#93. The Doors | The Doors (1967)

★★★★★    

I have definitely questioned some of the albums that I've had to listen to so far, but there is no question here.  The debut album by The Doors is absolutely a MUST-LISTEN-TO.  Before the album's release, The Doors were the house band at the legendary West Hollywood nightclub Whiskey a Go Go and got a record deal with Elektra after then president Jac Holzman saw a couple of their sets upon the recommendation of Love singer Arthur Lee.  Foreshadowing the controversy that would later follow the band, they were fired from the nightclub after Morrisson's profanity-filled rendition of "The End."  We'll get to that later.

★ "Break On Through (To The Other Side)": What a great way to start off an album.  This song holds many memories for me.  I started listening to The Doors in high school.  In fact, EVERYTHING was "a Doors reference."  If somebody used a phrase that had been uttered in a Doors song, "that's a Doors reference."  But this song was always playing in the dorm rooms my freshman year at UGA.

★ "Soul Kitchen": In all honesty, I don't remember the first time I heard this song.  Probably because I was always focusing on all the hits from The Best Of The Doors compilation.  Boy, did I really miss out.  This is a great song that showcases Ray Manzarek's insane abilities on the keyboards.

★ "The Crystal Ship":  The Doors' first love song, and it begins with the line "Before you slip into unconsciousness/I'd like to have another kiss."  Classic.

★ "Twentieth Century Fox":  Every time we saw a movie released by 20th Century Fox was "a Doors reference."

★ "Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)":  The Doors even had a way of making the two covers on this album seem like originals.  This was written by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill in the 1920s.

★ "Light My Fire":  Another classic that combines the sultry, brooding vocals of Morrisson, the drum beats of John Densmore, the subtle guitar riffs of Robby Krieger and the very ambitious organ solo of Manzarek.  I'll never get tired of this song.

★ "Back Door Man": The second of two covers, this one originally by American blues singer Wille Dixon.  And, of course, this paved the way for Sir Mix-A-Lot's similar obsession.

"I Looked At You":  This is by no means a "bad song."  It just doesn't quite reach "classic" status, in my opinion.

"End Of The Night":  Another "OK" song.  It's very dark and brooding.

"Take It As It Comes":  I like this song a little better than the last two, but "side one" of this album blows "side two" out of the water.

★ "The End": Of course, they really know how to end an album.  One of the most haunting (and sometimes scary) songs I know.  Most people will recognize this from Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, or maybe from one of the three episodes of The Simpsons that featured it. Or maybe you were a huge Animaniacs fan and remember their parody: "This is the beginning...the beginning of our story...the beginning..." But, this is the song that ultimately got the band fired from their gig at Whiskey a Go Go.  At about the mid-point of the nearly 12-minute song, Morrison lapses into a very Oedipal spoken word poem about a man that kills his father and has sex with his mother.  So, yes, it's a bit disturbing, but I still think it's one of the best rock songs ever recorded.