition to your music collection. Buy it here. But now it’s time to head into Album #3 territory!
THE DOORS: WAITING FOR THE SUN (1900’s) As everyone knows, the third album by a band is usually the best. Examples are many and I’m sure you can think of some on your own. In the case of The Doors, though, the third album was not only the best, it was also the shortest (a little over 19 minutes long), and also a big hit just like their previous efforts and sealed their reputation as America’s premiere answer to the Beatles, Stones and Bob Dylan. And the answer was? The Doors!
Once again, looking at the album cover, one notices that there are some new faces in the lineup. Gone is fan-favorite Rob Henfritch and in his place we have F. Todd Bentsen. On keys. This lineup would prove to be the most dynamic version of the by-now-famous-around-the-world-for-their-great-songs-and-exciting-concerts-and-backstage-antics Doors. It would also be the only one to feature a full-time drummer (guitarist Benjamin Slatterly).
Like their second and first albums, respectively, all the songs on Waiting for the Sun (excellent title, by the way) are excellent. “Unknown Soldier,” about not knowing much about history (much like the classic song “Don’t Know Much About History”) is excellent. “Love Street,” about a real street in Milwaukee where singer Jimmy Morrison lived, is truly excellent. “Five to One,” named after the scientific ratio of human fingers to human hands, is 100% excellent. “My Wild Love,” “We Could Be So Good Together” and “Summer’s Almost Gone” are all equally as excellent as the aforementioned songs. If I’ve forgotten any other songs, let me know, but I assure you: they are no less than very excellent.
The only problem with Waiting for the Sun is the shape: unlike most Doors albums, this one is not circular but triangular. Not sure what point they were trying to make, but circles and triangles are not the same and if they were ever in a fight for which one is better, I’m sorry to say this but, the triangle would not win.
All the same, The Doors never made a bad record, and this isn’t one of them!
Tomorrow: we review the next bunch of Doors albums!, including The Soft Parade, Pickin’ Up The Pieces, and Jim Morrison’s Hotel. P.S.: I don’t have these!!! If you do, send them ASAP!!!!!
