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Rating: History/Tribute/Anniversary (2)
Memoirs
(always old stuff, noble algol, bear with it)
Of course, if they had told Morrison that their records would become classics ahahahahah he would have burst out laughing. The very one, irreverent and countercultural like few others in those years with various “Ed Sullivan Show,” New Haven, Miami, etc., etc., or the Doors as far from something classic as I am from a priest.... really strange.
And anyway:
Let’s swim to the moon
Let’s climb through the tide
Penetrate the evening that the city sleeps to hide
Let’s swim out tonight love
It’s our time to try
Park beside the ocean on our moonlight drive
"Why don’t you sing me one?" So he sang Moonlight Drive, and when I heard the first four lines, I said Whoa, this is the best lyric I’ve ever heard for a rock ‘n’ roll song. As he sang that song, I could clearly hear in my mind the progression of the chords and the rhythm, and my fingers started moving immediately. I asked him if he had more, and he said Oh yes, I have a ton, and he let me hear a few. Finally, I said: Listen, these are the best rock songs I’ve ever heard in my life, and consider that I’ve been listening to and playing music since I was seven. Why don’t we bring something good out of this? Jim said: That’s exactly what I had in mind. Let’s form a band, I said. Yes, let’s do it. That’s how the Doors began” Ray Manzarek
Many bands have “the song” that started it all. In this case, “Moonlight Drive” played a crucial role in the formation of the group. Besides being one of the very first song-poems written by James Douglas while he lived that summer of 1965 on the famous Venice rooftop and was the first to be “sung” at the meeting with Ray (on the beach that July 12, 1965, at 3:32 pm, temperature 82 degrees, slight south-west breeze, ocean slightly rough), it was the track that led (after reading the lyrics) John to join Jim and Ray and the first song they played during Robby's audition, with his immediate entry to complete the Doors quartet.
If “The Doors” is one of the most exciting debut albums ever, with all four members fully charged and tracks that hit you like a precise and devastating uppercut such as Break On Through Light My Fire and The End, “Strange Days” is the album of awareness, the most “true” album of the entire discography, where the Doors’ universe in the most global sense is expressed. Dark, mysterious, indecipherable atmospheres, dark forces, strange stories, double meanings, life and death, stimuli and paranoia, monsters, lost little girls, dying horses, lots of genius, extravagance, psychedelia, with that unmistakable sound... “Strange Days” is one of my essential albums.
After the first album, Jim was clear: “I don’t want to see my face on the cover of the next album, anything will always be better than our f***ing faces.” The truth is Morrison, after just over a year, was already tired of the attention people gave to his appearance; the Dionysian and cursed rockstar in tight leather pants and the role of sex symbol distracted from what was important to him: their music, his lyrics, the messages, and the unique show (a real ritual) of each concert of the band.
The cover of “Strange Days” with this circus scene is fantastic, but above all, it perfectly conveys the idea of the album it contains. In the foreground, those funny street performers: a juggler, a dwarf, acrobats, a strongman, a trumpet player are perfect, and only in the background, on the wall of a building is a small poster with the band’s name. An evocative cover like few others that sums up all that’s imaginable.
And then, things as they were done in those years and in those bohemian atmospheres, with only the acrobats being real, the dwarf an “actor” found at the moment, the juggler the photographer’s assistant, the strongman a bouncer, and the trumpet player a taxi driver paid a few dollars. Everything spontaneous, immediate; little reasoning and a lot of instinct, little time but a lot of energy, few means but a lot of passion.
Elektra still provided the top technology of the time with a new eight-track console, the experts Rotchild and Botnick, and the help of Doug Luban (bassist of the psychedelic band from Sunset Strip, Clear Light) to reinforce the bass parts. New instruments are used, the sound becomes more refined, atmospheres matter as much as melodies; harpsichord, moog, percussion instruments, noises, filtered voice. Jim was already starting his personal fight with his demons, but in “Strange Days” he offers probably the best as a writer, for conviction and as a vocal tone.
He still had hopes, believed he could still do something. The Doors, despite the “Summer Of Love” period, have never been hippies peace and love (maybe only Manzarek); Jim approved of its values but understood almost immediately that, as it was, it would achieve nothing. He often stood against that movement which, after a promising initial phase, burned out without energy and without the will to fight. And anyway, the Doors were dark and gloomy and had little to do with freak bracelets and necklaces.
The “double whammy” of The Doors/Strange Days in 1967 has few equals in Rock history: bands that, in the same calendar year, release two albums that will remain in history are rare; besides them, I think of Love in the same year, Led Zeppelin two years later, and Sabbath in 1970.
And so, fifty years later, you still let yourself be carried away on this incredible journey through the title track that describes to us - through the parabola of “strange days” - the American mess of the period, the sensual singing of “You’re Lost Little Girl” (so relaxed because achieved with the “participation” as active as ever of Pam), the unique and melancholic atmospheres of “Unhappy Girl,” the intriguing marvelous invitation to a nighttime swim towards the moon of “Moonlight Drive” or the cutting Rock of “My Eyes Have Seen You” perhaps the greatest tribute to voyeurism in the history of rock.
And if to describe the genesis of the psychedelic madness of “Horse Latitude” a dedicated writing would be needed, in the touching and sad “I Can See Your Face In My Mind,” a delicate melody is combined with the end of a love story (again in a dark way). “People Are Strange,” with its famous verses, tells us about different people marginalized by society as “not normal” (and therefore not manageable at the whim of ignoble puppeteers) with a cabaretesque and festive sound; we’re likely, in fact, in one of Morrison's first attempts to drive out his fears and insecurities through his innate sense of humor. The day Jim “wrote” the song has an incredible story (another dedicated writing ahahahahah)
The beloved blues finds a place only in “Love Me Two Times.” Perhaps few know that this single extracted from the album was considered their first “prohibited” track. The loaded sound and Morrison's irresistible singing tell of a guy who wants to be loved twice, have fun, and live it all before leaving for Vietnam (but also of the “one-night” adventures of the Doors themselves with their lovers) are considered obscene, and the single is not broadcast on the radio.
The adventure concludes with “When The Music’s Over,” a journey within the journey of the album; the Doors take you into their world, in an otherworldly universe. The track is born in the early concerts and takes shape (together with “The End”) directly live first at London Fog and then at Whisky a Go Go. The mind travels and relaxes (I get agitated, but it’s “normal”) while John, Ray, and Robby improvise.... then (dedicated to Rita, who is no longer here) all together: “We want the world and we want it now!” ... yes, we still believed in it.. it's a journey where I imagine as protagonists debaserians first of all the noble Lulù, il PoetaCosmico, and Buzzin (but I know Buzzin doesn’t like them, too famous, riffraff ahahah), perhaps accompanied by the noble lady Heart and the noble Master Pinhead, because, you know, it's easy to get lost in that magical labyrinth.
What a year that 1967, in my opinion, probably the Year of Rock in absolute for a thousand reasons;
If you're Thirsty, go see the list in the listening session that the noble Hellraiser made some time ago with all the albums that came out that year….
The anniversary came out in mono and stereo, but who cares.
I hope you all have the original, even those who haven't listened to it for a long time (right noble Demarga!) or will never listen to it again, because this, like it or not, is the history of Rock without ifs, ands, or alternative whims that have nothing to do with anything.
As I said for the debut to young debaserians who will come soon, listen to this record and enjoy it to the core because here in 1967 they are pure like they will never be again. I trust you, noble Accagei, Hj (by the way, what had you taken when you gave yourself this nickname?! strange days really ahahahahah), you will be there even decades from now to educate young nobles.
With you, James Douglas will chat a bit at “Deux Magots” or “Place de Vorges.”
Happy 2018, dear Nobles, may the blues always accompany you.
(because as the noble nes said - under the Iommi review- even Black Sabbath are a blues group, first of all)
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