The Doors : Waiting For The Sun vs Morrison Hotel

I never thought any of it was dark ... maybe strong and opinionated with a possible violent streak, or at least something that might be called "revolutionary" ... but dark ... is a bit harsh for my book, because the material is really about a lot of things, and mainly about how bland and boring and about nothing, most rock music in the radio was ... c'mon ... he does scream, light my fire ... do we really need to think that is just a rock'n'roll scream that a "star" rock singer in a metal or crap band would do? Many do scream and such, but the material strength of the lyrics kinda eat away at that strength ... and almost 50 years later, Jim's words and screams, are still heard ... LOUD AND CLEAR!  (... and maybe "clear" is the word that we need!)

My take is that THE DOORS were being asked by the record company for another hit, and some of the blues'y stuff was probably the easiest thing to do, but I seriously doubt that he wanted to do that. He had no problem with Whiskey Bar (Weill/Brecht) which was more on the theatrical vein of some of his material, but all in all, when it became just plain lyrics for a "hit" ... I don't think that Jim was up to that. His material, and the very best of THE DOORS, is almost all based on the poetic side of things, or more correctly, the FILM SIDE of things (remember that they were DEFINITELY aware of film in their work!).

It is still an issue today ... everything is so commercial that the ability for some very individualistic work to come out is just hard to enjoy ... either the same instrument sound, or worse ... the same beginner drumming ... and it makes progressive not be as strong as it used to be.

But when you hear "The Texas Radio Song" ... that is awesome to play in your evening show ... a great rocker and a great finger!

Whamdaddy wrote: ... I actually like Soft Parade, I think it gets a bad rap going al the way back to its release, and the other is true, that fans didn't like it because it was not really commercial, I personally like horns in my music oh, Waiting by the way

The Soft Parade (the long piece) is magnificent, though the words are really difficult for some people because they are very strong ... and not for the typical rock audience looking for material that says nothing of great value. Study those lines ... they are not empty ... just a bit more on the eccentric side, I suppose, but a great one next to the other long pieces.

 

sad but true, although story goes that he tried a few drugs.

I also love LA Woman, to me, just as good as Morrison Hotel or Waiting for the Sun (if not better sometimes than WftS). 

Actually if you want to go first to last you can't dismiss LA Woman which was a surprising return to form while Jim Morrison was self destructing.