Hey, it's the Doors...what else is there to say?? If you don't like these guys, you need to have your head examined...

"The Doors"

1. "Break on Through (to the Other Side)" (2:25)
2. "Soul Kitchen" (3:30)
3. "The Crystal Ship" (2:30)
4. "Twentieth Century Fox" (2:30)
5. "Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)" (3:15)
6. "Light My Fire" (7:05)
7. "Back Door Man" (3:30)
8. "I Looked at You" (2:18)
9. "End of the Night" (2:49)
10. "Take it as it Comes" (2:13)
11. "The End" (11:35)

Ya know, you gotta love any song that has the words: "Father?" "Yes, son?" "I want to kill you!" An absolute classic.

"Light My Fire" has been covered by Amorphis, of all people...

"Strange Days"

1. "Strange Days" (3:05)
2. "You're Lost Little Girl" (3:01)
3. "Love Me Two Times" (3:23)
4. "Unhappy Girl" (2:00)
5. "Horse Latitudes" (1:30)
6. "Moonlight Drive" (3:00)
7. "People Are Strange" (2:10)
8. "My Eyes Have Seen You" (2:22)
9. "I Can't See Your Face in My Mind" (3:18)
10. "When the Music's Over" (11:00)

How come followups to popular debut albums are always so damn similar to the previous album? For instance, The Doors had the 11-minute opus "The End", and this one's got the 11-minute opus "When the Music's Over". Well, I shouldn't be too critical because the music here is quite fine.

"Waiting for the Sun"

1. "Hello, I Love You" (2:22)
2. "Love Street" (3:06)
3. "Not to Touch the Earth" (3:54)
4. "Summer's Almost Gone" (3:20)
5. "Wintertime Love" (1:52)
6. "The Unknown Soldier" (3:10)
7. "Spanish Caravan" (2:58)
8. "My Wild Love" (2:50)
9. "We Could Be So Good Together" (2:20)
10. "Yes, the River Knows" (2:35)
11. "Five to One" (4:22)

Some weird songs here, not particular favorites of mine. I remember a Christian minister criticizing "Hello, I Love You" for the lyric, "Hello, I love you, won't you tell me your name?" saying how could you love someone you haven't even met? Whatever. The liner notes to this CD have the complete lyrics to "Celebration of the Lizard", but only "Not to Touch the Earth" was included. Funny how the song "Waiting for the Sun" doesn't appear here either.

"Missing Links" (CDR bootleg; 2/25/69, Sunset Sound Recorders Sessions)

1. "Whiskey, Mystics and Men #1" (2:31)
2. "The Soft Parade Intro (Petition the Lord with Prayer) #1"--spoken word (1:01)
3. "The Soft Parade Intro (Petition the Lord with Prayer) #2"--spoken word (0:25)
4. "Whiskey, Mystics and Men #2" (3:25)
5. "Love Me Tender" (1:55)
6. "Rock is Dead #1" (10:59)
7. "Me and the Devil Blues (Woman is a Devil)" (6:20)
8. "Rock is Dead #2" (12:38)
9. "Queen of the Magazines" (4:05)
10. "Pipeline"--instrumental (1:12)
11. "Rock is Dead #3" (6:35)
12. "Rock Me Baby" (4:31)
13. "Mystery Train" (11:27)
14. "Rock is Dead #4 (Someday Soon)" (3:58)

This bootleg comes from a one-night studio session while the band was working on The Soft Parade. They got into a lot of long jams, running from blues to surf music to whatnot. It's sort of become a legend in the Doors fan community, I think. (Except I'm a bit miffed at the trader who convinced me that it was one long, 60-minute jam session of "Rock is Dead", which clearly it is not.) Many songs here, including "Whisky, Mystics & Men" and "Rock is Dead", appeared on The Doors Box Set.

"The Soft Parade"

1. "Tell All the People" (3:24)
2. "Touch Me" (3:15)
3. "Shaman's Blues" (4:45)
4. "Do It" (3:01)
5. "Easy Ride" (2:35)
6. "Wild Child" (2:36)
7. "Runnin' Blue" (2:27)
8. "Wishful Sinful" (2:56)
9. "The Soft Parade" (8:40)

Oliver Stone's The Doors movie has some classic moments, particularly when Val Kilmer (playing Jim Morrison) gets a blowjob from Meg Ryan while laying down the vocals for "Soft Parade"; also when Jim gets bombed at a concert and sings the lyrics to "Touch Me" as: "Come on, come on, come on, come on now SUCK ME BABY, can't you see I REALLY NEED SOME HEAD??" (Imagine if they did THAT on the Ed Sullivan show!)

"Morrison Hotel"

1. "Roadhouse Blues" (4:04)
2. "Waiting for the Sun" (3:58)
3. "You Make Me Real" (2:50)
4. "Peace Frog" (2:52)
5. "Blue Sunday" (2:08)
6. "Ship of Fools" (3:06)
7. "Land Ho!" (4:08)
8. "The Spy" (4:15)
9. "Queen of the Highway" (2:47)
10. "Indian Summer" (2:33)
11. "Maggie M'Gill" (4:24)

The 2 "sides" of this album have separate names, "Hard Rock Cafe" for songs 1-6 and "Morrison Hotel" for songs 7-11. This was the most recent Doors CD I bought and haven't listened to it much (in fact, I haven't listened to the Doors in several years, and can't for the life of me figure out why...) "Peace Frog" is one of my faves, though.

"L.A. Woman"

1. "The Changeling" (4:20)
2. "Love Her Madly" (3:18)
3. "Been Down So Long" (4:40)
4. "Cars Hiss by My Window" (4:10)
5. "L.A. Woman" (7:49)
6. "L'America" (4:35)
7. "Hyacinth House" (3:10)
8. "Crawling King Snake" (4:57)
9. "The Wasp (Texas Radio & the Big Beat)" (4:12)
10. "Riders on the Storm" (7:14)

Whenever I listen to "L.A. Woman" these days, I can't help but picture that scene in the movie with Jim Morrison singing on the toilet...

"The Doors in Concert" (2-CD live set)

A compilation of various live Doors albums. I listened to this on acid once and peaked during "Celebration of the Lizard"--definitely recommended!

"An American Prayer"

1. "Awake" (0:35)
2. "Ghost Song" (2:50)
3. "Dawn's Highway" (1:21)
4. "Newborn Awakening" (2:26)
5. "To Come of Age" (1:01)
6. "Black Polished Crome" (1:07)
7. "Latino Chrome" (2:14)
8. "Angels and Sailors" (2:46)
9. "Stoned Immaculate" (1:33)
10. "The Movie" (1:35)
11. "Curses, Invocations" (1:57)
12. "American Night" (0:28)
13. "Roadhouse Blues"--live (5:53)
14. "The World on Fire" (1:06)
15. "Lament" (2:18)
16. "The Hitchhiker" (2:15)
17. "An American Prayer" (3:04)
18. "Hour for Magic" (1:17)
19. "Freedom Exists" (0:20)
20. "A Feast of Friends" (2:10)
21. "Babylon Fading" (1:40)
22. "Bird of Prey" (1:03)
23. "The Ghost Song" (5:15)

It probably seemed like a good idea at the time...seven years after Morrison's death, the three surviving members dug up some tapes of poetry Jim recorded before he died (well, he jolly well couldn't have recorded them AFTER he died, right??), put them to music, and released them as an album. The main problem is that the music tends to get very LOUD and completely drowns out the poetry at several points, which completely defeats the purpose!! Also, not all of the music is completely original -- large sections of "Peace Frog" and other songs are lifted wholesale (complete with vocals), plus there's a live version of "Roadhouse Blues" incongruously tacked on right in the middle. (It's the same version as on Doors in Concert, in case you were wondering.) What a sloppy mess...it would have been much more successful if they chose to use the same laid-back jazz/disco used in "Ghost Song", which is actually quite nice.

"Box Set" (4 CDs)

A treasure trove (for hard-core fans, at least) of demos, unreleased songs, and live recordings, plus an extra "best of" CD included solely to jack up the price. "Five to One" comes from the infamous Miami concert where Jim allegedly exposed himself, which doesn't happen during this song (not that you could see it anyway), but does include his "YOU'RE ALL A BUNCH OF FUCKING IDIOTS!" rant. It's of hideous bootleg quality and obviously included solely for historical purposes. I'm a bit peeved that at least two songs were left off: "Woman is a Devil", which was tacked on to Essential Rarities, and "You Need Meat", which was on my old crappy vinyl copy of Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine and never got released on ANY CD collection, as far as I know.

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