Song of the Day 7/3: The Doors, “Break On Through (to the Other Side)”
Fifty years ago today, Jim Morrison’s common-law wife found him dead in the bathtub of their Paris apartment, bringing to a close the singer’s years-long campaign of self-destruction and pretty much ending the career of one of the most popular American bands of the ’60s.
Though frequent attempts have been made over the years to rehabilitate his image as a poet and a rebel, his status as an icon has paled in the face of accounts of his drunken buffoonery. Oliver Stone’s biopic is now 30 years old, and the band’s place in the rock pantheon has begun to fade. Their first album is still regarded as a rock milestone, but when Rolling Stone reranked its Top 500 last year, “The Doors” slipped from No. 42 to No. 86.
That first album, released in 1967, was critically acclaimed, but it didn’t ignite until the edited-for-radio version of “Light My Fire” rose to No. 1. After that the Doors never stopped selling records, even after they had to stop touring after the notorious Miami concert that got Morrison charged with inciting a riot and indecent exposure. All six of the albums they released while Morrison was alive went gold quickly, but when Ray Manzarek, Robbie Krieger and John Densmore tried to continue as a trio, the buying public was interested.
This song was the band’s first single. It went nowhere, perhaps because it stood in stark contrast to the peace-and-love ethos of the day, but it encapsulates the sound that made the Doors stand out — jazzy rhythms, insistent organ and Morrison’s deep yowl. Sadly, Morrison’s lasting influence on generations of rockers was in making hedonistic excess a come-on instead of a warning.
Great song, great minimalist keyboard solo by John Densmore.
Manzarek, actually. Densmore laid down that bossa nova beat.
The band had no bass player on stage until late in its existence — Manzarek supplied it with the organ. The sound wasn’t sharp enough for studio recordings, so they hired various bass players for recording sessions.
What gets me is that live he did it on the Rhodes “piano bass”, a small Rhodes piano that had an action like punching a 2x 4, must have had fore arms of steel.
Kind of like an old manual typewriter?
I heard recently that Morrison at the height of his career didn’t own a permanent home. Rather he stayed at a variety of locations including a room in the building of a music studio. Do you know if this is true?
Don’t know about the studio. As far as I could discover he owned homes but often crashed at hotels. He was a pretty hardcore drunk; whatever other substances he was doing on any given night, alcohol was always involved.
Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix. Grace Slick I definitely lived at the right time:)!! 3 quarts of Rupert for a dollar with a bottle of Bali Hi for the ladies and a couple tabs of blotter or barrel, ridin’ down Elkton Road with the 8 track blaring:)!