Music today was The Doors’ fifth album, Morrison Hotel (1970), recorded in 1969, although it opens with what I thought wasn’t one of my favourite Doors songs, Roadhouse Blues, I liked it tonight. The second track Waiting For The Sun is oddly placed, written at the time of the album of the same name (their third) but not used. Back to freaky beat band basic with You Make Me Real followed by Peace Frog, “Indians scattered on dawn’s highway bleeding. Ghosts crowd the young child’s fragile, egg-shell mind”.

Unique with Morrison‘s charismatic persona, voice and poetic lyrics, the distinctive organ of Ray Manzarek, John Densmore’s tuned-in drumming and Robby Krieger’s searching, creative guitar. The odd idea that the bass was either played on the organ or a guest seemed unusual but also helped set them apart. The lovely Blue Sunday is followed by Ship Of Fools where he sings, “The human race is dying out” and it seems that the album is almost alternately sequenced for driving uptempo rock songs and moody tangents. The macabre, fairground sound of Manzarek’s keys in Land Ho! gives the band such a distinctive sound and it seems that this album always has somebody in the band doing something interesting, although not always at the same time and whilst always achieving that rock band accessibility.

Purely coincidentally, the next song, The Spy, was originally called A Spy In The House Of Love after the book by Anaïs Nin, released in 1954, I happen to be reading her Under A Glass Bell (1944) at the moment. Queen Of The Highway (“He was a monster dressed in black leather, she was a princess Queen Of The Highway” – There’s always something dark going on with Morrison and even if a song has a formulated structure that darkness breaks on through. Indian Summer sounds creepy even when he says, “I love you the best, better than all the rest”. The last track, Maggie McGill, has you worried for her from the moment Morrison opens his mouth. Disturbing hidden in the naive normal of the sixties.

Music Of The Daze

The musical musings in this post are an excerpt from my daily blog, TO WHERE I AM NOW, featured on my main website. See more pictures and read the full post here.