purchase [ Waiting for the Sun - the album]
It seems fitting that I follow up <Follow the Sun> with <Waiting for the Sun>. Enough of the Beatles for now, and this isn't really about the song of that name, but rather the album. There's so much on the Doors' third album to cover that I'm going for a full album this time around. The song appeared on a later album.
I grew up on the Doors's albums - they were heavy rotation at the pre-teen parties I attended (that would be 7th and 8th grade). Strange Days was a little too strange. More than one critic has noted that Strange Days leaves the impression that it is populated with the leftovers of Morrision's lyrics writings that weren't used on the first album. True. Critics also note that is has more continuity that the first album. Not sure I agree.
But 1968's Waiting for the Sun, much like the first Doors album seems to me to have a lot of organizational continuity to it: for me and my friends, it was easy and natural to let the album play one track after the next without having to pick up the needle and move the arm over an inch or so. (Needle? Arm? Track? We're talking about 33 1/3 RPMs on a turntable at a Junior High dance - not the stuff that did Morrison in at age 27 although the parallels bear some interest.)
You may not take the approach that Morrison's father is said to have done, advising his son to drop aspirations of making a living as a[n untalented] musician. By this third album, the Doors had become mostly all about their lead *singer, although there are several pieces/places where it's more recitation than singing (My Wild Love is knee slapping and Morrison-style poetry chant; Five to One is only slightly more "musical" and The Unknown Soldier starts off with similar style)
Hello, I Love You was the main chart topper, and Spanish Caravan showcases the guitar talents of Robbie Krieger. Being, as I said, an album that I tended to listen to without lifting the tone arm, the rest of the songs are tight displays of the Doors at their studio finest (although it couldn't have been easy work with Morrison in whatever condition he had devolved to). My picks for a song typical of this work:
*yeah, it's not the real thing, but it's pretty good (doors alive)