THE SOFT PARADE

This evening, after so long time, I've taken my The Soft Parade cd from the shelf and I started to listen.

Little by little memory came to comfort me. This is when Jim's voice comes deeper and warm. This is where The Doors start the second half of their career. All in all I always looked at it as the most "eclectic" of their records, the unconventional one. It shows a more popish tendency. Ok, but it also demonstrates the band's big effort to get over the ususal psychedelic formula that appeared a little bit weak in Waiting for the Sun despite still some excellent tunes as Spanish Caravan, Not to Touch the Earth and The Unknown Soldier.

On the other side The Soft Parade is more pompous and sweet, less acid and self- referential. It also offers some of the most adventurous tracks as "The Soft Parade" itself and "The Shaman's Blues". The first one in particular is a true gem starting with recitative and spoken poem, then glides into a quasi-baroque interlude with hapsichord sound and then, unespectedly, into a quasi-jazzy central theme that, again, changes to become a strong bluesy atmosphere where Jim Morrison can really say "everything must be this way..."! Their most eclectic tune for sure!

It's not possible to forget tribal and strong "Wild Child" along with the fantastic country- sounding "Running Blue" and it's memorable..."poor Otis (Redding of course) dead and gone left me here to sing his song...". What a pleasure of song! Brass section is so elegant and I prefer this one rather than the first two big-sellers "Tell All the People" and "Touch Me".

The "symphonic" "Wishful Sinful" closes the parade here. What a longing and catching song! The deep vocals of Jim are the icing on the cake!

Yes, their most eclectic album. Did they really petition the Lord with prayer?

3.5 stars

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