WAITING FOR THE SUN

A solid bunch of good songs performed with unique DOORS' capability.Morrison's charisma is flawless even when it comes to songs like "We Could Be So Good Together" and "Yes, The River Knows" (pretty average ones). My personal favourites here are "My Wild Love"(gospel!!!), "Five to One"(DOORS at their best!), "Spanish Caravan"(excellent guitars!) and "Summer's almost gone"(nice ballad)."Wintertime Love", a waltz, should be mentioned too - emotional lyrics laid on funny tune (IMHO).THE DOORS prove that bass- less band can be good (check "Not to touch the Earth", what a hypnotic one!).Funny melodies ("Hello I love You"), social concept ("Unknown Soldier"), amazing musicianship - even with a simple "songy" album THE DOORS sound better and proggier than most of the modern bands.Not my personal favourite from them - 3,5 stars actually - but a Must- Have anyway

My favourite Doors album. There is no epic here, but all the melodies on this album are great. It's a strange history with this record. There is no title track here (which is on Morrison Hotel), and no long suite that Celebration Of The Lizard was ment to be. But, all in all it's a geniuos album. Starts good with Hello, I Love You, then there's beautiful Love Street. Third track is Not To Touch The Earth. My favourite Doors track. Psychodelic atmosphere, great music and one of the best Morrison lyricis. So dark and hypnotic this one is... Ok, enough about that. Here we are with Summer's Almost Gone. I don't know what to write here... Such beautiflu melody, such wonderful lyrics... You know what, I will not review this track by track, because every one of them is great. This is the last studio masterpiece by The Doors. 5 stars.

After the first two psychedelic stampede albums in 1967, Jim & Co. pushed the brake and slowed the things down.

The third album "Waiting For the Sun" (with amazing and my favourite cover art picture) contains many slow and "easy" tracks. Some of them can be called "psychedelic pop ballads", like "Love Street", "Summer's Almost Gone", "Wintertime Love" and "Yes, the River Knows", which have almost nothing to do with rock templates but owe instead a considerable inspiration from the classic Tin Pan Alley pop (Morrison often admitted his love of Frank Sinatra as well as of Elvis Presley, regarding singing styles). On the other side, "Not to Touch the Earth", "Unknown Soldier" and "Five to One" are wild, bluesy, heavy psyche songs presenting Morrison's less sane personality and strong, spiky lyrics. Oddities include a gospel/Indian-like vocals-only chant "My Wild Love" and Krieger's classical acoustic guitar extravaganza of "Spanish Caravan". The big hit "Hello, I Love You" is a childish pop song, the one I usually skip when playing.

"Waiting For the Sun" is not easily acceptable album, despite its "easy" feel. It is not catchy or captivating on the first listen, unlike their other more blues-rock structured works that follow the usual rock 'n' roll norm. Even for fans, it will take some time to earn appreciation. It is very unusual album even for the revolutionary, psychedelic standards of the year 1968. Often neglected in light of being recorded after the masterpiece "Strange Days", this album is a hidden gem in THE DOORS' catalogue and is highly recommended to prog-rock, especially psychedelic lovers.

Another excellent album!

When you are fan of any band, you always want to support them and recommend them in order to be more recognized band and also to explore all the limits that a band could have, we shouldn`t have to listen to their most well known songs (aka hits), but to all the music to comprehend all the changes and different stages that a band had (or have). In other words, after their first two releases which i absolutely adore and probably are the only albums that so many people know about this band, The Doors didn`t waste time, and in the follower year (1968) the gave light to their third baby, which was named "Waiting for the Sun".

As i said in the other reviews, what i less want is to make a hostile debate about if they are prog or not, if they were a main influence to the development of the scene, i only want to review their albums because i love the band, that`s all, and this is the first time that happens to me , this kind of "fever" when a beloved band was recently added, and then you want to review everything, i hope not to bore you, but i simply HAVE to review them, is something very personal, though.

In this album we can notice the likes of Jim towards "shamans" and those things that made him with a unique behaviour, some of his personal influences, besides the fact of a bit more mature sound in their songs, i mean i think after their first two powerful records, they tried to calm down a bit.

With 11 songs, "Waiting for the Sun" has another face of The Doors, this time we wont find long tracks, nor proggy songs, but anyway good psych rock. "Hello, i love you" is the one which starts, this song for me was made completely to sing, great keyboard work. "Love Street" is my favorite song here, a very soft song, not rockish at all, but with good guitar arrangements and the beautiful voice of Jim. "Not to Touch the Earth" returns to their classic psychedelic sound, this song may have been written with lots of mushrooms or LSD, it`s a great one, though. "Summer`s Almost Gone" and "Wintertime Love" are small pieces, maybe a weak point in this album, i like them all i think, but these are not excellent songs at all. "Unknown Soldier", well this is a classic song, in here we can also notice their influences and some of their inner feelings that they wanted to share, "Spanish Caravan" is a masterpiece, here as you can imagine because of the title, Robby Krieger shows us his talent and his fast fingers, the guitar is excellent here, besides the texture of the song and the keys. "My Wild Love" is a weird, weird but beautiful song ,it`s strangely known but definilety a great one. "We Could be so Good Together" and "Yes, the River Knows" are the other couple of weak moments, both songs are lack of determination to create something better, nothing new and good, and finishing the album another classic track "Five to One", this song is also memorable because of the letter, the intro and the last part when Jim keeps on saying that words, along with a kind of "chorus" as a background vocals.

Well, after all i like it a lot, but is not as good as the first ones, so my grade will be 3 stars, good but non-essential.

After two very intense albums, this album became "the difficult third album", because it seems that the band had to record it after a hard work schedule. So, this third album is full of ballads, and it has been criticized since then by many people and Rock music writters. But I like it a lot.

The album starts with "the obligatory single", "Hello, I Love You". This song has some good fuzz guitars.

"Love Street": a very good ballad, with very good piano arrangements by Manzarek. One of my favourites from this band.

"Not to Touch the Earth": a fragment of "The Celebration of the Lizard" which was recorded in its entirety for the "Absolutely Live" album. The full lyrics of this musical piece appear in the gatefold cover of "Waiting for the Sun". Apparently Morrison wanted to record the whole musical piece for this album, but the Producer didn`t agree with him.

"Summer`s Almost Gone": another good ballad which was really one of the earliest songs that the band composed.

"Wintertime Love": another good ballad.

"Unknown Soldier": one of the best songs from this album. There was a promotional film (directed by Manzarek) which I saw several times broadcasted on TV. A protest song about war.

"Spanish Caravan": a good song with Krieger playing very good Flamenco acoustic guitars.

"My Wild Love": a song sung "a capella" (with handclaps and percussion instruments) by the band. Very different in style, it was a good experiment done in the studio.

"We Could Be So Good Together": a Pop Rock song which I think that it could have been a good choice for a single.

"Yes, the River Knows": the best ballad in this album, with very good piano arrangements by Manzarek and good drums arrangements by Densmore, who plays this song using brushes.

"Five to One": the heaviest song in this album, with distorted guitars and Morrison`s energetic vocals, including some screaming from him. In this song, he sounds like he recorded the vocals a bit "stoned".

In conclusion, this is a good album, mostly a "soft album" which many fans don`t like very much, full of romantic songs. It was like "a Parade throught the Soft".

There are not many Proto-Prog influences in this album, IMO. So, I give to it a 3 stars rating.

Very, VERY, surprised to see The Doors here at the archives (always considered their music as a 'progressive' form) - seems like it's a matter of time before Grateful Dead records appear on P.A. (well, they had their 'proggy' moments too).

After many years of being into The Doors, almost 20 - and it was all 'West Coast Rock' for me, before I got into 'Prog' - I am confident that this album, 'Waiting For The Sun', is their most diverse, if not (given the release year), their most 'progressive' album within their career - this is, of course, my perception. The quality of musicianship is undeniable, especially the talents of keyboardist Ray Manzarek, with cutting edge guitar techniques from Robbie Krieger and jazzy drumming from John Densmore. Together, with the unique 'lyrical' textures of Jim Morrison (somewhat emotionally similar to Peter Hammill, both in inspiration, and execution,) create an amazing spread of tunes, ranging from psychedelic pop (Hello, I Love You, Love Street, We Could Be So Good Together, Wintertime Love - all of which incorporate irregular key changes and progressions, and varying rhythms), aggressive and wild moods (The Unknown Soldier, Five To One) mysterious and reflective (Yes, The River Knows and Not To Touch The Earth) a bluesy tune (Summer's Almost Gone) an 'acidic' flamenco concoction (Spanish Caravan) and even an 'a-capella' (human voices only) arrangement with 'My Wild Love' - and armed with a selection of various Organs, Piano's and maybe even the odd synthesiser, as well as treated guitar sounds, the band have presented the World with a revolutionary listening experience, albeit slightly 'dark' sounding, with a suggestion of the twists and turns that simplistic musical styles can take. A definite high-point of formative, progressive music - 5/5 for this LP.

After delivering two revolutionary and head-turning albums in the space of a single year and finishing a spectacularly controversial tour the Doors faced their first real challenge: Write and record new songs that would rival the gems they had honed in their earlier years and amazed the general public with. Only a handful of bands could rise to that challenge and the Doors gave it an admirable try but, in the end, created what most fans considered a step down from their previous two. I suspect the opening song (with a riff obviously derived from "Sunshine of Your Love" and "Inna-Gadda-da-Vida") came about as the result of some fat record exec who uttered the cliché "I don't hear a single" upon listening to the tapes coming out of the Electra studios, forcing the foursome to quickly put together "Hello, I love you." It is banal both lyrically and musically and should never have seen the light of day. But they were still young and toeing the company line (even though Jim confessed "I tell you lies, I tell you wicked lies" in the song "We Could Be So Good Together.") The next few songs are strictly about love in its various forms and that's not what we fans were wanting or expecting from them at all. They aren't bad songs, they were just too "nice." Morrison boldly declares "I am the Lizard King, I can do anything" but we were still skeptical at this point. Not until the jarring "Unknown Soldier" were we treated to the brutality and horror of the war-pervaded sixties that we craved and needed from these guys. The satirical carnival-like atmosphere of the ending is truly a great thing to behold and rang frighteningly true for all of us of draft age. Not until the next to the last song are we once again confronted by Mr. Morrison's eerie forecasts when he sings (in "Yes, The River Knows") "I'm going, but I need a little time. I promised I would drown myself in mysticated wine." And that's a promise we didn't want him to keep. The album ends with a bang, though. "Five to One" is the group at its most forceful. To all warnings from his legions of followers to take it easy Jim shouts "No one here gets out alive!" and that he is ready and willing to trade in his hours for a handful of dimes. We didn't know what he was talking about at the time but he was walking down a one-way street toward Dylan's desolation row and no one could stop him. The overindulgences Jim couldn't resist were just beginning to take its toll and this album's overall mediocrity was, unfortunately, only the tip of the iceberg.

After two albums, The Doors were almost on top of the world (as were other LA Sunset- strip groups but also their Northern counterparts from Frisco), and it seemed nothing could stop them. But somehow with this album, things will come to a gradual stop, even if that stop was still exceeding normal speed limits. Graced with an outstanding shot of the group at sunrise in the dunes, the album boasts a bunch of really interesting tracks ever- widening their scope, and plans was for the sidelong Lizard King suite that will never be recorded in studio in its final state, for obscure reasons. But the inner fold of the album will boast the full poem and a picture of the lizard that was to be crowned the king.

So the album still gives to the ultra-commercial (Hello I love You etc.), the there are tracks which shows that the groups is still progressing in terms of dramatics, but Morrison's rebellion is getting sometimes a bit of an hindrance (especially on stage where his substances are increasingly hampering the concerts).

Tracks like Not To Touch The Earth (delightfully dynamic), The Unknown Soldier, Five To One (both the last two about the war in Nam, in Morrison's rebellion to his father being an admiral in the navy) and Spanish caravan (with Krieger's Flamenco intro) are all tracks which merits attention of the proghead, but let's face it, there is not much else for the proghead. Clearly this album is lacking the intended centrepiece that was supposed to be its centrepiece: The Celebration Of The Lizard King. Hardly essential really.

2007 revision: I wrote this review long before I bought the new 2007 remixes of all the 6 albums by The Doors. I won't touch the review itself but let me say a few words about the new edition. First, the sound, as with all the other new mixes, is crystal-clear now, allowing the listener to hear certain sounds that weren't there in old LP or CD versions. Morrison's voice sounds so in-your-ear that you canhear his breathing; songs like "Hello I Love You" do actually sound different now that, in this particular example, the keyboards have much more importance and match the level of the guitars in the verse. The booklet contains great photos, commentaries and all the lyrics. About the bonus tracks: we have the original 1968 version of Albinoni's Adagio as played by The Doors (not the version we hear at the end of AMERICAN PRAYER or The Doors, THE MOVIE), which is quite good for a cover of such a melodical piece of classical music; we have three versions of "Not To Touch The Earth" (irrelevant) but the most important thing: we have the complete "Celebration of The Lizard" recorded in studio, not the version we get in ABSOLUTELY LIVE or The Doors LIVE. This one pays the price of admission, though I have to say, the live version still sounds better, as this studio version sounds less energetic, Morrison specially much more "inhibited". All in all, a good remix and something to consider even if you already own an older edition.

Oh, how glad I am that such an incredible band as The Doors was finally included here in the Archives. And what better way to make the most of that inclusion that to start writing reviews for their albums? I'll start with an album I consider their third best: Waiting for the Sun.

After the marvelous, amazingly unique and breathtaking voyage that was "The Doors", and the psychedelic journey through the acid worlds that was "Strange Days", "Waiting for the Sun" came as a bit of a stop in all the mind-blowing music that The Doors was providing us. Sure, this album has its share of obscure, dark tracks, its share of narcotic-inducing rhythms, but in a way comes very "light" when compared with the two trip-through-the-unknown records that preceded it.

Musically, the level of playing is, as always, superb, if not as spectacularly innovative and original as in their first two efforts. But that's talking about Manzarek, Densmore and Krieger, for when talking about the band's mastermind (at least in the lyrical and concept department), Jim Morrison, his voice here begins to show sings of decay, his throat starts telling us a lot of alcohol had come through it, the tone of his vocals start to tremble and become unstable. Nowhere is this more evident than in the last track, Five to One, where Morrison's voice seems as if produced right after the worst drinking- night he could have had; but not everything was lost, in regards to that: for many people (me including, if only at times), that "raspiness" in J.M's voice only added another element of ambiguity to the music, and also helped the tracks feel even more "bluesy". We have to acknowledge, though, that, from a purely technical point of view, Morrison's vocals started walking a downhill path, in which his beautiful baritone voice slowly turned into an old-man belch.

Hello, I Love You (8/10), one of the most "pop" tracks by The Doors is also one of the most adictive, especially for the simple-yet-catchy rhythm played by Densmore.

Love Street (10/10), a gorgeous song, the very quiet melody in piano is repeated and sung over by Morrison in the most "I love you and you are MINE" tone. A song about complete and utter infatuation but also about being the owner of that subject of love, at least in the character's mind. Not To Touch The Earth (10/10), a sick, shamanistic, drug-influenced tribal dance that shows a mind completely embedded in a wall of acid, labyrinths, all-colored-lights; it would've been even better had they included the whole "Celebration of the Lizard" in the final album, which of course was imposible due to format limitations.

Summer's Almost Gone (8/10), a lovely little quiet song, a ballad if you like, nothing to write your grandfather about but nothing to forget so easily either. Wintertime Love (9/10), too short, this beautifully crafted song has a "prairie" air to it: it seems, in one of his acid trips, Morrison dreamt of him in the countryside, a cold countryside, thinking of his loved, his owned one.

Unknown Soldier (8/10), a famous song, I like it but not as much as others do. The song, if it was a protest about war (I don't know about that), was not as good at doing that when standing alone, but the video was very effective.

Spanish Caravan (9/10), after a good display of Krieger's acoustic guitar skills, (doing his best flamenco-guitarist-impersonator), the song dwells into a dark, sensual territory; it has an spanish air to it; yes, The Doors were masters: they actually managed to give this track an spanish aura, even though they were as spanish as their music was traditional. Whenever I close my eyes during this song, I see red and black colors, a lady in full costume, a lost man waiting to jump aboard a spanish caravan.

My Wild Love (7/10), nothing more than a drug-songwriting-experiment (it sounds like that), Morrison "sings" (does he?) over acoustic percussion with a rattle-snake-like- effect here and there. The song is no great track but interesting nevertheless.

We Could Be So Good Together (7/10), another pop song but this one not as brilliant as the first one. It just doesn't have true original factors going for it.

Yes, The River Knows (7/10), just as the preceding track, this one is not one of the essential in this album and can be skipped... for your loss, that is, because when it comes to The Doors' music, more is always better.

Five To One (9.5/10), a heavy track (actually truck-heavy when compared to the rest), this hard-rock song gives us one of Morrison's most quoted lines: "no one here gets out alive", which has been used to exhaustion to sell shirts and name biographies. His singing here is in full "drunk mode", with his throat barely reaching the proper heights and giving up a lot of times. But that weird, flawed singing actually ADDS to the song, making it feel more from-the-gutter, more straight-from-the-bar, more jazzy, more unconventional, more rebellious. The guitar and keys solos halfway down the track are really good. A standout track that closes this album in good, if a little bit erratic, fashion.

All in all, a very good album, not up to the level of the two preceding monsters, but a great piece of psychedelic-bluessy-jazzy rock nevertheless. And a must in every good collection.

Recommended for: Everyone. A great album but one of the best bands ever.

Not recommended for: clean-vocals purists: you'll get a lot of "missed" notes here... but hey, what's the problem, is big ol' Jimbo! And I must say, when talking about Jim D. Morrison, I'm ready to forgive it all. Even a few (?) shots (bottles?) of scotch before recording.

nice one.

Another exelent doors album where all the song are good. Spanish Caravan with Kriegers flamengo like guitar (which has taken from Isaac Albeniz classical song Alhambra) and on the other hand my wild loves hand clapping beside camp fire ( ok it's done in the studio but I mean what it sounds like) are exelenct examples for versitily of this Album. Decadence kinda feeling hangs again over this psychedelic master piece which is also nice. I have to add that the raw power in five to one is pure briliancy.

The combination of excellent songs versus mediocre ones is well balanced on Waiting For The Sun. Musically The Doors were never really highly skilled musicians but where their strength was, was in emotion. I would have to say that Manzarek on keyboards and Morrison on vocals were the main ingredients musically. There are some highlights on here like the Beatlesque ' Hello I Love You', and the incredible ' Five In One'. The rest for me is bordeline mediocre. But mediocrity from the Doors is like a masterpice from DT!! Still recommended..... but for collectors only.

This is the last album by this band which I really love. The peculiar raw sound, surrealistic elements and Morrison's fine poetry really make this as a LP which I really want to claim as a masterpiece! The record begins with two catchy classic Doors love songs, which are followed by marvellous "Not to Touch The Earth", which has constantly growing aggressive chant spinning up to it's atavistic climax, containing the famous "Lizard King" phrase in it. "Summer's Almost Gone" is very mellow and sad song, followed funnily by a winter themed song, "Wintertime Love". This is very short but effective waltz, and my friend and his wife had this song as their wedding waltz! "Unknown Soldier" is then a Vietnam protest song, combining ehtreal and conventional pop/rock elements. There was a famous film shot for this tune, where Morrison get's shot in the impressionistic execution sequence. What's one really clever element of these early Doors albums is their style how they combine easy musical elements with more challening and surrealistic themes, making their music accessible and interesting for very large audiences! The B-side of the vinyl starts with "Spanish Caravan", revealing the folk music background of the guitarrists. There are some quotations of Albenitz guitar suites, and the traditional sound gets also treated with psychedelic sound textures. "My Wild Love" is archaic Indian chant painting visions of singers dancing around the nocturnal fireside at the desert. Another love song follows, and "Yes, The River Knows" is a tune I would like to mention as a great moody jazz-oriented track. Though the later studio records hold some good separate tracks, in my opinion they deviated from the impressionistic psychedelic style of their early stuff, moving towards more commericial oriented style and not so interesting songs. But these three awesome records still remain as precious artifacts for me, and I would recommend them for anyone interested of early psychedelic music!

The frenesy with which The Doors released their first three albums is rather impressive. Three albums in two years. To put things into perspective, this was usual at that time. People will now say that since the albums were shorter (which is true) it was easier to produce more albums. I just believe that these bands were more creative than current ones (prog or non-prog, it does not matter).

We have already noticed that their second work, was much less psyche than their debut one. The tendancy will continue here.

The Doors were touring extensively and they needed more original Doors songs (so far, they used to play a lot of covers during their concerts). The rather provocative (to say the least) Morrison was a master in manipulation and was known to create great fuss with the police during thier live appearances. It was also the time during which Jim talked already of stopping his musical career and concentrate more on writing poems.

The other members of the band, their management and the record company being completely paralized when they heard this. They reminded to Jim that they had a contract to release SIX albums. So, Jim pursued his career with The Doors but also started to write poems. This latter side of his talent was never obvious to me.

The album opens brilliantly with "Hello, I Love You", another Doors anthem and very well known of course. "Love Street" is a jazzy ballad. Almost tranquil.

The chorus of "Not to Touch the Earth" is absolutely gorgeous and most of the song has a psyche and disjointed flavour. It reminds their great debut album (their best, by far). This is only a part of what should have been a very long song (a complete side actually) called : "The Celebration Of The Lizard". This Morrison "poetic" piece was not welcomed by the band and brought the first real friciton amongst them. They rejected the project as such but this "song" will be the central piece of their concert. Almost an hymn. We can get the full picure on their "In Concert" double CD. IMO, I can only understand the band's decision pretty well. It is by no means a masterpiece. Just a Morrison showcase.

"Summer's Almost Gone" also flirts with the psychedelic sound, but more on the melodious side. A bit bluesy with some slide guitar sounds. Very good number I must say.

The short "Wintertime Love" is a bit of a filler but it features the so recognizable Manzarek sound. The next track, is IMO the best one of this album. The most contravertial one of their career (even more than "The End"). It is a protest song against the Vietnam War. The clip for this song (available on the fantastic DVD "The Doors" : 30 Years Commemorative Edition) has been forbidden in the US for a very long time. It is interesting to know that in 1968, The Doors already released a video clip to support one of their song.

Next two songs are rather poor : "Spanish Caravan" like it is titled, features a flamenco guitar style which is not very convincing. With "My Wild Love" we reach the bottoms : this Indian "chant" has really nothing to offer. I guess that since the album was already very short (just around thirty three minutes), they had to publish it but frankly it is totally useless and boring.

"We Could Be So Good Together" is a clone for "The Unknown Soldier" at least musically. The chorus is very catchy. It is another of the good songs featured on this album. "Yes, the River Knows" is a very melancholic tune. Very quiet, almost piano-bar sound with nice Krieger guitar play. And this guy can play, I bet you. I have seen him recently with "The Riders Of The Storm" (in January 2007) and he was really impressive.

"Five To One" is also a great number. A bit incoherent or hectic if you prefer. It sounds as if it was played live (the real essence of the band was live actually). They could develop their most crazy side at the max. The hypnotic riff works very well and Jim is brilliant in his tortured role.

Ouups. The album is already finished ! I told you it was a very short one.

I prefer this one compared to their second album. Some great songs, some very interesting but less commercial ones ("Not to Touch the Earth" and "The Unknown Soldier") makes it a very good work. Four stars.

Their worse album. Ever.

Only two good songs here (The Unknown Soldier and Not To Touch The Earth - this second song was originally taken from a long suite called 'The Celebration Of The Lizard', and initially, this suite was intented to be one of the two sides of the album. You can hear the entirety of this suite in the live Absolutely Live), the remainder is cheap, really. Just listen to My Wild Love and these irritating handclaps...

A collection of weak love songs (Love Street ; Yes, The River Knows ; Hello, I Love You ; We Could Be So Good Together). 33 minutes that are really boring.

'Hello, I Love You' is a really commercial opening song here, but it's catchy and funny and I still love it. 'Not To Touch the Earth' ranks up there with my favourite Doors songs. It's got a truly distinctive sound to it. 'The Unknown Soldier' and 'Spanish Caravan' are both strong and somewhat progressive. There's no great epic song here. Just a collection of well done songs. Not essential unless you are a Doors fan like me. Then it is definitely essential, and enjoyable!

Oh. Crap. No way. This album is horrible. Ignore my rating, that can't be accurate. After the mighty might might of Strange Days, I guess it occurred to the studio heads that no one in their right mind would honestly want to listen to a bunch of bizarre circus weirdoes trying to create prog rock two years too early, so the best thing in the world (to regain hit status after Days missed the mark the debut hit) would be to reinvent the Doors as a bunch of pop rockers. And to think, this was in the days before cocaine was so damn popular...

And before you say anything, just compare the covers! Strange Days? All moody and Doorsy and, well, strange. Then Waiting For the Sun, where they look like a bunch of pop idols trying to look all Gothy and cool. Waiting for the Sun? Yeah right; they're waiting for the next paycheck!

So, after hearing the Doors fade out with "When the Music Creeps Up Behind You and Stabs You," we get a pawp rawkah entitled "Hello, I Love You." Oh good. God knows I love songs with "Love" in the title. Although I once didn't care for this song, I've learn to sort of accept it. Pop rocker it is, but one only the Doors could pull off. The blaring synths pared with that evil guitar? And the anti-romantic lyrics literally screamed by Jimbo? It passes.

"Love Street," not so much, and the problems with the album become steadily apparent. The tune itself is okay, but kinda simple and dorky, not to mention overlong. Not even Jim's monkey poetry can save this one. Strange then that it's right next to "Not to Touch the Earth," one of the freakiest songs ever recorded. Bit of a chunk of the "Celebration of the Lizard" suite, you understand. I guess it works outside of the suite, if only as a kind of paranoia number, but the march like tune is so damn enthralling. Not to mention all the weird starts and stops, lyrics, organ noises, etc.

But, just when it starts getting good, it gets bad again. "Summer's Almost Gone" is a fairly ineffective ballad; it grasps at the Strange Days material, but can't hope to reach it. "Wintertime Love" is even worse; it's a dorky as sin waltz, schmaltz running in all directions.

"The Unknown Soldier" manages to be both melodically and aesthetically interesting though; a bizarre bit of rock theater/war protest/hilarious joke dumped onto the album. Nice organ work. "Spanish Caravan" is another bit of experimentation, a very cool bit of flamenco exercising. But it feels somehow...I dunno, incomplete, like it was scrambled together.

"My Wild Love" is the final experiment, and by far the worst. An attempt to create a chanting mantra is stretched WAY over the limit. Perhaps as an intro to a song yes, but alone? No. "We Could Be So Good Together" also falls flat on its face; it sounds just like one of those crappy pop songs off the debut. Except THIS one has a totally awesome guitar solo in the middle that is horribly unsuited for the song, and actually detracts from it rather than builds it.

"Yes, the River Knows" is a sort of acoustic ballad, but it's too lifeless and overlong to really do anything. Which is a pity, because there are some great musical ideas locked into its...two minutes and so many seconds, are you sure? Anyway, all the sappy pop and spotty experimentation has been nice, but the TRUE Doors classic has been saved for last. Hard rocker/ode to death and destruction "Five to One" is definitely the best song on the record, and one of the band's most fascinatingly designed. Dig the cool organ riff, the guitar solo that moves UNDER the song for most of its running time, the drumwork that occasionally leaves the band net-less, and Jimbo making all kinds of weird noises. And the two note bass riff; who else could pull that off with such menace?

But the problem is, not every song is so cleverly crafted. A couple of the songs are just so...stupid. The Doors reinventing themselves as a dopey pop band? C'mon, what? Another problem is that some of the songs range from interesting to pretty good. And yeah that's a problem, because it means that the flow of the album is all screwed up. This is far, far from the worst album I've ever heard, but it is certainly the most tedious and difficult to listen to of all classic Doors albums.

What makes it worse is the fact that the Doors haven't stopped trying exactly. There's still some classy experimentation on the album. Therein lies a problem as well, since the experimentation doesn't always work ("My Wild Love"). So that leaves us with...uh...hmm...a bunch of WEIRD crap. And "Five to One."

So luckily enough for us, the decent folk of the world who like our rock to be innocently pretentious and falsely black (or innocently black and falsely pretentious, I forget how that works), "Soldier," "Earth" and even "Hello" can tease the Doors out of the speakers.

And, alright, I guess the cover is okay.

Waiting for the Sun is the third album from California psychadelic dark rock band The Doors. Their first two albums are psychadelic rock classics and I regard the second album Strange Days among my alltime favorite albums. Waiting for the Sun continues the style from the previous albums but is generally not as dark.

The music is still driven by Ray Manzarek´s circus music like organ playing and Jim Morrison´s dark and pleasant vocals but Robby Krieger´s innovative guitar lines and John Densmore´s at times jazzy drumming is also a big part of The Doors sound. As usual The Doors use session bassists. This time it´s Doug Lubahn, Kerry Magness and Leroy Vinnegar.

We get some nice pop/ rock songs here in Hello, I Love you, Love Street and We Could Be so Good Toghether. A blues song in Five to One. A few soft pop/ rock songs in Wintertime Love and Yes The River Knows and the three highlights of the album Unknown Soldier, the beuatiful Spanish Caravan ( one of my favorite Doors tunes) and the psychadelic and strange extract from the 20 minute + epic The Celebration of the Lizard. Too bad they didn´t include the whole song but in those LP days there was a limited playing time available.

The musicianship is excellent and even though Waiting for the Sun has the most muddy production of the three first albums the sound is still good.

Waiting for the Sun is not my favorite Doors album but it´s definitely worth 4 small stars. I can see that many have critizised that The Doors had aimed at a more commercial sound with this one but despite the generally lighter mood on Waiting for the Sun I don´t think it´s too commercial. A great album IMO, but if you´re new to The Doors I would recommend that you start with the first two albums before listening to this one.

This would be their last psychadelic tinged album as they would experiment with a new sound on the next album called The Soft Parade.

The Doors - Waiting for the Sun (1968)

First of all, I'll rate this record as a proto-prog record, not a a progrecord.

The Doors might just be the first '70 progband I listened to after seeing the movie about the Doors which I though was great back then. I recently got some vinyl copies of my Doors collection and decided it was time to write something about them here.

This record has so much to offer for everyone. Two happy easy listening moody rocksongs with great vocals of Jim, the psychedelic/proto Not To Touch The Earth, The politically important Unknown Soldier, the progressive masterpiece SPANISH CARAVAN, the native/drunk sounding My Wild Love (which I like very much), The easy going typical Doors- track We could be so Good Together, the progmasterpiece YES THE RIVER KNOWS and the tour-de-force-extreme Five to One (one of my favourite Doors). Some other songs are nog as important, but still they are nice moody Doors tracks. What is kind of desturbing is the missing song Waiting of the Sun, which would appear on the Morisson Hotel album.

For the time being this could be considered a masterpiece of proto-progressive rock. Only the Moody Blues and Pink Floyd made a more progressive record in 1968 as far as I know.

On side one the progressive/acid Not to Touch the Earth is one of the best tracks. The hypnotic rythm with the obsessed vocals of Jim make this a special Doors song with some little reference to the atmospheres of the stranger parts of The End. Wintertime love and Summers almost gone are acceptable Doors songs, but not as inspired as most of their work.

The main reason to buy this album is actually the crazy perfect second side. Spanish Caravan and Yes The River Knows are both excellent songs with much progressive songwriting. Spanish Caravan uses classical Spanish influences played with organ and acoustic guitar (in the second part with electric guitar) with Jim's vocals sounding very inspired. Yes the River Knows is a jazzy/mellow/melodic song. Personally this song is as special for me as The End. I just love it. The melodies are original, melancholic and they make me feel at home. The last song Five to One is one of my favoure powersongs of the Doors. Though the instrumentals are minimal here, Jim shows vocal capabilites of the highest rank. No one can ever do is as good again, this is THE recording.

Conclusion. A perfect protoprog record with some of my favourite songs of all time. Very inspiring record for other great bands to come. Four Stars without doubt.

After two ground-breaking albums, Waiting For The Sun is surprisingly dull album with mostly average song writing and a dreary performance. This album and the next show none of the energy and passion that characterizes the other Doors albums.

The style hasn't changed all that much, dominated by psychedelic organs, lighthearted circus melodies and Jim's morose but forceful baritone. The songs are lighter and mellower and the inspiration to make them come alive is mostly absent. Hello I love You is a good pop song that has nothing remarkable except for dirty grinding organ that darkens the second half of the song. Love Street is the first of a couple of very mediocre ballads that fill up this album.

Not to Touch The Earth, Unknow Soldier and to a lesser extent My Wild Love are crazed psychedelic experiments but still nothing that rocks my socks off. That honor can solely be granted on two songs here: Spanish Caravan and Five To One. The first is an original and delightful eastern tinged little epic. Starting with charming Spanish guitar and changing into a psychedelic organ that twists up and down beautiful eastern scales. Five to One is a dirty and heavy blues plod that finally injects some life into this album. But it's too late and too little really.

The album runs for a meagre 34 minutes of which 20 are average and only 2 songs excellent, it makes this album only relevant to fans. 2.5 stars

The most important reason I bought this album in the first place, was due mainly to their number one tune "Hello, I Love You." By the first half of 1968, the Doors had established themselves as proven hit makers. They were not only heavy rockers, but they could hold their own in the pop circuit as well. They already had six tunes that had gotten considerable airplay from top forty radio stations across the US, and around the world. This was the second album that I bought by the doors. The nearest record store from my house was close to two miles away. I remember walking to that store and looking over their lastest release. I was a little disappointed that the album had no long songs on it, as was the case with their first effort. I kind of expected "Hello, I Love You" to be anywhere from five minutes, up to twelve or more minutes in length, simply because they had done that with "Light My Fire" on their other release. The trend at that time was for bands to make long songs and cut out the solos etc. in order to make the song accessable to the pop seekers. In this way they could garner an audience for the more artistic versions they were recording. I was starting to get into that mind set and I expected the Doors to continue and expand what they were doing. In other words, I thought they were hoping to out do themselves as they continued to record. I happened to notice the song "Unknown Soldier" was also on the collection, so I decided to buy it and I walked home. The front cover had to be opened as you would a book. The first thing I saw was a lyric called "Celebration of the Lizard." For a few minutes I thought all those songs were connected into one big long offering and I was really excited. Then I remembered that "Hello, I Love You" had no such lyric content. Then I wondered why on earth they would put words on an album that they didn't have any music to. It made no sense. Anyway, I put the record on, still hoping "Celebration" was on there some place. The words were like nothing I ever heard before. I think that was the genesis of my appreciation for Morrison's poetic contributions. I just loved his talent! "Hello, I Love You" immediately says "Hit!" The riff is catchy, rockin', and difficult to reproduce. The lyrics are love song meets word crafter. This band is something else! The song is completely artistic, as well as top pop. What a blend! I especially loved the way Robbie Kreiger used the whammy bar to break up the song. Morrison is comical, sensuous, and poetic here. Just a masterpiece! "Love Street" is not that bad of a song. Again Morrison shines, while Ray Manzarek dominates the musical landscape with his delicate key work. The group is tight and purposeful. Next comes one of my favorite pieces on that public launch. It's a strong and scary tune named "Not To Touch the Earth." It was then I realized the boys took a section of the "Celebration of the Lizard" song and made a 45 like tune out of it. Very creative! It was a great idea that was never fully realized, for whatever reason. Anyway, this song modulates after every verse. It is an intense and captivating ride as Morrison takes us into his dream world. The images evoke visual escapades which are unforgettable and seemingly breathtaking. The music propels the words into a frenzy and you almost feel drained when the song is finished. It is wild and chaotic. You might say that "Not to Touch the Earth" is a nightmare set to music. Simply masterful! Whoever placed these songs on the album knew what they were doing. After the maddening rush of "Not to Touch the Earth," we are treated to the tranquil and drifting blues piece named "Summer's almost Gone." I didn't care for this one too much at first, but for decades since its release,I have been singing this tune almost on a daily basis. Here is another example of Manzarek superbly expressing his sensitive musical side. This could have been a good top forty tune. "Wintertime Love" is good, but it takes away from the rest of the album. It sounds like something the Osmonds would record. Just too poppy, or, as we used to say, too "Teeny Bopper." On the other hand, "Unknown Soldier" is a true prog masterpiece! The lyrics are thought provoking and painful. So visual! First the errie organ, with Morrison telling a tale about a soldier distancing himself from his girl, realizing he may not see her again. After the organ fades, the next scene is the news about his death. It makes me tear up. That is word power! It's all over for the unknown soldier. Then the funeral march and the final tribute, as the drum emulates the sound of gun fire. The last verse is connected to the first and finally Morrison declares that "The war is over." He screams it out and you get goose bumps as the guitar keeps repeating the appropriate riff and the freedom bells are ringing. You can feel the extreme jubilance as the song fades away with the happy ending of peace for everyone. How did they do it?! Nearly awesome! Unfortunately, the song didn't do that well on the charts. Morrison commented that if they had released the song six months sooner or even six months later, it would have done better than it did. Side two opens with superior flamenco guitar, played by none other than Robbie Krieger himself. He does an amazing job. Flawless in execution! Jimbo weaves his story telling abilities in and we are transported back to another time and place. "Spanish Caravan" is simply excellent! They add electric guitar and organ melodies to the last verse to give the offering an added dimention which enhances the power of this fine example of classical prog. "My Wild Love" is a chant tune that showcases Morrison's writing. I am sure he got the tune in his head and decided to make a song out of it. I thought the words were good, but the music, or the lack of it, was amateurish. They could have done more with the tune. "We Could be so Good Together" is powerful lyric wise, but it suffers musically. The keys sound in places like you're under the big top waiting for the clowns to enter. Again, they could have done so much more with the tune. Even Krieger's solo work doesn't help here. Now comes one of my all time favorite songs by the Doors, entitled, "Yes, the River Knows." It is so beautiful! I don't know why they didn't do more moody stuff like this. Everything meshes so well. The solo is slow and powerful! It gets you right in the brain. Manzarek, Krieger, Densmore, and Morrison are the absolute masters on this one. No one could make the song any more effective. "Five to One" stinks. I don't care what anybody says. Just because Krieger is playing a lot of lead guitar doesn't mean anything to me. I think Manzarek secretly had desires to be a "carnie." His playing just gives you that kind of vive. Morrison sounds like he decided to see what it would be like to record a song while he was stoned, drunk, or whatever. Just terrible sounding! The only bright spot is Densmore's contribution, but it doesn't really help the tune. The Doors are one of those bands that can make some of the most heavenly sounding songs you will ever hear and at the same time they can make some real stinkers. I have endevored to give my honest opinion. If they were to get rid of those poor songs I would give them five stars, but as it is, I can only give them three and one quarter stars, which really nets them three stars for progarchives. I am sorry, but bad songs do take away from the good ones! I still recommend part of the release as being essential, but get rid of the rest!

The Celebration of the Lizard and colossal short-sightedness

The Doors 3rd album "Waiting for the Sun" could have been their first great album, but the project was thwarted from within. Along with a score of fine new tracks the band created a sprawling side-long epic which was to be the centerpiece, but the track was cut by their producer who instead filled out the album with more typical (safe) fare. "The Celebration of the Lizard" was The Doors most exotic creature to date and would have made Waiting a pure classic. It can't be part of this review though, except to note that the latter day CD reissue includes what exists of the piece. Even if unfinished it is enthralling listening that would find its way into live Doors shows. And even sans the Lizard, the 3rd album became the band's first, and their only, number one album. While critics were largely unimpressed with this one, the fans embraced it.

While the album started with the weakest Doors lead-off yet in "Hello I Love You" it was generally uphill from there. Then came the delightful "Love Street," which is probably my favorite softer Doors track. Short and sentimental, oddly whimsical with fantastic piano by Manzarek, it somehow invokes universal nostalgia for "home" for both listener and artist. Written about the street in Laurel Canyon where Jim and Pam lived, it's really the track that made me fall hard for The Doors. A small portion of Lizard made the album in "Not to Touch the Earth" but outside of the larger piece it lacks the punch. "Summer's Almost Gone" is another great track I would have chosen for "Weird Scenes" (the Doors odd compilation masterpiece.) It has that combination of beauty and sadness that is at the very core of The Doors appeal. Also notable is Krieger's "Spanish Caravan," the derivation of his playing came from acoustic guitar and not rock, he'd only been playing electric for six months when he joined The Doors. The album ended with the ferocious exalt of "Five to One" putting the straights on notice again that the freaks were coming and would not be denied. The "ballroom days" may indeed have been over and yet the counter culture of the Left, whose creative talents were spectacular, failed the country as much as those they criticized if in different ways. Of course many Doors fans would see it just the opposite, both then and now:

"the first album's title represents an opening; the second is a description of what we find when we come inside. And this third describes the emotional state of those inside, longing for an end to this collective darkness." -Paul Williams

Ironically, we're there again Paul, only in reverse. Amazingly, Waiting was recorded just downstairs from where Zappa and the Mothers were working on their album. What a convergence that point in time and space must have been. "Waiting for the Sun" is a good album that should please many Doors fans despite the tragic mistake of dropping Lizard. Get the Rhino reissue which includes the 17 minute Lizard and hear what the album could have been had Rothchild not been short-sighted! 3 1/2 stars.

This is where it all fell apart for The Doors. Before they stepped foot in a studio for the first time, the band had enough material for about three albums. The self titled album is a near masterpiece while the second, "Strange Days", is a masterpiece of sixties psychedelic rock. The third, which was to be called "Celebration of the Lizard", is based on a Jim Morrison tone poem which was intended to occupy the whole second side of the album. Listening to this track now, courtesy of the Rhino 40th anniversary 2006 remix (and also featured on the live Doors album, "Absolutely Live"), one can sense the progression of the music which began with the first long Morrison piece, "The End", from the self titled album through the more complex, "When the Music's Over", from "Strange Days", to the lengthier story telling of the "Celebration of the Lizard" suite of the third album. From what we're told, at some point someone got cold feet (the studio execs, album producer, musicians?) and the project was scrapped. The shortened middle fast section of the Celebration suite, "Not to Touch the Earth", was kept for the new album and the album was renamed, "Waiting for the Sun" (the song WFTS however is kept over for the following album, "Morrison Hotel", but that's another story). Due to the scrapping of the Celebration piece the band now needed extra material to complete the album, so they salvaged an early demo song, :Hello I Love You" to open the album. Its first section is a steel of the Kinks number, "All Day and All of the Night". The main melody line is carried by the Manzarek's synthesizer, while the keyboard flourish that finishes the song, adds a nice psychedelic touch to the song. The second song, "Love Street" is a beautiful Morrison invention which has a jazzy guitar buildup and a piano accompanying the main theme giving it a graceful lullaby feel to the song. "Spanish Caravan" is Robby Krieger's main contribution to the album. The Spanish flamenco style playing of the guitar sound is uncomplicated but wonderfully effective in the rather catchy melody line. However, the instrumental is let down by the hammy lyrics and one wishes that Morrison would write all the lyrics. "Unknown Soldier" is Morrison's lasting legacy as a poet and artist and not only a strong anti-war protest song against the Vietnam war, but a personal rejection of the family values of him having grown up in a military family, the son of a admiral. "Celebration of the Lizard", featured on the 40th anniversary Rhino remix, is a 17 minute demo not quite worked through here and better in the live version. It's still a worthy addition to the 2006 remix version.

Having attempted to record Jim Morrison's sprawling poetic saga The Celebration of the Lizard as a side-long epic, only to conclude that it simply didn't work in that format, the Doors were left scrambling to complete sufficient material for their third album. The upshot of this is that two more of their early songs were pulled out of the vault, thoroughly revised, and recorded for the first time to fill the gap - Hello I Love You and Summer's Almost Gone - and the album was one of their shortest. It was also something of a departure from their previous work - as well as the placid Summer's Almost Gone, tracks like Love Street, Wintertime Love, and Yes the River Knows made this the Doors' most mellow, laid-back album, often meandering away from the brooding, passionate intensity that made their first two albums so compelling.

The Doors in a romantic mood works better than expected; most of the quiet tracks are quite beautiful, and it's not as though the album is entirely without grit - the shrieking close to Hello I Love You is as demented as anything on the first two albums, Not To Touch the Earth (a fragment of The Celebration of the Lizard) represents some of Morrison's creepiest poetry, and final track Five to One is one of the most threatening songs the band would ever record. But that said, the album still shows a certain lack of polish here and there which stops it attaining a perfect score; Not to Touch the Earth might have good lyrics but the musical backing is not interesting, and Spanish Caravan likewise isn't especially interesting - in fact, several of the second side tracks (including Five to One) tend to blend together into one mass.

A little bit more lightweight and forgettable than the earlier Doors albums, Waiting For the Sun still has a lot to recommend it. It's just a shame the band wasted so much time chasing the lizard.

This is a nice album of quirky, fun songs. The Doors generally went for a softer, earthier sound on many of the tracks. Jim Morrison also sounds a bit warmer and more down-to-earth, without the echoey effect on his vocals from the first two albums. Not that there's anything wrong with that! I love "The Doors" & "Strange Days".

"Waiting For The Sun" captures the band right smack in the middle of their lifespan and it has some very beautiful ballads, especially "Love Street" and "Yes, the River Knows". Mazarek's strokes on the keys are lovely here. Other highlights include "The Unknown Soldier" and "Spanish Caravan". Krieger's floating guitar work on "Summer's Almost Gone" works perfectly, reminding me of various tracks from the band's previous output.

I think this record contains Morrison's strangest lyrics and poetry. He definitely had a way with words. The bizarre "Not To Touch The Earth" is one example. In all, this is a very enjoyable work filled with variety and feeling. Three solid stars.

"Bullets strike the helmet's head"

"Waiting for the Sun" from The Doors is a notch up from the disappointing two albums to follow. At least here are some quintessential classics that are undisputable in the annals of rock. The mesmirising anti-war anthem, 'The Unknown Soldier', is incredible. It begins with creepy keyboards and Manzarek is at his best on this track. Morrison is full of conviction as he speaks of "Breakfast where the news is read, Television children fed, Unborn living, living dead, Bullets strike the helmet's head". Here we have the horror of war eloquently expressed as people watched from their lounge rooms the events of the Vietnam War unfold on their television screens.

The film clip that went with this is unforgettable. At one point Morrison is shot in a firing squad and blood drips out of his mouth all over the poppies. The middle of the song is powerful, Densmore performs a marching tempo with military precision, then a sergeant shouts "Ready! Aim! Present Arms!", rifles are loaded, a drum roll, the rifles shoot and a very soft keyboard is heard as Morrison sadly relates the plight of the soldier. It bursts suddenly into a furious vocal and Manzarek intensifies the sound. Then there is the celebration that the war is over, as we hear crowd cheering and bells tolling. Sheer genius, capturing in one song all of the horror, sadness and glory of the Vietnam era.

Other ominous atmospheres are captured on 'Not to Touch the Earth'. I also like 'Hello I love You' with its infectious hook and Morrison strong on vocals. 'Spanish Caravan' is enigmatic with Krieger's Flamenco guitar. 'Five to One' features the famous phrase of Morrison screaming "No one here gets out alive!" and is definitely one of the powerful songs of The Doors, certainly one of the heaviest. Overall this is definitely a good album though not up to the standard of the lightning in a bottle, the debut masterpiece.

It's so plain obvious the Doors totally avoided the sophomore jinx on Strange Days, so the slump begins with the third album Waiting for the Sun. Really, it's just the plain classic case that the band used much of their best material on their first two albums, and since those were tough to beat, it's no surprise this one is a notch down. It's actually not bad, it's actually rather good. Ray Manzarek was moving beyond the Vox Continental, so that means new organ sounds to be heard, like the Gibson G-101. He also used an RMI Electra, the electric piano/harpsichord that Rick Wakeman had used, as well as Don Preston in Zappa's Mothers of Invention.

"Hello, I Love You" is the most recognized hit. I kept thinking there was a synthesizer in this song, maybe with some help from Paul Beaver, but none at all, it probably was just the RMI keyboard I alluded to earlier. Anyways, the song bears more the a passing resemblance to the Kinks' "All Day and All of the Night" although the band allegedly had Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love" in mind, but there's no denying the Kinks resemblance. "Not to Touch the Earth" was supposed to be part of a 17 minute "The Celebration of the Lizard King", but only this part made it. I can see where the Doors is considered "Proto-Prog" by PA, this song is it! It has that unsettling dissonance. For a long time I sorta written this song off, but as I gave it a close listen, it's a totally brilliant song, dissonance being used at a time when King Crimson hadn't even existed (but Giles, Giles & Fripp were working on The Cheerful Insanity, which, as you know, is rather lightweight compared to Crimson). "Summer's Almost Gone" is a nice atmospheric piece that really helps with that spacy organ. "The Unknown Soldier" was released as a single prior to the album's release. "Spanish Caravan" has, unsurprisingly, a flamenco feel, but hearing flamenco on a Doors album was something a bit different, but its still unmistakably the Doors. The album does have a couple clunkers. "Wintertime Love" was never a favorite of mine, it sounds like Jim Morrison was going into lounge mode in his singing here, would have worked a lot better if he didn't do that here, would have made a nice atmospheric piece. "Yes, the River Knows" features some really cringe inducing lyrics, "I promise I would drown myself in mystic heated wine" (I used to think that was "mysticated", which would cause me to wonder, what on Earth do they mean "mysticated", well, that's not a word and just a classic case of me mishearing). Robbie Krieger wrote that one. What happened to the title track? I would have been happy if "Yes, the River Knows" or "Wintertime Love" was replaced by this song, it has the dark ominous tone people come to love of the Doors. Well, we know what happened to the song: it had to wait two albums later, on Morrison Hotel.

The Doors was one of those bands I started getting into in my youth, but quickly moved on to other things, and decided to go back to them. I go with popular opinion: Waiting for the Sun is not quite on par of their first two albums, but still full of great material still make it worth having. If the first two are easy five stars, then this one is a four star album, get their first two before coming here.

On their third album The Doors took a lighter -- and in places even funny -- direction compared to the rather psychedelic debut or its follower Strange Days. Waiting for the Sun is pretty enjoyable set of averagely short songs (the total length is 33 minutes). I must point out immediately that I can't stand the ultimate ear-worm opening track 'Hello, I Love You', which is among the most irritating pop hits ever. Fortunately it's the only BAD song here; the rest (10 tracks) are either excellent or at least fairly nice, if a bit harmless.

On light-hearted 'Love Street' Morrison sings in a Sinatra-like laid-back style, and 'Wintertime Love' is a brief, joyous song with an old-fashioned dance rhythm. These are perhaps somewhat throwaway songs on a rock album, but good examples of the band's sovereign ability to toy with various musical styles and make it sound like The Doors and nothing else. On some later albums especially the vocals of Jim Morrison lost some of that flexibility. 'Not to Touch the Earth' is the album's longest song at 4 minutes, but it's so fascinatingly bizarre that perhaps it could have worked as an extended complex piece. 'Summer's Almost Gone' and 'Yes, the River Knows' are slightly sentimental ballads but their hazy mood is beautiful.

'The Unknown Soldier' is a powerful anti-war rock song. The ripped-down arrangement of 'My Wild Love' reaches for shamanistic levels (Finnish rock band Sielun Veljet had a similar approach on 'Kanoottilaulu' in the 80's). Between these tracks is one of the finest rock songs of the era, 'Spanish Caravan' that features flamenco nuances. This is where the guitarist Robby Krieger really shines. The music is based on -- and openly cites, for example in the electric guitar solo -- a Spanish art music piece, I think it was by Isaac Albeniz.

Waiting for the Sun is perhaps my second favourite from The Doors; the debut in its innovative stylistic variety and powerful atmospheres is clearly their best album. Also this one's very many-sided in the end, and yet it somehow feels very coherent as a whole. The production is very good. If you don't appreciate the lighter and less rocking side of The Doors, this probably feels very uneven to you. A classic rock album with a unique identity, thus deserving four stars even if it's not progressive rock.

THE DOORS had only formed in 1965 and barely been together as a band for two years before scoring with the chart topping single "Light My Fire" and in the process becoming one of the psychedelic 60s' most successful bands. America's fab four which consisted of the ever controversial lead singer and poet extraordinaire Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore had an amazingly successful two year run with the first two albums "The Doors" and "Strange Days" utilizing material that Morrison had brought to the table and then transmogrifying it into a wild psychedelic infusion. Much of the unique sound of THE DOORS was due to the fact that the members had backgrounds playing with the disparate genres of jazz, rock, blues and folk. Pretty much relying on Morrison's contributions in the beginning, the band had pretty much used most of its best material up by the time it was time to record a third album so it was time to return to the process of songwriting instead of incessant live performances.

Due to Morrison's wild antics, on stage and off, his alcoholism and bad boy behavior had become quite a headache for the rest of the band as it was escalating exponentially as the band rose to international superstardom. While the first two albums sort of just spontaneously gelled cohesively almost by magic, WAITING FOR THE SUN was a much more demanding endeavor. Not only were the band members worn out from the maelstrom of live gigs and the pressures of instant fame but Morrison's erratic behavior made recording and the creative process almost impossible. Given that Morrison was becoming less reliable, most of the cosmic mind expanding poetic lyricism that graced the first two albums was becoming less and less prevalent and as the band became more famous, Elektra Records was taking more and more control and steering the band into more commercial arenas and thus WAITING FOR THE SUN took on a much more mainstream sound compared to its predecessors.

While more commercial in nature, THE DOORS still managed to craft a very good album for their third release with strong melodic hooks backed up by the unique instrumental sounds that accompanied Morrison's unique idiosyncrancies. The band scored yet another #1 hit with "Hello, I Love You," perhaps one of the most commercial hits the band ever recorded as well as a second top 40 hit with "The Unknown Soldier." Similar sounding tracks that easily could have been hits with "Love Street," "Summer's Almost Gone," "Wintertime Love," "We Could Be So Good Together" and "Yes, The River Knows" work in tandem to give the album a rather uniform feel and the overall more accessible vibe but the album still has a few psychedelic gems that were leftovers from the previous album sessions. "Five To One" which pointed to the earlier "The End" prognosticated that the band hadn't totally abandoned its psychedelic roots that offered poetic license into cosmic quandaries.

The most unique recording "Spanish Caravan" stands out for its bold flamenco guitar intro which demonstrated Krieger's more virtuosic moments. The track was based on Isaac Albéniz' famous classical piece "Asturias (Leyenda)" and in the process provided a glimpse into the flamenco influences of the band in general. While "Unknown Soldier" was a minor hit and the first single released, it actually is one of the least commercial sounding tracks on the album. While displaying a more cinematic approach to songwriting, the song takes on a traditional DOORS keyboard dominated vibe before breaking into a military drum march in the middle and then some rifle shots. It was a very dramatic tune to play live during the war torn years of the Vietnam War era and a favorite amongst fans. The song finds resolution with the classic DOORS sound but the guitar riffs are more prominent than the keyboards which makes this rather unique track within THE DOORS' entire canon.

Perhaps WAITING FOR THE SUN is equally as famous for what didn't appear on it as what did. The second side was originally intended to contain a side long psychedelic composition titled "Celebration Of The Lizard" which found the band eschewing the pop band characteristics and joining the ranks of Pink Floyd and other truly seekers of cosmic weirdness. The track was featured on the 1970 live album "Absolutely Live" and was popular in concert as well as having been attached as a bonus track on newer remastered versions of the album. The 17:09 studio version features lyrics by Morrison where he recites poetry, sings and screams accompanied by accompanying instrumental sounds that give life to the lyrics much like some of Frank Zappa's longest rock opera moments offered. The track consisted of different sections: "Lions in the Street," "Wake Up," "A Little Game," "The Hill Dwellers," "Not to Touch the Earth," "Names of the Kingdom" and "The Palace of Exile." While the entirety of the project was scrapped due to various problems, the section "Not To Touch The Earth" was reworked and included as a single track and one of the best on the album.

On WAITING FOR THE SUN it's quite clear that the band was beginning to lose a bit of the magic that made the first two albums so utterly transcendental. The quality of the compositions is slightly less compelling, the lyrical content is subpar and the emphasis on the material overall reeks of record company interference but given the fact that Morrison was spiraling out of control at a breakneck speed, it's no wonder that someone had to step in and babysit. In the end it's utterly amazing how good WAITING FOR THE SUN actually is despite a notch below the band's first two album and even more amazing that they cranked out three more before Morrison's untimely demise. In the end, this third album is quite essential even if it shows a more obsequious version of THE DOORS under the command of the commercial forces that had placed them in high places. Sold out they may have done but the other choice was to disband at their prime and after all is said and done i can totally live with the remaining DOORS albums that followed the perfected beauty of the first two. By all means, if you purchase this find a remastered version with "Celebration Of The Lizard" which totally adds an air of mystique to the era from which this album was recorded.

I've never understood why "Hello I Love You" is disliked by a fair number of fans of the Doors. Although I've always enjoyed "Touch Me" from the band's 1969 album The Soft Parade, I can see how its contemporary pop sound could have turned off longtime fans. But "Hello I Love You"? I suppose it has a pop form, but so did at least a handful of prior Doors songs - - "People Are Strange" comes to mind.

Anyway, I picked up a copy of Waiting for the Sun a few years ago. It was a brand new, remastered CD for $4.99 or so. I played it once and decided it was OK but nothing special. For some reason I gave it a spin recently and upon further reconsideration, I was surprised at how good it was.

Although the Doors' debut album is often considered their best, Waiting for the Sun is just as good, and is an improvement over Strange Days, their sophomore effort. There's no "Break on Through" or "Light My Fire" here, but "Hello, I Love You," "The Unknown Soldier," and "Five to One" rank among next echelon of the Doors' best songs, and they're nicely interleaved with some solid cuts like "Spanish Caravan," "Love Street" and "Not to Touch the Earth." Three stars.

Review Nº 426

"Waiting For The Sun" is the third studio album of The Doors and was released in 1968. This is an album with strong lyrics but that often has been criticized for have a softer sound. Much of the material on the album had been written around and before the formation of the group, most notably "Not To Touch The Earth", which was taken from the poem of Jim Morrison, "Celebration Of The Lizard". It was intended that the poem was written for this album and take up an entire album side, but in the end, the band only released it on their debut live album "Absolutely Live", in 1970.

"Waiting For The Sun" has eleven tracks. All songs were written by Jim Morrison, Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek and John Densmore. The first track "Hello I Love You" was a song chosen by the band to be released as a single and was a big commercial success. Despite be considered one of the most pop songs by The Doors and be frequently criticized, this is, in my humble opinion, a great song, very catchy, and that opens brilliantly this album. The second track "Love Street" was originally a poem written by Jim Morrison about Rothdell Trail, a street in Laurel Canyon, California, where he lived with his girlfriend Pamela Courson and where they would sit on the balcony and watch the people walking. This is a very nice soft ballad with great piano and guitar arrangements and with a beautiful voice by Jim Morrison. The third track "Not To Touch The Earth" is a fragment taken from Jim Morrison's poem, "Celebration Of The Lizard", that although a recording of the complete poem was attempted at the sessions for the album, only this brief musical passage was deemed fit for this release. It returns to their classic psychedelic sound and represents one of the heaviest moments on the album. The fourth track "Summer's Almost Gone" is another good, quiet and soft ballad and represents one of the earliest songs composed by them. It's a very mellow, sensitive and sad song with the psychedelic sound so typical on the band in their earlier musical days. The fifth track "Wintertime Love" is a very unusual song for them. It's a waltz performed in a soft style. This is a very small song that despite represents one of the weakest songs on the album, I really think this is a good song and represents a beautiful musical moment too. This song reminds me The Stranglers. But it isn't surprising for me, because I always found many similarities between the keyboard style of Ray Manzarek and Dave Greenfield. The sixth track "The Unknown Soldier" was the first single taken from this album by The Doors. The song represents Jim Morrison's reaction to the Vietnam War and the way the conflict was depicted in the American's media at that time. It's a classic protest song against the war and where the band shows perfectly their personal feelings about it. The seventh track "Spanish Caravan" is, basically, a flamenco song with the beginning riffs taken from "Asturias (Leyenda)", a classical piece of music by the Spanish composer Isaac Albeniz. This always was one of my favourite songs of The Doors. The texture of the composition and arrangements are absolutely original and astonishing, and, in my humble opinion, we are in presence of a masterpiece. As I'm Portuguese, I must say this is the only song by The Doors with a reference to Portugal. The eighth track "My Wild Love" is the only song played on the album in a Cappella style. Jim Morrison's vocals are backed up by the band's members vocals, performing different sorts of sounds, with their mouths and clapping hands. It's, in reality, a very weird song, and it isn't, definitely, one of the highlights on the album. The ninth track "We Could Be So Good Together" was initially released as the B side of the single "The Unknown Soldier". The song was recorded during the recording sessions for "Strange Days", but only appeared on this album. This is another pop rock song, but this time we aren't in presence of a great song. The tenth track "Yes, The River Knows" is a soft acoustic ballad with nice piano and drum arrangements. However, in my opinion, it lacks to it some flame of creativity and, unfortunately, it represents, without any doubt, one of the weakest moments on the album. The eleventh track "Five To One" is the heaviest song on the album with Jim Morrison's vocals very energetic and with the distorted guitar sound by Robby Krieger. It's also a memorable song because of the lyrics. This is a good way to close the album, with one of the most powerful and heaviest songs that The Doors have ever made.

Conclusion: After the first two previous strong and intense psychedelic albums, the third studio album of The Doors, appeared softer and full of ballads, and as I wrote before, it has been criticized by many fans and critics due to its softer sound. However and despite not be as good as "The Doors" and "Strange Days" are, it still remains a great album, very well balanced and that maintain, in a certain way, the same musical formula of the two previous studio albums. Concluding, "Waiting For The Sun" is, in my humble opinion, one the best musical studio works from the band, and it remains as one of my favourite studio albums from them, after "The Doors", "Strange Days" and "L.A.Woman". It's a perfect partner to join with the two first albums of them. It's especially indicated for people who love their earlier works.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

Everybody has their controversial opinions about a band's discography, this album sucks, this album's the best, and whatnot. With me, this is the best Doors album, almost, on some days it's L.A. Woman and on others it's this. But for the sake of this review Waiting For The Sun is my favorite.

The albums starts with Hello, I Love You. It's people like Morrison who can make these songs so weirdly amazing. Lines like "She's walking down the street, blind to every eye she meets, do you think you'll be the guy to make the queen of the angels sigh?" are so mystical and abstract. I don't quite get what it means (and if you say you do you're lying), but it still paints a weird picture in my head that fits everything else about this song perfectly.

Love Street continues this theme of love song with funky poetry, but I get this one even less. Still a great song. Fits perfectly in the album, it works great separating the poppy keyboard heavy sound of Hello, I Love You to the existential worrying of Not To Touch The Earth. I also just like the way he says "I see you live on Love Street, there's this store where the creatures meet."

Not To Touch The Earth is a very horrifying Halloweenish song, warning you of the mansion at the top of the hill, and finding JFK's corpse in some sort car that runs on "glue and tar". And then the song ends, you hear Jim heavily breathing, you figure that it's gonna fade out. Then you hear him starting to speak... "WHOA!!" Boom now the song's actually started. There's instruments in the back repeating this heavy jumping tone. The keyboard on one side making these unnatural noises and the guitar on the other doing the same thing while Morrison screams at you to run with him, as well as other obscene things. This is definitely one of The Doors' best.

Summer's Almost Gone is also haunting, but in a different way. Instead of knocking you to the floor and giving you a panic attack; it gives you a helping hand and wants away, with an annoying look in its eyes.

Wintertime Love brings it back to what the first two tracks were, it's a love song, great lyrics, but I like it better. Like the title implies, it's an extremely warm song, more than Hello, I Love You and Love Street. It takes you inside, gives you a warm blanket and fresh hot chocolate. It brings you back to health before throwing you out to the wolves again after less than two minutes.

The Unknown Solider is different wolf though, instead of making you imagine weird mansions and odd cars, it's a very real world song. Telling you about an unknown and unnamed solider, before playing the shot that killed him. The rest of the song is musically upbeat, dancing around the death of people who had no choice but to be there and die there, instead celebrating the end of this war regardless. Though the music still has an uneven quality to it, it knows what happened and it doesn't feel good about it.

As the first song on side two, Spanish Caravan brings you back around to imagining unusual scenes. Instead of horror, it's very adventurous. Talking about wanting to ride with a Spanish caravan. The switch of modes in the middle implies that our protagonist was taken by the caravan. The song speeds up and more electric instruments are added. This all paints a picture of an old caravan being dragged by horses speeding through hot unpopulated areas of Europe, while the protagonist is in the back writing about what he sees outside.

My Wild Love is a much softer song, talking about his "wild love" going around making enemies with the devil and such. This is definitely the least involved of all the songs here, but still enjoyable.

We Could Be So Good Together is very reminiscent of their first two albums. Almost sounds like's a Strange Days song that someone accidently put here. Very Doors lyrics, not as good a love song as this album's previous, but still a bop.

Yes, The River Know is another clam haunting track. To me it sounds like a very old and experienced man, on the verge of death, is relaying his life story to me in cryptic yet understandable terms, on a bench, near a river, in a park. He's using the river as sort of an analogy of the passing of life and the bringing a new. Each verse sounds like he remembers something, a regret, a love one he didn't spend enough time with, things he'll never be able to do. The song doesn't end in a bombastic way, it's sounds like I left the bench, said goodbye to the old man and went on my way/ Thinking and gaining things from the experience, looking at trees and dogs as I walk my way out of the park.

Five To One sounds like it starts where Yes, The River Knows left off. Having learned from whatever the old man said, and applying it to whatever sort of social change we're protesting for. This song is a slapper, if this isn't getting you to jump out of your seat and put a picket in your hand, than your listening to a completely different album.