Ever the fly on the corpse, this theme immediately had me think of those unable to take up the challenge of looking back to 1971. Mainly from the standpoint of those who actually died that year, losing whatever future potential they may have been able to offer subsequently. Of course, nobody ever really dies in music, and many a career has been kickstarted on the premature visit of the grim reaper. Record companies often make a mint from a death: just look at the charts after the death of David Bowie, let alone the torrent of posthumous releases from his legacy. I wonder how much profit ever makes it back, if not to the artist, but to their dependents, the answer always precious little, I suspect. And, with the parlous state, allegedly, of the recording industry, is the death of all the septuagenarian, and older, boomers on their books all they have to look forward to? (Told you I'd cheer you up!)
1971, for all the touting of it being the year amongst all others, well, how was it for me? I turned 14 that year, and the records of that year and that have become classics were in my tunnel vision, or many of them, it being around the time I started hoovering up anything and everything to do with long hair hippies and their music; mainly because I was a short-haired school boy, I should add. Flip through the pages of venerable rock writer and broadcaster David Hepworth's tome to that year, 'Never a Dull Moment: 1971, The Year That Rock Exploded', and much of my then listening is actually detailed. He defined it as the year the 1960s ended, if a year late, and he lists 100 of the most influential albums. I was too wet behind the ears for many of them, but certainly I had my ears around The Yes Album, like kkafa, Tarkus and Pictures at an Exhibition by E.L.P., LA Woman by the Doors, Aqualung by Jethro Tull, the Allman Brothers Band's Live At the Fillmore. Plus, of course, Led Zeppelin IV, Killer by Alice Cooper, many more, even, Please To See the King by Steeleye Span. I had to be older for the likes of Carole King, John Prine and Shuggie Otis: see the list here.
But two names ring out on that list, the Doors and the Allman Brothers, as each lost an integral member that year, with both Jim Morrison and Duane Allman failing to greet the future that was beckoning. Others, of course, died that year, Louis Armstrong and Gene Vincent for two, but neither featured in 1971s year zero, and one was old-ish, the other with chronic health issues. Morrison and Allman were both in their 20s, which is desperately wrong.
The above is a computer generated image of how Jimbo may have looked, had he attained his 65th birthday, itself which would have been a remarkable 13 years ago. Mind you, the theories still abound as to his not actually dying back in Paris, 1971, it all being an elaborate ruse for him to slip under the radar for a quieter life, presumably in cahoots with Elvis Presley. To be fair, the evidence for that is thin, but tell that to the crowds who still throng to the cemetery for selfies at his grave, the real question being whether he died of natural causes, of an OD or whether, oo-ee-oo, he was murdered. There has been plenty written about each, and I am not going to link, go look yourself. My own feel is that his death was likely natural, if punishing your body with industrial amounts of booze, on a daily basis over years, counts as 'natural'.
Had he lived, how would he now be faring? Would he back within the bosom of the Doors? Yes, perhaps, but bearing in mind he had left the band. But, let's be honest, without him they were pretty thin fare, never again reaching much acclaim until signing up Ian Astbury to play Jim, and ditching John Densmore, and riding out as The Doors of the 21st Century, or Manzarek-Krieger, or even Ray Manzarek & Robby Krieger of the Doors, with Densmore having, not unreasonably, taken substantive legal umbrage on the name they might call themselves. Astbury, frontman of UK leather and kohl rockers The Cult, didn't last much beyond one, admittedly major, tour, ahead of a revolving door (SWIDT) of B team singers. Drums, initially offered to ex-Policeman, Steward Copeland were an even harder stool to fill, Copeland breaking a tactical leg ahead the tour's launch. Even if declining any initial suggestion, I cannot believe Morrison would not have leapt back in like Larry, if not for the megabucks, then to avoid the embarrassment of these pale shadows of the original band. That would have meant Densmore would be back in, too, and I would have loved the opportunity to capture that legacy live.
I'm a fan. L.A. Woman was one of my first purchases, and like many of contemporaries, I never grew out of it or the Doors. This much you know. I enjoy the idea of Morrison remaining in Europe, had he lived, becoming a latter-day sage to the acolytes who now flock around his extinguished flame. Perhaps ahead and since the golden ticket reunion tour, not least as compatriot Ray Manzarek has himself died, more age appropriately and of natural cause. Maybe slim volumes of poetry, maybe music, it maybe of impenetrable form and nature. Think Scott Walker, himself spending most of his post 60s career in Europe, if England is still allowed to consider itself part thereof.
Duane Allman is a whole different matter. A slightly more facetious possible current appearance above will hopefully not offend. Arguably at his peak at the time of his accidental death, motor cycles and his eponymous Brothers Band never seeming a good choice. Having shown himself to be a premier league session guitar for the whole stable of southern blues, soul and rock music, his band with bro' Gregg had cemented their reputation, barely months earlier at the legendary Fillmore, (hi, Jordan), with, still, one of the best ever live LPs ever, period. And that is also without mentioning his star turn, frankly eclipsing "Derek" Clapton, guesting on the and the Dominos debut. Such remarkable talent. How would it be had he survived? The Band was seemingly able to carry on, if not regardless, certainly by polishing his laurels, with any number of wannabe Duane duplicates. Not a put down, again I like very much and admire the changing iterations of the band, probably even only officially on hiatus, following Gregg's rather more timely death. (That he should live an allotted, with his earlier lifestyle choices, is itself an irony worth considering.....) But returning to my theme, had Duane lived, would young Derek Trucks, himself the nephew of deceased fellow band member, Butch (2017) of that name, have been so tempted to take on the crown of the king of slide guitar? Can you imagine the pair of them duelling? Now that would be something.
Had Duane lived, I doubt he would ever have stopped being in the band, or even whether he would have been allowed to. But, had he, what then? I can imagine him as a perennial guest and star session man, wheeled out to give gravitas to any recording he became associated with. A bit like how Steve Cropper still conducts his career. Nice thought, ain't it?
So, 1971, great year and all, but imagine how greater today might be had these two icons, no small word, but undoubtedly apt, were still on the earth?
It's on my bucket list to someday get to Australia and/or South Africa, where winter is in the summer and vice-versa. A kind of proof that everything is relative.
Last week, I started with the idea of picking two separate musicians - one for each of my opposites, and then veered off when I realized that I had my terms covered in one man: Jesse Colin Young. So, I began this Summer/Winter pair with the assumption that I would focus on a musician who again had them both covered. There are a number of options, but for this week, we go back to the 60's: The Doors.
Jim Morrison and The Doors may not be on heavy rotation in 2021, but they won't need much introduction, so a simple shout out and a reminder that they were responsible for ...
Wintertime Love. Jim Miller's review of the album laments (back in 1967) how the Doors had become a Morrison show, when band members such as Manzarek could "do some nice things". If you see a video not available, watch on YouTube, take the jump.
and Summer's Almost Gone
Not only do the two songs appear on the same album (Waiting For the Sun), but the tracks are back-to-back.
But this, too:
Donna Summer (who doesn't appear to have ever appeared here at SMM):
Johnny Winter (who has popped up a few times and I think that's Doug Brockie also on guitar):
After the last post there was only one possible follow on piece, to look at a brilliant and mesmerisingly accurate spoof on/homage to Brubeck, and, of course, the Stranglers. One that had a fair few fooled.
Was Dave Greenfield, the late keyboard player for the Stranglers, and the writer of the repeating harpsichord riff in the song, influenced by Brubeck? He would say not, but it does not seem unreasonable to think each were influenced by the composers of the baroque period, as, for that matter, will have been Ray Manzarek, often and lazily touted as Greenfield's main contemporary influence. Who cares, frankly, I love 'em all, and could listen all day to any of these three.
Laurence Mason is a music graduate of Leeds Conservatoire who likes messing around with the available technology, as well as being an adept player of many instruments. When Greenfield died, he wanted to pay tribute and, already aware of the acknowledged similar ambience of both Golden Brown and Take Five, apropos existing mash-ups like this, decided to go a step further:
“A little tribute to Dave Greenfield (keyboardist with The Stranglers who died with Covid-19 last week) and Paul Desmond (saxophonist with the Dave Brubeck quartet – the anniversary of his death is at the end of this month).
Also because I’ve been enjoying editing videos and recording stuff over the last couple of months. A couple of people have asked how I made this video so here we go – I took a clip from a 1964 live version of Take Five (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT9Eh…) and made the drum loop by chopping up the intro and turning it from 5/4 into the 3/4 – 4/4 groove that Golden Brown has. The upright bass sound is sequenced from Logic, and the piano part was played in using one of the piano sounds from a Nord Electro 5D. Then I played the sax part over the top (I play a King Zephyr alto and for this I used a hard rubber Yanigasawa mouthpiece rather than my usual bright Guardala).
The video was then edited using the clip I’d taken the drum loop from.” — Laurence Mason
This interview delves deeper. First imagined as a bit of fun, once embedded in Youtube, sufficient hits drew it to the attention of Paul Murphy, influential on the UK jazz scene, and it swiftly became available as a record to download or buy. Under the name, groan, of 'Take Vibe'. (With, on the flip, an equally iconic take on the Police's 'Walking on the Moon'.)
So, what else has Mason been up to? Initially a whole album was projected and, who knows, maybe it still is, lockdown possibly casting a cloud of best laid plans etc. I would certainly be interested.
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)
Daa-daaa-daa-daa-da-da. I began to sing the guitar part that frames this song within a second of seeing the theme and, despite having done the Doors twice before, here and here, I knew, instantly, it was Doors-time again. Mind you, in my house it is always Doors-time, but, on this occasion, rather than again preach how wonderful I was/am to be such a precocious acolyte, even before I began to shave, this is a confession more to deprecate that sense of special we all, if secretly, have about ourselves. Especially when looking back with rose-tinted. So yes, I bought 'L.A. Woman' in the year of release, but, apart from THE single, I hadn't actually picked up or heard much else about the band in the intervening years. OK, maybe THAT single as well, but hardly die-hard fan. I think it was probably half a decade later that I heard the song featured today, and, rather than having spent the intervening years hoovering up all their early product, it was from that staple of a civilian, a greatest hits selection, albeit neither labelled as hits and with a groovy cover and title, Weird Scenes Inside the Goldmine, the title being part of Jim Morrison's rambling discourse, midway during 'The End'.
I have loads of greatest hits selections, from all the obvious and compulsory acts, the Eagles, the Stones, to all those cheapo supermarket selections from groups who were pushing their luck to be ever even described as one-hit-wonders. (I can't resist a bargain.) I may also have proper records by these same bands, occasionally bought before, usually after. In my teens and early twenties, cashflow prevented the acquisition of back catalogues or every release as it dropped, so it made good sense to use them almost as samplers. In truth, collections and compilations weren't then quite so ubiquitous either, as most of the bands I liked hadn't yet had careers long enough to justify the conceit. 'Weird Scenes' was a terrific compilation, 4 sides of vinyl encapsulating the essence of the Doors. It didn't matter I had 4 of the songs already, I adored it. (OK, nearly, being never able to hack 'Runnin' Blue' and did anyone really rate 'Horse Latitudes'? Really?)
This song comes from 'Morrison Hotel', the penultimate album, prior to 'L.A. Woman', and one that I have subsequently invested in. After the more experimental 'Soft Parade', a record I later learnt I didn't much like, it was deemed a return to form. I also discovered it was the groups most successful recording in the U.K. market. A Morrison write, it is supposedly about his troubled relationship with Patricia Courson, lifting it's title from the Anais Nin novel, 'A Spy in the House of Love', perhaps shortened for copyright reasons, even if the first line is just that. A vaguely blues format, framed by Robbier Krieger's exquisite guitar motif, Morrison doing his best croon over the top, whilst Ray Manzarek tinkles just the right side of hotel-lobby. A slow walking bassline is provided by guest bassist, Ray Neapolitan (me, neither), whilst John Densmore just does what he does best. The main hook in the song is in the middle 8, emphasised by the ensemble crashing to earlier momentary silences before Morrison declaims passive-aggressive big time: "I know your deepest secret fear. I know everything".
I have never been much for live recordings, and so it was only during the penning of this piece that I found myself sufficiently roused to look for a live version, especially as it now seems that every Door's concert ever has been made available. It's fair, I suppose.
But, in my searches I came also upon this, an alternative version, presumably ditched in favour of the one used. I think they used the right one.
It's a tricky one this, as, of course, is honesty, weaving a devious path between credibility and risibility. Achieving both, no doubt. And the heightened self-aggrandisement of claiming that coveted hipper than thou award is no mean attraction. So I lie. There, I've said it. L.A.Woman was not my first album. That was Sgt Pepper, but my sister bought me that because she wanted it. And it wasn't my second. That was Pictures at an Exhibition (E.L.P.), and my parents, bless them, bought me that, based on my instructions. But it was my third, and the first, bought with my accumulated savings from Christmas and birthdays. So it counts, don't it? Sort of. And I am so grateful of that, because, let me set the record straight, for once and for all, it is and remains one of the finest recordings of this and last century.
Let me take you back. I was 14 in 1971. That's a good age to be becoming obsessed by music and it was a good year to be becoming obsessed by music. Now, better people than I have already laid down the challenge that this was the year of the lodestone, most notably, David Hepworth, UK eminence grise of music journalism, sometime presenter of The (Old Grey) Whistle Test, the "serious" grown up big brother of Top of the Pops, clips from each show which litter my previous posts. He was also responsible, in one form or another, for the magazines, amongst others, Smash Hits, Q, Mojo and The Word, often alongside laconic sidekick, Mark Ellen. This is what he says about that year, even going so far as to write a book about it. But I knew none of that then, I was just eagerly lapping up all the sounds exposed to my wide ears. Most afternoons were spent visiting my friendly and local record shop, Complete Audio Systems, of Eastbourne, Sussex, known to one and all as Cas(s)music. With an astonishing indulgence, they happily allowed a stream of spotty schoolboys to put on headphones and nod away for hours listening to side 1 of this, side 2 of that, even if purchases were, well, infrequent. The owner clearly seemed to have a U.S. west coast bent, presumably explaining my enduring love for the obscure and arcane offerings from late 60s and early 70s California: It's a Beautiful Day, Stoneground, Tonto's Expanding Headband, all equally devoured, alongside more familiar fare, Zappa, the Byrds and Jefferson Airplane. Christ, I must have been an insufferable and precocious brat, but happy and fond-remembered days. The Doors, of course, I knew from their big hit single some 4 years previous, but was certainly unprepared for the splendour of the set piece magnum opus that saw my headphones ripped off, replaced by those of my chum Nigel. The storm became ridden and I was instantly smitten.
The cover, reproduced at the top, above, had something to do with it, originally having the picture of the band printed onto the yellow inner sleeve, visible through a perspex window, rather than later versions where it was printed as one, all on card. Gone was movie star looks love god Morrison, now a bearded grizzly bear stared balefully out. (I should add I had a thing about beards in those days ahead of being able to grow anything myself. For me the Beach Boys became hip the minute I saw the cover of Live In Concert, ahead even of hearing the songs.......Even Mike Love. Hell, especially Mike Love!) As was my wont, I duly went back and read the inkies of the day, Melody Maker and N.M.E. (New Musical Express) to discover the backstory of booze and bedevilment. I never got round to hearing any more of the record before I was back at the shop, paying my near £2 (about $2.50 today) for my own pristine copy.
Unusually I never quite took to the title track. I found it too long, too loud and too, um, obvious. Yes, I have warmed more to it in the intervening years, but my tastes were more to the mellower aspects, Riders and my lasting favourite, Hyacinth House, below. (AKA, probably, the "cocktail music" epithet made by fast exiting erstwhile producer, Paul Rothschild) I was so convinced as to the perfection of this song that I insisted on playing it to my mother, whose tastes were more of the Jim Reeves persuasion. I forget her opinion, but I felt it helped explain that awful question so beloved of parents, so what sort of music is it that you like? I never felt comfortable saying "rock", as that would have meant "and roll" to my disapproving mother.
But there was also my introduction, more than likely, to any concept of the blues, as a genre and as a genre with a history. Their cover of the John Lee Hooker staple, Crawling King Snake, certainly had an effect on me, the line about getting down on your hands and knees (baby) in particular playing strange tricks on my pubescent mind. Spider on the wall? Wooooo, way too much for my limited understanding to contain and possibly having laundry outcomes. (TMI...)
Luckily I could fall back on the mysticism of Morrisons poetry, and, at 14, yes, it was poetry and, yes, it was mystic. Bob Dylan may just have now been awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize for literature, but I know who I would have awarded it to in 1971. And, however corny, today, 45 years on, indeed do I still feel and share the "immaculate" we is, even if I were never stoned.
I could play more, point you to more, but time and space have their purpose. I know the Doors have swung in and out of favour, aided and abetted by innumerable books and films, a mythology as much as anything. The naysayers can go take one, I won't and don't listen. How many records from 45 years ago do you still play? How many records of 45 years ago still gain plaudits? It's true, often only of this generations and of any generations awkward teens, but that is truth enough for me.
You mean you don't already own this? Buy!
O, and that book by David Hepworth? There too.
I’m
a teacher in my real life—or is it the other way around? And one thing
I hate, that makes me squirm with embarrassment is when teachers
try to teach by co-opting popular songs and parodying the lyrics, or the
video,
to bring home their curricular goals in a way the kids “will really
understand.”
It’s just embarrassing, in the same way your parents were
embarrassing when they yelled at you in front of your friends or tried to get
down on your level by dropping a bit of slang. You know, to show you they were
on your level. Ugg…it’s like every mom is Marge Simpson, too clueless to have a
clue, or Homer; too dumb to know how dumb he is acting.
Teachers love parodies, love trying to really reach the
kids in ways they will understand. Hey, why don’t we take Shakespeare and rap
the lines. Shakespeare would approve—after all, he was just using language in
new ways, too…Oh, I know it well: desperate to reach these twitter net numbed
little vacant oxygen abusers, we resort to making horse’s asses of ourselves.
But, for a phenomenal paycheck…ahhhbullshitchoo!
Point is, school and…almost anything else good in my life
never mixed. Strange, in a cosmic way, that I became a teacher. But, I still
get the chills when a teacher ditches their dignity to teach a lesson to kids
in language they can understand…just reminds me too much of that disaffected
little Walkman and MTV numbed oxygen abuser I was not so long ago.
OK, I’m whining…Here’s a case in point, though I have to
admit: If any of my teachers looked like this, I might have given the whole
school thing another chance…
Annnnndddd.....then, there’s this….
Stop…just stop. You might grow up, but you never grow up too
much to not be embarrassed.
Yeah, OK…I’ll stop…
So, this month’s theme is math. Math. The subject I
struggled with the most all the way up until I graduated…from college. Math was
my preeminent anxiety from grade school on—I had tutors, I failed courses, I
did summer school. Once, on the SAT, I did so poorly on my math that my Math
score was 100…this was when the top SAT score was only 1400. I got an 800 total…That’s…pretty
bad.
In high school, I liked music, and writing, precisely
because they were as opposite of mathematics as could get: freedom minus
rigidity, enjoyment divided by anxiety equaled a shitty GPA and lowered expectations.
The last day I ever had to take a math class was one of the happiest days of my
life. I remember walking out of Rawl Hall at East Carolina University,
thinking: I will never take another f#$%ing math class again. It was a great
feeling, like I’d suffered something for longer than I thought I could and
walked out with all parts—limbs and sanity—in tact. I had worked really hard,
to be honest and at the end, I knew I wasn’t going to let my relationship with
mathematics end with my slinking away to nurse my wounds and regret the fight I
hadn’t put up. I worked hard that semester, harder than I’d ever worked and
ended the semester with a B-…the highest grade I’d ever scored in any math
class. F#$k math. I’d won.
What does this have to do with music? Nothing, other than
hating the sciences and the numbers was probably the catalyst for my love of
music, and if it was nothing else, it was a precious escape.
One of the first bands I became truly obsessed with in my
alternate, music-oriented education, was The Doors. It makes sense in many
ways: The Doors are kind of a “gateway” band into serious music for a lot of
teenage boys; Morrison was an incorrigible class clown, in school and out (I
know this—part of the right of passage of being a Doors fan was to read No One Here Gets Out Alive, Danny
Sugarman’s bio); the music was dark enough to be an antidote to a lot
of the classic rock that got spun as voice of the generation stuff; and on a
personal level, Morrison, much like me at the time, wanted to be and considered
himself above all, a poet. I wasn’t a student when I was 16 and 17—I would have
accepted any label other than that. Poet was good—the idea was cool and writing
poetry got me more than a few girls. Playing guitar helped, too. I suppose that
is an equation that still works.
The Doors were a great band to get into—there was plenty of
mythology to dig, a real fabled aura around the shamanistic Morrison, and
musical sound that was often a dark opposite to the flower power, ‘come on
people, smile on your brother’ stuff that was a primer for the 60s rock
explosion. Hendrix did it better, of course, but he was solo artist, in a
sense. The Doors were a group and thus presented a more unified system of
disorder. And while Morrison in particular can be almost cringe-inducing when I
go back and listen (L’America?) some
tracks, like their first hit, Break on
Through, and others— The Whiskey
Song, Love Me Two Times, When the Music’s Over— cook with some kind of
other spirit, blues-influenced, incendiary, dark and magisterial—when the Doors
were on, they were stunningly good—rock n roll dredged through the dirt. I
loved that sound when I was young; it represented a true rebellion, an
antidote, if you will, to all the forces in life working to keep me stifled in a
classroom.
So, in honor to my wayward days, my wasted youth, all the
tests I failed, all the desks I carved “The Doors” into, all the dreams I had
about blowing it up and blowing it out, I choose The Doors, “Five to One.” This
explosive chant and stomp reads like a child’s rhyme, but it burns with a
controlled fury that takes aim at the listener or anyone who might not dig what
Morrison was pushing. I love John Densmore’s pounding, military drums; Robby
Krieger is at his bluesy best when he rips off the solo, and Ray Manzarek’s
fuzzed out keyboard line fills in as a static-infused bass, crackling with
serious mojo, far advanced and way modern for its time. As for Morrison—he says
it all here. Talking about hippies crawling across the floor, flowers in hand,
he sets himself in firm opposition to the flower power ethic of peace and love,
then goes on to engage in what, to me at the time, was as a pure a middle
finger in the face of my teachers, the cops, my folks, as many authority
figures as I could find to be pissed off at:
The old get old
And the young get stronger
May take a week
And it may take longer
They got the guns
But we got the numbers
Gonna win, yeah
We're takin' over
A little light on the true rebellious
capital, I realize, but at the time, that was all I needed: a little stomp, a
lot of anger and either a stepping stone to something better, or just a nice,
fist sized stone through any ready window.
Rock on, Jim…I might make a little fun
of you, but deep down, you’re my first and always rock n roll hero.
My first co-ed dances coincided with the release of the Doors' first album: The Doors. This would have been 8th grade/1969, and I recall we would dance our way through almost the entire album (Break On Through, Twentieth Century Fox, Light My Fire....). When it came out, I bought "Strange Days", but that album was kind of *strange* (How about the 10 minute "When The Music’s Over"?) Morrison was way ahead of me at that point in time. However, when "Waiting For the Sun" came out, either I was better caught up to the changes, or the Doors had dialed it down enough that I could better relate. I loved "Spanish Caravan" (but then again, since I was living overseas, there may have been some cultural influences.)
It wasn't only Spanish Caravan that I liked. To this day, there aren't many songs on "Waiting ..." that I don't like in some frame of mind. There is a lot that is militaristic on the album. Five to One, Unknown Soldier and even We Could Be So Good ... include some militarism, either in lyrics or in musical styles.
This week's theme being "Hello", the natural Doors choice is, of course, "Hello, I Love You", from "Waiting for the Sun", their third album. Even "Hello .." has major elements of the military in it: I hear a distinct "rump a pump" rhythm to the song. Looking back, it doesn't seem possible that their third album came out in '68. (Their first came out just the year before, in '67 as did Strange Days).
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