Line #72 Music/TheDoorsAlbum


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/doors_first_album_6131.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:''"You know that it would be untrue/You know that I would be a liar/If I was to say to you, 'Girl, we couldn't get much higher'..."'']]
3
4	''The Doors'' is the debut studio album by Music/TheDoors, released in 1967. A landmark PsychedelicRock album, it is also [[FirstInstallmentWins their most successful, influential and notable album]]. Hits include "Break On Through (To the Other Side)", "Soul Kitchen", "Light My Fire" and "The End". An episode about the creative process behind this album was featured in the documentary TV series ''Series/ClassicAlbums''. It was added to the UsefulNotes/NationalRecordingRegistry in 2014 for being "culturally, historically and aesthetically important".
5
6	----
7	!! Tracklist:
8
9	[[AC:Side One]]
10	# "Break On Through (To the Other Side)" (2:25)
11	# "Soul Kitchen" (3:30)
12	# "The Crystal Ship" (2:30)
13	# "Twentieth Century Fox" (2:30)
14	# "Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)" (3:15)
15	# "Light My Fire" (6:50)
16
17	[[AC:Side Two]]
18	# "Back Door Man" (3:30)
19	# "I Looked at You" (2:18)
20	# "End of the Night" (2:49)
21	# "Take It as It Comes" (2:13)
22	# "The End" (11:35)
23
24	----
25	!!Bonus Tracks (40th Anniversary Edition):
26	# "Moonlight Drive (Version 1)"
27	# "Moonlight Drive (Version 2)"
28	# "Indian Summer"
29
30	----
31	!!Principal Members:
32
33	* John Densmore - drums, vocals, tambourine
34	* Robby Krieger - guitar, vocals
35	* Ray Manzarek - organ, piano, vocals, keyboard bass, marxophone
36	* Jim Morrison - lead vocals, tambourine
37
38	----
39	!! The Crystal Tropes:
40	* AfterTheEnd: According to "The End" there is no after:
41	--> ''The end of laughter and soft lies''
42	--> ''The end of nights we tried to die''
43	--> ''This is the eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeend''
44	* AlbumClosure: The final track, appropriately called "The End," discusses endings of all sorts. They frequently used it to close their live concerts as well.
45	* {{Bowdlerize}}:
46	** The lyric "She gets high!" in "Break On Through (To the Other Side)" was clipped on the original vinyl release, and all subsequent releases until the CD remaster in 1999.
47	** A notorious incident occurred when the band appeared on ''Series/TheEdSullivanShow'' in 1967. The Ed Sullivan people told the Doors to change the lyrics in "Light My Fire" from "Girl, we couldn't get much higher" to "Girl, you really light my fire" days before the show. Neither Morrison nor Krieger wanted to change it, partially because they didn't want to be censored and partially because [[RuleOfFunny they thought it'd be funny to annoy the Ed Sullivan people]]. After the show, Jim claimed he'd forgotten to change the lyrics because he was nervous.
48	** The infamous moment where the protagonist in "The End" tells his father he wants to "kill" him and his mother he wants to rape her was made incomprehensible on both the album and the single by Jim's screaming. Even if you try to make out the word "rape" in his singing, it still sounds more like "murder you". Jim's chants of "fuck, fuck, fuck, c'mon and fuck me, baby" were also omitted from the album's original mix, but were later restored on the 1999 remaster of the album.
49	** Difficult as it is to believe, the Doors themselves did this with their cover of "Back Door Man". The original has [[https://genius.com/Howlin-wolf-back-door-man-lyrics significantly darker lyrics]], with lines about murder that are not present in [[https://genius.com/The-doors-back-door-man-lyrics the Doors' version]].
50	* CallToAdventure: "Break On Through (To the Other Side)", a message to break out of your shell and change your life to a more exciting one.
51	* CarefulWithThatAxe:
52	** "Light My Fire"
53	--> ''TRY AND SET THE NIGHT ON FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRE!''
54	** "The End"
55	--> ''Mother... I want to...[ incomprehensible] ALL NIGHT LONG! COME ON, YEAH!...''
56	* ClusterFBomb: During "The End". This was heavily buried in the original mix, but when Creator/FrancisFordCoppola was making ''Film/ApocalypseNow'', he requested the use of the song, and the studio accidentally sent his sound designer Walter Murch the original masters, which enabled him to hear the unmixed version of the song. Murch subsequently created a [[https://youtu.be/492jB4DXETM very trippy new mix for the film]] that brought the ClusterFBomb to the forefront. Some subsequent mixes of the original album now have the ClusterFBomb uncensored as well.
57	--> ''Fuck fuck fuck, c'mon and fuck me baby!''
58	* ConsummateProfessional: The subject of "20th Century Fox":
59	-->''She'll never wreck a scene''\
60	''She'll never break a date''
61	* TheCoverChangesTheGender: "Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)" was sung by female sex workers in the original version by Creator/BertoltBrecht and Music/KurtWeill, and they sung "the next little boy". The Doors' studio version changes this to "the next little girl", though Morrison occasionally [[HoYay left the line intact]] in live performances.
62	* CoverVersion: "Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)", lifted from Music/KurtWeill and Creator/BertoltBrecht's ''Theatre/TheRiseAndFallOfTheCityOfMahagonny'', and the Music/HowlinWolf cover "Back Door Man".
63	* DescentIntoDarknessSong: "The End" famously starts off as a ponderous musing about the nature of finality. However, eventually the imagery shifts into describing a masked killer grappling with the desire to kill, and then killing, his parents. Afterwards, the tempo builds to create a mesmerizing climax; that makes it the perfect song to be used to bookend ''Film/ApocalypseNow'' -- a descent into the evil lurking in the human heart.
64	* DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife: "Break On Through (to the Other Side)", which is about trying to break out of your monotone life to a more exciting one.
65	* DrunkenSong: "Alabama Song".
66	--> ''Well, show me the way to the next whiskey bar''
67	--> ''Oh, don't ask why / oh, don't ask why''
68	* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: "The End", in which the band sings about the end of everything.
69	* EpicRocking: "Light My Fire" and especially "The End".
70	* FaceOnTheCover: Morrison's face, pictured in close-up, while Densmore, Manzarek and Krieger are shown in the distance.
71	* FakeOutFadeOut: "I Looked at You" seems to come to a close, but then goes a bit longer.
72	* HeavyMetal: Usually not cited as an influence, but "Break On Through (To the Other Side)" was probably the darkest, heaviest song in 1960s pop music; its climax includes an ''almost'' subliminal "doomy thunder" sound that Music/BlackSabbath and Music/JudasPriest would make famous. And with "TRY TO SET THE NIGHT ON... FIRRRRE!" at the end of "Light My Fire", Jim may have birthed the MetalScream.
73	* LastNoteNightmare: That haunting moan that ends "The End"
74	--> ''This is the... eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeend''.
75	* LongestSongGoesLast: The album closes with "The End" (11:41).
76	* LovableAlphaBitch: The subject of “Twentieth Century Fox” is implied to be this.
77	* LyricalColdOpen: "The Crystal Ship" does this; Jim sings the first two words by himself before everyone else enters.
78	* MurderBallad: "The killer awoke before dawn" section of "The End".
79	* IntercourseWithYou: "Back Door Man" has been interpreted as being about someone who likes to take (or be taken?) from behind. It's certainly had those implications in the earliest blues songs that inspired the song.
80	** Of course, it is a cover of the song by Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf. In that version "back door man" meant an illicit relationship, such as with a married woman - he would sneak out through the back door when the husband came home through the front door.
81	* OdeToSobriety: "Alabama Song", see DrunkenSong.
82	* OneManSong: "Back Door Man".
83	* ParentalIncest: The protagonist in "The End" wants to rape his mother.
84	* ThePowerOfLove: "The Crystal Ship", "Light My Fire", "I Looked at You" are all love songs.
85	* PrecisionFStrike: In addition to the ClusterFBomb above, some live performances of "The End" feature one earlier in the song. The album version replaces it with an unintelligible scream, but given the Freudian imagery throughout the song, the expletive is about as heavily implied as it could be without being spoken outright.
86	--> The killer awoke before dawn\
87	He put his boots on\
88	He took a face from the ancient gallery\
89	And he walked on down the hall\
90	He went into the room where his sister lived, and then he\
91	Paid a visit to his brother, and then he\
92	He walked on down the hall, and\
93	And he came to a door\
94	And he looked inside\
95	"Father?" "Yes, son?" "I want to kill you"\
96	"Mother? I want to... [[spoiler:FUCK YOU]]!"
97	* PunBasedTitle: "20th Century Fox", where a girl is described as being one, namely that she is a sexy girl living in the 20th century. Consequently, the song is a very obvious {{pun}} on Creator/TwentiethCenturyFox, and now [[UnintentionalPeriodPiece rather outdated,]] considering we are no longer in the 20th century and the aforementioned company was renamed as 20th Century Studios in 2020.
98	* RecordProducer: Paul Rothchild.
99	* {{Remaster}}: The 2006 40th anniversary edition was not only remastered, but featured "Light My Fire" at its correct speed for the first time since its original 45 RPM single release. The speed discrepancy (being about 3.5% slow) was brought to Bruce Botnick's attention by BYU music professor Michael Hicks, who noted that all video and audio live performances of the Doors performing the song, the sheet music, and statements of band members show that the song is in a key almost a half step higher (A) than the stereo LP release (A♭/G♯). One result of the speed adjustment is the song's running time changing from 7:06 to 6:51.
100	* SelfTitledAlbum: ''Duh.''
101	* ShoutOut: Tons, discounting ''Film/{{The Doors\|1991}}'' film, of course.
102	** "The End" was used prominently in the film ''Film/ApocalypseNow'', as well as several episodes of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''. Music/FrankZappa had a concert parody of the song in which the protagonist tells his father he wants to kill him, but his dad happens to be masturbating on the toilet with a magazine on his knees and tells him: "Err, no not now son!" It never got an official release due to copyright reasons, but one instrumental track by Zappa was indeed released as "No Not Now".
103	** "The Crystal Ship" was the name of a band that DJ Tommy 'Nightmare' Smith (Voiced by [[Music/GunsNRoses Axl Rose]]) was formerly in; from the game ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas''.
104	** "Break On Through (To the Other Side)" appears on ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode ''I Love Lisa''.
105	** "Break On Through (To the Other Side)" and "Soul Kitchen" appears in ''Film/ForrestGump''. "People Are Strange", "Hello, I Love You" and "Love Her Madly" are all also used in the film.
106	** "Light My Fire" was covered in the most bizarre way possible on ''Music/TheThirdReichNRoll'' by Music/TheResidents.
107	** "Light My Fire" was also sampled in "Superstar" from ''Music/TheMiseducationOfLaurynHill'' by Music/LaurynHill.
108	** Flemish cult poet Jotie T' Hooft committed suicide in 1976 by overdosing on heroin. When people found him, he had already died and had put the groove of his record player needle on repeat so that The Doors' "The End" played in a continuous loop.
109	* TheSomethingSong: "Alabama Song".
110	* TimeMarchesOn: Back in 1967, it must have been rather complimentary to be called a "20th Century Fox". Nowadays, in a different century, it almost sounds like an insult.
111	* TheUnintelligible: Jim's screaming during the line "mother... I want to... rape you!" in "The End" is so garbled that it is impossible to make out what he is shouting, therefore it sounds more like "mother... I want to... murder you!".

Context Music / TheDoorsAlbum