The End is the Doors song that I cannot stop listening to. Maybe I’m sadomasochistic for torturing myself with eleven minutes of agony set to music but I love the song and find it lyrically and musically touching every time. I have a soft spot for the history of the fifties and sixties, and an extra soft spot for cowboys and the dying dream of the lawless West. These interests have lead me to many interesting pieces of literature, songs, and other counter-culture but one of the most impactful texts of all has been Jack Kerouac’s On The Road.
I see a clear connection between the themes of the infamous novel and Morrison’s melancholic song. To me, The End is a song about the loss of the frontier and the frontier spirit of hope. Dreams of the West feature wide-open spaces in the promised land, but what has been promised? We want for and wait for an elusive “something” for an entire journey, and when we get to the destination, we don’t know what to make of it. We feel fundamentally disillusioned. Though The End was released in 1967, three years prior to the Grateful Dead’s Truckin’, it feels like this is Morrison’s twisted rebuttal to everything the Dead or the Pranksters stood for. And Jim was no Learyite either, this is the psychedelic rock and roll of sex and death, not Keyesian playfulness nor Learyite enlightenment. Here, the journeyer is in the back seat of the bus, not in control of himself nor the vehicle, merely a passenger and a voyeur through a dark passage. For such a person, their only friend is the end. Of course, all of this has still yet to tie in the Oedipus myth, which darkly permeates the song with an allusion to classical times as a sullen reminder that feelings of darkness and delusion are innately human and inseparable from our existence and psyche. For Morrison, to be dark is to be deep, one is either born into the light or the poetic night. This strange darkness is what I love most about the Doors, I find their lighter songs fun, but less memorable or impactful.
In line with this, Love Me Two Times, is my least favorite Doors song. Thematically, I find it amusing but simplistic without the wit of Backdoor Man nor the beauty of Crystal Ship, other sexually charged songs from the band. The song doesn’t lack depth completely, according to the band it’s about a soldier or sailor on his last day with his girlfriend before shipping out, perhaps to Vietnam in this particular case. I guess that the impending death or anguish of separation is what makes this a Doors song at all, but in this case, the depth still only impending rather than a lived experience. Furthermore, the song’s lyrical double entendre might also be more playful than serious. Ray Manzarek described the song as “Robby’s great blues/rock classic about lust and lost, or multiple orgasms, I’m not sure which.” For this reason, the song was considered by some to be crude or controversial. This isn’t why I dislike, I just think that even the entendre is too accesible to even be considered entendre, and musically I dont get the sense of experimentation or memorability that other songs have.
If I were the type of person to take things at face value or believe in everything I hear, then I would have no problem tearing down The Soft Parade- but the truth is that I actually found a lot of tender moments of genuine beauty and artistry hiding within the album. I could touch on the verse in the titular song that moved me nearly to tears or the beauty in conjuring the blue imagery of Wishful Sinful… But for the scope of this review, I have to narrow in on an absolute favorite and least favorite across the span of The Soft Parade and Waiting for the Sun, an album that I find nearly perfect. That being said, my least favorite song actually comes from Waiting for the Sun and is one of the band’s most popular numbers. I find The Unknown Soldier to be one of the least listenable songs on the album, and the song that I would probably never actually listen to lest I had the opportunity to see it performed live. The merit I find in The Unknown Soldier lives in the chorus, which captures the duplicity of the culture of the 60s. The era at first blush recalls apron-clad mothers making jello cakes with floating peas for children in bobby-socks eating TV-dinners off of their laps to the static murmur of the Ed Sullivan show. Yet the squeaky-clean image that the era strove to convey hardly masked the vibrant counterculture, and the horrendous and senseless violence of the Vietnam war as illustrated in the song. However, beyond the chorus, the rest of the song isn’t strong enough to be an anti-war anthem beyond the scope of Vietnam- which is what the band intended. Perhaps it would fit in a period drama film, but it lacks the catchy timelessness of CCR’s Fortunate Son, and the angry bite of Rage Against The Machine’s Killing In the Name Of. The rest of the song is repetitive, and not in the appropriate way to mimic the march sequence that punctuates it.
The true challenge lies in picking one true favorite between Love Street, Yes The River Knows, Spanish Caravan, and Wintertime Love… I listen to Love Street nearly every day, humming it on my walk to school, imagining myself as a part of the ballad. I daydream the same way about Wintertime Love. The song conjures images of ice skating with a lover against the backdrop of a cold dark night. Spanish Caravan’s enchanting flamenco guitar and picturesque lyrics construct a world of dark treasure as nostalgic as the Pirates of the Carribean ride at Disneyland, but when I listen to Yes, the River Knows, there is something even deeper. The song begins with a plea to believe the narrator, he knows he has become deluded and removed from truth and reality, but he strives to be heard, perhaps these are his final words... On the heels of his plea is the beg to be held, a desire for the barest comfort in the face of the broken desperation of a wounded soul. From there, the song has two interpretations. One constructs a man who is suicidal but afraid of death. He had promised he would drown himself, but he has to do be pissed drunk to have the courage. Despite his melancholically pathetic dilemma, and darkness, his words come out soft as honey, and he wants to be held and stroked through the pain and darkness. In the other, we have a sexual double entendre with water imagery recalling female anatomy. As the song builds in strength and madness, it aches more. Ray’s piano goes from twinkling ivory- light, elegant, and tight sounding- to angry key bashing following the cue of the narrator’s descent into madness and retreat from help and light.
Choosing music for someone is intimate and intimidating. Guess right, and you may have made a lifelong impactful connection, guess wrong and they might be offended or never trust you (or at least your taste) again… If I were tasked with finding the perfect Doors album to recommend to a virgin ear, I would have to think a lot about what kind of person I’m recommending to… If I had a “cosmic mate” like Jim or Pam, the album I’d share with them is Waiting for the Sun. I think it’s full of the band’s most beautiful and romantic songs. I don’t love every song on the album, so I would be sure to point out my favorites. But overall, I think its easy listening and soulful.
Hello, I Love You is one of the first Doors songs I can recall ever hearing in my own life. I think it’s well known but I don’t think it’s particularly special or pretty- however, grounding the virgin ear in something it might recognize will set a person up to best enjoy the rest of the album, rather than feel defensive or out of place. Love Street, the song that follows has become one of my quiet favorites… Between the idyllic portrait of life painted by the daydreamy lyrics and the charming spoken word bit, this song has an overall intimate, romantic charm that I would be excited to share. Not To Touch the Earth is equal bits haunting and enchanting. I think the song seems very mysterious and elusive in meaning, sparking curiosity while listening, and a tuning-in of the mind to try and extract meaning. Summer’s Almost Gone prophesizes the death of the summer of love with eery clairvoyance, making listening to the song now even more interesting than it may have been when the album first was released. Wintertime Love, with its seasonally appropriate name, falls in line afterward. It’s a pretty unpopular, or at least often discounted, song from the Doors. However, for me conjures images of ice skating with a lover against the backdrop of a cold dark night. It sounds cozy and lovely and I often find myself humming it when lighting candles or curling up with a cup of tea. I think its warmth makes it easy to like, especially to someone listening for the first time. Perhaps surprisingly, I find The Unknown Soldier, to be one of the least listenable songs of the album, although it’s one of the most famous and recognizable. I would probably never actually listen to it unless I had the opportunity to see it performed live. What follows, Spanish Caravan is one of the most underrated Doors songs, and one of my personal favorites. Its enchanting flamenco guitar and picturesque lyrics construct a world of dark treasure and a sense of romance and adventure. Robby really shows off his mastery of his instrument and it feels good to listen to. My Wild Love is one of the stranger Doors songs in my opinion. It seems like a great song to sing around a campfire, similar to the Alabama Song. We Could Be So Good Together,is another one of my least favorites and I think its rather forgettable. It’s luckily sandwiched by interesting, beautiful songs for cushion. Yes, The River knows is painfully beautiful, it makes the cut for my wedding playlist alongside Turn! Turn! Turn!, Isn’t life Strange, and Ripple. As the song builds in strength and madness, it aches more. Ray’s piano goes from twinkling ivory- light, elegant, and taut sounding- to angry key bashing following the cue of the narrator’s descent into madness and retreat from help and light.The last song of the Album, Five to One is also one of the more forgettable tracks that seems to have luckily snuck on to a good enough album to be completely disguised. However, it in and of itself isn’t bad, just weaker despite having pretty interesting lyrics if you give them a chance
