The Doors
Strange Days

Strange days found them.

1967, the memory of the Summer of Love still in the incense-filled minds of young hippies, dreams of changing the world, love, peace, war. Strange days in those years, the black ghettos of Detroit and Newark shaken by violent and bloody protests, Vietnam, the young Argentine revolutionary Ernesto Guevara, known as "Che," assassinated under mysterious circumstances. Some synthesize the ideals touted by the new generations by singing that "all you need is love," yet there are others who, behind the exotic scents of change and hashish, still perceive something profoundly anomalous.

The Doors are at the top of the charts after "Light My Fire," the success of the first album is incredible, but the band does not rest on its laurels and on the contrary, driven by incredible enthusiasm, decides to literally release the second album in quick succession; it is also largely composed of pieces conceived prior to the release of "The Doors." The lyrics of "Strange Days" are magnetic and terribly expressive. Perhaps with this album more than any other, Morrison tries to achieve his primary goal: reaching theatricality. His first passion, and perhaps greatest, remained cinema, let's not forget.

"When the Music's Over," often compared to "The End" as its counterpiece, is actually profoundly different. No more dreamlike rides between dream and reality but an interpretation that slowly, progressively, abandons the singer to himself, leaving him alone at the center of the stage. The instruments fade like the lights after a concert, leaving room for pure and solitary theatrical performance. Lapel-like, almost terrifying declamations. Like that of "Horse Latitudes," the piece that most represents the philosophy of the album together with the opening track. Jim Morrison is no longer a singer: he is an angel of the apocalypse. He sees horses being thrown into the water from a vessel amidst the furious waves of the sea. Beings alone and now without hope, like us, but composed and dignified to the end. It is a Jim Morrison no longer boastful, hiding from the cold and severe gazes of people. He is a decadent poet who is locked in his ivory tower and who desperately wants to get out. In one way or another, in the end, he will succeed.