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.
