Original subtitles

That first record changed everybody's world the first time they heard it.

It was just, ''Oh, my God, what is this?''

Here were The Doors taIking about death and chaos and revoIution.

It is one of the most auspicious and interesting debut aIbums

I have ever heard from any band.

It must have been Iike the first time you Iooked at Playboy.

There was edge, there was uncertainty, there was darkness.

They were songs that were written by a guy who put himseIf out there in a group

that were right there by his side, responding to him and his story and his Iife.

It was about the internaI revoIution. Break On Through (To The Other Side).

Get out of your sheII.

I mean, that was reaIIy, probabIy, the most definitive song of their work,

in terms of what made The Doors different from everybody eIse.

Jim Morrison's Iyrics, at times, it's just one smaII poem

and then it repeats itseIf, you know, twice, and then the chorus can come three times,

but the chorus is basicaIIy a Iine out of the poem.

''Break on through to the other side

''Break on through to the other side

''Break on through to the other side, yeah.''

That's a reaI positive statement.

WiIIiam BIake said, ''The road of excess Ieads to the paIace of wisdom.''

And WiIIiam BIake aIso said,

''Prudence is a rich, ugIy, oId maid courted by incapacity.''

And I wouId say Jim utterIy Iacks prudence.

It's a great song. It's a great Iyric. It's a great riff.

Every part of it is great.

But what reaIIy makes it go is more the way Morrison sang it.

And here's a guy on his first record, you know, more the poet than the singer.

That exuberance.

-Name? -Raymond DanieI Manzarek.

-Age? -Born 12.02. 1939.

-Occupation? -Musician, organist.

I graduated from DePauI University in Chicago in 1960,

went out to UCLA, went to Iaw schooI for about two weeks,

and said, ''Mistake. The boy from Chicago has made a terribIe mistake.''

So I dropped out of law school and went into the film department.

And in the UCLA film department, who has come from Florida

but one James Douglas Morrison.

-Name? -Jim.

Occupation?

I don't really think he had a great love, necessarily, of making film.

Poetry was his first Iove.

Jim, Iike DyIan, was what I caII a born poet.

I don't think he couId have been anything eIse.

Jim was infIuenced by the beat poets, by...

CertainIy by Jack Kerouac and AIIen Ginsberg, MichaeI McCIure.

Jim and I discussed Rimbaud a fair amount

and Jim was interested in Nietzsche.

I was in the UCLA fiIm schooI in 1964

and Jim and Ray were both there.

When we aII got out of coIIege around the same time,

that's when everybody said,

''WeII, you know, I've done the coIIegiate thing,

''and now Iet's do the, you know, psychedeIic thing.''

We went into this debauched Venice Beach experience.

It was, like, that first flash of Eden. It was very idyllic.

I'm sitting on the beach in Venice, California,

wondering what I'm gonna do with my life.

Morrison then comes walking down the beach and I said,

''What have you been up to? I thought you were going to New York. ''

He said, ''No, I decided to stay here. '' And he said, ''Been writing songs. ''

So I said, ''Let me hear some of your songs.''

And he was very shy about it. He said, ''No, I don't have much of a voice.''

And I said, ''Forget it, man.

''Bob DyIan doesn't have a voice and he's, Iike, the biggest thing going.''

And he says, ''Okay, okay, okay. ''

And he cIoses his eyes and he starts to bob to himseIf and he sings,

Let's swim to the moon, ah ha

And he said, ''You Iike it? You Iike it?'' I said, ''I Iove it, man.''

And at that point I said to Jim, ''Okay, man, that's it.

''We're getting a rock and roII band together. We're going aII the way with this one.''

-Name? -John Densmore.

-Age? -Twenty-three.

-Occupation? -Percussionist.

Ray came up to me and said, ''I'm putting a band together.

''Why don't you come down to my parents' garage in Manhattan Beach?''

I went down and met Jim and thought, ''Whoa, this guy's magic.''

We cut some demos of Jim's songs, The Doors' songs,

with my brother Rick on guitar, my brother Jim on harmonica,

very cooI harmonica pIayer,

and John on drums, me on the piano, and Jim singing.

Here's the demo that came off an acetate.

They were reaIIy raw.

And we took them to record companies

and they'd, Iike, drop the needIe on the record

for 20 seconds, you know.

''Nope, nothing here.''

''Okay.''

And at that point, my brother Jim and my brother Rick said,

''Look, this is not happening, man.'' So they spIit and off they went.

John said, ''Well, we gotta have a guitar player. ''

And then he brought Robby into the band.

-Name? -Robby Krieger.

-Age? -Twenty-two years oId.

-Occupation? -Guitar.

That first day we got together, we thought we were as good as the Stones.

You know, as good as anybody.

You know, I mean, at Ieast we couId see the potentiaI there,

and I think we were right.

We rehearsed at a IittIe pIace in Santa Monica

and then Iater, we rehearsed at Ray's pIace.

Right on Venice Beach, like a boardwalk in, like, North Point Avenue.

We'd rehearse during the day in the sun room.

You'd open the door and you'd step out onto sand.

We were honing songs. We wanted to write the best songs on the pIanet,

and we spent a year and a haIf, every day.

I first heard them when they brought me their acetate disc and I loved it.

I thought it was great and set about signing them

to a very, very basic agreement with CoIumbia Records,

which had, as its initiaI term, a six-month period

within which a singIe needed to be produced.

We were into the third, fourth month, and we went over to BiIIy's office

and said, ''When are we gonna record? Are we gonna get to meet a producer?''

I took them to Larry Marks and I took them to Bruce Johnston,

and I took them to Terry MeIcher and I took them to AIan Stanton.

These were the peopIe inside the A&R department

who were producers and they were not interested.

BiIIy James said, ''Wait the six-month period. You'II get $1,000.''

Morrison said, ''Who cares? Let us go.'' And that was it. We were out of there.

And we aII got gIoomy and then we went out and worked on our songs,

'cause that was our goaI and we just persevered.

Since we weren't going to make a record with CoIumbia,

we obviousIy had to get a gig.

We got a gig at a place called The London Fog on the Sunset Strip.

The Strip was the happening thing, man,

but the best thing was that we were right near the Whisky.

In 1966, everybody wanted to pIay the Whisky.

The Whisky was a popuIar pIace.

And every band that came aIong, I don't care, from Arizona or whatever,

from EngIand, whatever... They wanted to pIay the Whisky.

What we hoped for was that word wouId Ieak over to the Whisky,

that, ''Hey, there's this cooI band over at London Fog,''

and maybe we'd get in there. And that's exactIy what happened.

In the spring of 1966, I took a Iate fIight into Los AngeIes,

went directIy to catch the Iast show at the Whisky,

where Love was pIaying,

and during my conversations with Arthur Lee,

he said, ''There's a band on the bottom of the biII

''that I reaIIy think you ought to stick around and hear.''

And I had a very high opinion of Arthur's opinion.

So I stayed around and there I saw The Doors,

and I wasn't particuIarIy impressed.

I didn't hear any of the iconic songs that first evening.

But I kept going back and I went back four evenings.

Now, the fourth evening I went back,

everything just came together and you just knew.

HoIzman was seeking the new West Coast thing

and he was open to...

He's a smart guy and he Iiked Jim's words. He knew we were up to something.

Came back two or three times, came back with his wife,

and said, ''Boys, I'm gonna sign you to EIektra Records.''

You know, when I heard that we might be on EIektra Records,

that was Iike heaven for me.

And then when I heard that we were gonna get Paul Rothchild to produce us,

that was like it was meant to be

because he had produced all these albums that I listened to.

And then we got Bruce Botnick, who had done the Love records,

and Paul Butterfield Band with Paul.

So there was some fate involved, I think, in these decisions.

I didn't know who they were. They were just another band.

And in the door came The Doors.

By the time we got in the studio, we had written two aIbums worth of stuff.

So that was a good 30 songs or so. Pretty confident about aII of them.

And there we were. It was an exciting six days.

The first song was Break On Through,

which starts with John Densmore pIaying a bossa nova beat,

which is very unusuaI, marrying bossa nova to some pretty intense rock and roII.

At the time, bossa nova was coming up from BraziI,

which was with a stick and a brush, Iike...

And I appreciated that very much and I decided to use it

and make it stiffer for rock and roII. So it's Iike this.

And you're hearing Ray Manzarek's piano bass aIong with John.

Latino.

Ray CharIes.

But I'm pIaying...

We'd steaI from anybody.

I'm gonna bring in Robby and Ray. They were Iocked on one track together.

Break On Through, I got the idea for the riff from a PauI ButterfieId song,

Shake Your Moneymaker, which was one of my favourites.

And the way they pIayed it was something Iike this.

So we just changed the beat around and made it...

And a soIo.

Then he's gonna come up to a forbidden part

that we weren't aIIowed to do on the record.

Here's the ''She gets high.''

In those days, you know, if you wanted to get a song on the radio,

you couIdn't say ''high.''

TaIking about smoking pot and taking... Oh, dear God.

You know, the worId is going to heII in a hand basket, and so that...

So the word ''high,'' you know, that wouId be Iike using the ''F'' word today.

So that was the reason why we had to take that out.

The thing that reaIIy grabbed me about The Doors,

even at that very young age, was Jim Morrison's voice.

The controI, the richness of it.

And just how he wouId go

from this great controI and baIIadeer tenderness

to this feraI, ferocious animaI connection he had.

This is probabIy not gonna make much sense,

but the cIosest persona or musician that I've heard to The Doors

is actuaIIy Frank Sinatra

because I feeI Iike Jim Morrison might have reaIIy Iiked Frank Sinatra.

He sings with that kind of mascuIine...

You know, ''I've Iived through it and here's what it's Iike.''

When Jim came into the studio,

he had never recorded before. It was the first time.

I didn't know what he was gonna be Iike,

and my favourite vocaI microphone is a TeIefunken U 47.

And I showed it to him. I said, ''This is gonna be your mike, '' and he froze.

And he said, ''That's great. '' I said, ''Why is that?''

He said, ''That's the mike that Frank Sinatra sings in. ''

That's when I realised that he was a big fan of Frank Sinatra's.

He Ioved crooners. He Iiked Bing Crosby, Iiked EIvis, aII the crooners.

He just had a naturaI good voice.

You know, he couId kind of do anything with it, you know?

And it just deveIoped reaIIy fast.

This is Crystal Ship, and this is a great exampIe of Jim crooning

through the U 47, and a very sweet, young voice.

He was a naturaI. He had Iyrics and meIodies.

But he didn't know how to pIay one chord on any instrument.

He said that to remember the Iyrics, he wouId think of a meIody.

Before you slip into unconsciousness

I'd like to have another kiss

So he'd sing that and we'd go, ''Whoa, whoa, whoa!''

E sharp.

I'd say, ''Oh, I think it's in 4l4, or it's a waItz,'' whatever it is and...

And so we'd just eke it out together.

That's what a reaI band does, you know. It's Iike...

Like they say, there was no,

''WeII, those are my chords. No, I don't wanna change them.'' You know?

If somebody had something better, then we did it, you know?

And that's what reaIIy was good about The Doors,

is we worked so weII together as a band.

The first album is basically The Doors live.

There are very few overdubs on the first aIbum. It's Iive. It's The Doors Iive.

The Doors Iive from the Whisky A Go Go, except in a recording studio.

We didn't have the time or the money to, you know, really go crazy in the studio.

In fact, Jim did sing live in the studio.

He used to like to do this, especially on stage.

He'd get himseIf into the roIe,

and in this case, he was getting himseIf into the roIe of the Back Door Man.

So Iisten to this.

Every day Jim took the stage, none of us knew what wouId happen.

We just never knew.

And, you know, I don't know how many, I never added up the shows,

but at Ieast 150, 200 shows, never knew what Jim wouId do that night.

There was a lot of improvised theatre, especially in the early Doors performances.

Improvised, I mean it wasn't pIanned. It just happened with the music.

I suppose it happened with the music and the drugs and the state of mind at the time.

The songs were the form, like in a play.

You pIay the chord changes, but the nuances he put in,

it was dangerous, you know,

and exciting and scary and aII of the above.

It was great performing with him.

Sure, it was unsuspected and it was dangerous,

and you didn't know what he was going to do,

but, man, that's the excitement of the whoIe thing.

Like, for instance, Back Door Man, Jim...

After the soIo, it wouId come down,

and sometimes Jim wouId go off onto some crazy thing.

And then it wouId turn into a whoIe different song.

And then at the end, we'd bring it back to Back Door Man.

The way he sang it, you couId teII he had the experience of,

''You men eat your dinner, eat your pork and beans.

''I eat more chicken than any man ever seen.''

It's Iike he's ripping his vocaI chords out.

And he couId go right from that to being a crooner.

They took you somewhere that no other band seemed to take you.

These were highIy-educated, weII-read, smart peopIe.

And they brought a mixture of music that was not just three chords.

You'II notice that the roIes in this song have changed a IittIe bit

from Break On Through. Here, Robby is basicaIIy the force.

John is hoIding down the rhythm, Iaying down a good soIid funky beat.

But Robby is the reaI funk. He's putting the souI into the Soul Kitchen.

James Brown.

Where's my cape?

That's what I was trying to do with the guitar Iick,

was to simuIate a James Brown horn section.

And I come up with...

And here's the interesting thing is, John overdubbed himseIf.

We had two sets of drums.

We had one that he was pIaying aII his riffs, one just keeping time.

And at the same time we did that, we overdubbed Larry KnechteI on bass.

And you can hear.

Larry KnechteI came in and pIayed bass in the studio,

'cause for records you need that bottom. You got to have that bottom.

And they had a bass pIayer, I think, on aII the aIbums.

But Iive, it was Ray.

We auditioned quite a few bass pIayers. Two for sure.

We auditioned one bass pIayer and we sounded Iike The RoIIing Stones.

Then we auditioned another bass pIayer and we sounded Iike The AnimaIs.

And we're at an audition,

and here is the Fender Rhodes keyboard bass.

And I pIayed it.

HoIy cow, it's a bass.

So once I saw this I said, ''That's it. I'II be the bass pIayer.

''Here's the bass pIayer of The Doors, right here.''

Larry is emuIating everything that Ray has pIayed on the piano bass.

And here's Ray.

And then it's the two of them together.

'Cause The Doors used to Iike to cIose their shows with this song.

A Iive ending if I ever heard one. In the studio, Iive.

The thing that impressed me was so many different styIes

that were made to work within a singIe context,

which is very, very difficuIt to do.

And that reaIIy happened.

In Ray's record coIIection, he had an opera caIIed Mahagonny

by BertoIt Brecht and Kurt WeiII.

And he pIayed it for us, this Alabama Song,

and I thought it was pretty weird.

''Like, wait a minute,'' I thought. ''German Oom-pah? I don't know.''

It's just Iike, ''What the heII? What chords are those, you know?''

So I kind of came up with some chords that kind of worked for it.

He says, ''It's an A minor to E minor.''

I said, ''Son of a gun! What's next?'' F sharp.

D, F sharp, to D.

And here comes everybody.

It's possibIe that PauI RothchiId was singing in there, too.

He'd do that occasionaIIy.

Raise your steins.

I don't think anybody knew that it was Brecht and Weill.

The kids aII thought it was The Doors.

Before I knew who Kurt WeiII was, I didn't know.

I just thought, ''Oh, this is another song of theirs.''

It definiteIy stood out as strange, but, so what? Strange is good.

Jim was the writer. He's the guy who had the songs.

And, you know, I didn't reaIIy think about writing.

But then Jim said, ''Hey, you know what? We don't have enough songs, you know.

''Why don't you aII guys go and try and write some, too, you know?''

So basicaIIy, what Robby had was, kind of, more of a foIk song than it turned into.

It goes into The Doors' communaI mind,

and Densmore says, ''Let's put a Latin beat to it, man.''

Like this.

And how do we start this song? We can't just...

'Cause, Iike, that's the riff of the song.

And, I don't know, out of the better angeIs of my unconscious mind, came...

And then, everybody.

Jim came up with the second verse about the funeraI pyre.

And I said, ''Jim, why is it aIways death? Why do you aIways have to do that?''

And he said, ''No, man, this is perfect.

''You know, you got the Iove part of it,

''and then we'II have the death part.'' And he was right.

That song reaIIy had it.

The thing going against it, it was over six minutes Iong.

Dave Diamond, local DJ, said,

''Man, I am getting requests for Light My Fire.

''I pIay it 'cause I got The Diamond Mine Iate at night and I can pIay a Iong version,

''but you guys got to cut that thing down and make a singIe.

''I'm teIIing you, it's a hit.''

The boys didn't wanna cut it.

I said, ''WeII, Iook, Iet's just Iet PauI see what he can come up with,

''and, guys, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work and we won't do it.''

And we said, ''No, we can't do that, you know.

''That's our favourite song. We can't cut it down.''

But finaIIy we did and that was...

Then aII heII broke Ioose after that.

I remember being in New York in a limousine, going to a concert.

Light My Fire was just breaking,

and it must've been pIayed every three minutes, four minutes.

One song, then another song, and then Light My Fire again.

And we were just in the Iimo and our smiIes were so big,

we were so happy.

It just dripped out of the radio.

The BeatIes were saying, ''AII you need is Iove.''

Morrison's going, ''Light my fire, honey.''

There's a big difference. It's love, but it's a different kind of love.

Then they go on Ed Sullivan.

The Ed Sullivan Show was where The BeatIes first appeared.

Ed Sullivan was watched by famiIies on Sunday night.

SuddenIy, IittIe SaIIy is up on aII fours,

Ieaning in Iooking at The Lizard King.

And Daddy's Iooking down going, ''Oh, no. We can't have this.

''We cannot have this.''

And the moment Daddy said, ''We cannot have this,''

she was out buying every Doors aIbum you couId possibIy imagine.

Of course, we didn't do what they toId us.

They didn't want us to say, ''GirI, you couIdn't get much higher.''

Jim did it anyway and then they said, ''You'II never do this show again.''

And we said, ''WeII, we just did it. We onIy wanted to do it once. Cheers.''

Light My Fire hit number one in late July of 1967.

I think it's more in retrospect that it is seen now as a perfect song

for that summer, for that time.

Because things were beginning to glow and ignite and explode

in terms of the social changes, the political changes in the country.

It was fantastic,

but it was aIso, you know, spiraIIed down into drug abuse.

The Vietnam War was the backdrop for the dark side of fIower power.

''Lost in a Roman wiIderness of pain

''And aII the chiIdren are insane''

What a comment on the Iove generation, you know.

And perhaps they were.

You know, I think The Doors were about reaIity, okay.

Okay, there was the hippies and fIower power and aII that stuff.

But then, there's aIways an opposite side of that.

The Doors were the yang to the yin of the fIower-power era.

We weren't about fIower power. This band was about personaI power.

It was about, ''Who can you be?''

And they provoked and made everybody examine that in ways nobody eIse did.

This all came from Jim's lyrics.

''I took a journey to the bright midnight End of the night

''Some are born to reaIms of bIiss

''Some are born to sweet deIight Some are born to the end of the night''

Which was Jim, you know.

The mood I get from most of it is kind of a heavy,

kind of a

sort of gIoomy feeIing, you know.

Like...

Like of someone not quite at home.

Jim had things that he went through.

And when I first met him, he was doing psychedeIics,

and typicaIIy did a hundred times what anybody eIse did

to see how far he couId get with the psychedeIic,

and then he was done with that.

Jim was not really a drug user. He'd smoke a joint now and then.

But he had no pattern except he liked to drink.

The one thing I aIways knew about Jim

was that he was going to test every Iimit that anybody put out there.

''Crash the car, drunk, into a poIice car and see if I can get away with it.''

And he did.

It was difficuIt, you know.

I mean, many times I said, ''Why can't he just be a reguIar guy?''

You know, you can stiII write great songs and not be so crazy

and go and do these weird things.

But then again, I knew that, ''No, he can't.''

Guys Iike that are the ones that...

They kind of set the boundaries for the rest of us.

I'd Iike to do a song or a piece of music

that's just a pure expression of joy.

Pure, Iike a ceIebration

of existence, you know.

Like the coming of spring or the sun rising or something Iike that.

Just pure, unbounded joy.

I don't think we've reaIIy done that yet.

Because you're a star, any behaviour is forgiven.

And it's the uItimate induIgence.

And that induIgence, of course, sent him off at 27 and a haIf.

Up into the ether.

SeIf-destruction and creativity are not aIways in the same package,

and I want young kids to understand this.

You can't just wear Ieather pants and drink and make it.

Picasso Iived to 90 and he was a genius.

So... And I'm 62.

I Iike being an exampIe, in the same band, of a Ionger road.

So, in his case, they came together, creativity and seIf-destruction.

Last selection on Side 2, the last of the album, is called The End.

And this was aII recorded Iive in the studio, no overdubs whatsoever.

And here we go.

Ray's piano bass.

''This is the end,'' you know, Iike...

''What's he taIking about?

''Do peopIe write about... Is he writing about death?

''Do peopIe do that in a song?

''That's nothing Iike Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da. What's going on?''

The End actuaIIy started out as a Iove... No, not a Iove...

WeII, a Iove song. A goodbye Iove song. ''This is the end, beautifuI friend.''

And Jim sang it to us a cappeIIa.

And we kind of went, ''Whoa, okay. That's dark.''

And the whoIe Iong 10-minute middIe section of poetry and aII that stuff

kind of evoIved pIaying Iive.

And we had sections where he couId put in whatever he wanted

whiIe we wouId vamp.

At The Whisky A Go Go, Jim came up with this great part.

And we'd never heard it before. It's the first time he ever did this.

On stage. Whisky A Go Go packed.

And he had that aura about him that had just stopped the entire pIace.

Everything had gone into just frozen moment in time.

Nothing was going on except this.

Densmore's drums and Robby pIaying some sitar things.

And Morrison says, ''The kiIIer awoke before dawn.''

Oh, God, what is he gonna do?

''He put his boots on.

''He took a face from the ancient gaIIery and he...''

He walked on down the hallway, baby

Not what you aII thought.

It was so seductive, the quietness of the beginning,

and how it erupts into some kind of OedipaI craziness at the end.

And it was dynamic, it was drama of very, very high order.

You know, The End is Oedipus Rex, it's Freud.

It's the OedipaI compIex. It's fuII of darkness.

Of course, originaIIy, we had to mix that down,

but it's rhythmicaIIy part of it. It's an instrument.

You wouIdn't find this on Ferry 'Cross the Mersey or whatever.

I mean, this is Iike a 10-minute drone,

no snares, moody séance.

You can sense that they were experimenting.

And that... You need that from true artists.

You need them to reach in and say,

''I don't know if this is ugIy, I don't know if this is odd,

''but here it is. I find it kind of beautifuI.''

You know, when we finished this aIbum,

we aII knew we had made a reaIIy good record.

Whether we knew of the impact it was going to make,

or the success, nobody knew.

Those aIbums that are cIassic aIbums are aIbums that are perfect.

And by perfect, I mean, you wouIdn't want to change a thing.

It doesn't even come down now to the fact that it is

a near-perfect piece of work, aII in one disc.

It is aIso because of context.

It's aIso just because of where it stood, where it stands,

in the history of rock music.

The Doors' music, 40 years Iater, is stiII incredibIy powerfuI to any person

that's beginning to think about Iife as an individuaI,

as opposed to a product of their parents.

That music Iaunches you on a journey.

And if you've got your ears open and your heart open,

you'II go on that journey.

The songs are more inquirious into the psyche, perception.

And where you see a waII, we see a door.

I know one thing, my kids, as they grow up, I'm gonna hand them this record

and I'm gonna say, ''You've got to check this record out.

''This was so important to music.''

The stuff we were writing about... Like Jim aIways said,

''Write about universaI stuff that, maybe, a hundred years from now

''peopIe wiII stiII dig it, you know.''

Jim aIways said, ''Our music is primevaI.

''It comes from the primevaI swamp.''

There's magic on the record. I don't know. It's hard to define.

Magic comes through you, you don't own it.

So the muse was hanging around and I'm gratefuI.

Ray appears three times on this.

He's pIaying the farting bass, his organ and he's aIso pIaying a Marxophone.

I'd never even heard of it.

PauI RothchiId said, ''Let's get the Marxophone.''

I said, ''What the heII is that, man?''

He said, ''It's a hammer zither. A hammer zither.''

Because being a foIky out of New York City, they knew about aII that sort of thing,

and it worked out perfectIy.

That jingIe-jangIy sound was perfect for the Whisky Bar.

It's very, very much Iike a carnivaI, you know.

Everybody was trying to copy Mike BIoomfieId,

the guy from the ButterfieId Band, and so I wanted to be different.

And that's why I tried to do those crazy sIide things

and anything, reaIIy, to get away from bIues.

And I said, ''Jeez, that's good.''

And Jim said, ''I Iove that sound. I want that sound on every song.''

And I said, ''WeII, I know, I get it, I get it. But do you want it on every singIe song?''

He said, ''WeII, okay, maybe not on every song, but on a Iot of them.''

The thing with this song was we wanted it to be reaI spooky and stuff.

So, I think that I'm the onIy guy that ever tuned a guitar...

Open tuning in a minor tuning, which sounds Iike this.

So...

One night, we finished recording...

Must have been about 7:00.

We weren't working Iate nights, onIy a few times did we do that.

And when we were doing The Doors, we did entire days

because Jack HoIzman booked the faciIity for the Iockout.

And we aII went home.

And I had forgotten to Iock the back door of the studio.

Yes, Jim's LSD intake did impinge upon the first recording session.

Nothing disastrous,

outside of the fact that he went back to the studio

after we had aII Ieft the studio after doing Light My Fire.

We didn't quite get it.

Or was it The End? I can't remember which song. I think it was Light My Fire.

He went back to the recording studio,

and he knew there was a fire in the recording studio,

and went back there and hosed the whoIe damn studio down.

WaIked in, cIimbed over the fence, went into the studio...

Pam's driving, she's waiting outside. ''You wait out here, honey.''

Up and over. Gets to the recording studio, the red work Iight is on.

Just as a...

Rather than keep aII the Iights on, there's a red Iight in the middIe of the room.

Morrison haIIucinating on LSD waIks in and sees this red Iight

and thinks, ''I knew it! I knew it!''

Grabs a fire extinguisher and hoses down the entire studio.

FortunateIy, just the instruments.

The controI room where the reaIIy expensive shit was, he didn't go in there.

He got our stuff, the drums and the...

It was kind of spray foam kind of stuff that was easiIy wiped off.

And then I think he then at that point reaIised what he had done and said,

''Oh, my God, I think I made a mistake here. I must be insane and haIIucinating.''

Out the door he went, back up the... CIimbed up the chain Iink fence,

Iost his shoe. His boot got stuck in the chain Iink, puIIed his...

He got over to the top and Pam said, ''Jim, your shoe.''

And he said, ''The heII with it. I've got to go back up and over.

''Forget it. Let's get out of here, honey.''

Boom, off they go.

The next morning, the owner of the studio, Tutti Camerata...

A certain Tutti Camerata caIIs Jack...

CaIIs PauI RothchiId, who then caIIs Jack HoIzman,

and teIIs him, ''The studio's been hosed down here.

''This is not a good thing at aII.''

And then Jack said, ''Oh, my God, is it a big Ioss?''

He said, ''No, no, no, it can be cIeaned up. It's no big deaI, the instruments... But...''

And Jack said, ''WeII, why're you caIIing me?''

He said, ''Because we found Morrison's shoe stuck into the chain Iink fence.''

And Jack said, ''AII right, aII right, I'II pay for it.''

It wasn't much. Thank God he didn't ruin it.

But he came in the next day and everyone went,

''What the fuck did you do, Jim? My God!''

And it was funny. When he came back in,

he was very caIm and quiet and very sheepish

and went, ''Oh, I'm reaIIy sorry. I didn't... Wow.

''This is terribIe. What can I do?'' He was very apoIogetic and very sweet and...

But he wasn't there. He was there, but he wasn't there. It was Jimbo who was there.

Botnick, basebaII fan, Dodgers fan,

is watching either Sandy Koufax pitch or Don DrysdaIe.

I'm not sure whether it was Don DrysdaIe

going for the six consecutive shutouts, hoIding the record,

or whether it was Sandy Koufax,

another briIIiant pitcher, Los AngeIes Dodger,

pitching against whoever. Tight pennant race.

So he had a TV set. He couIdn't have it in the controI room.

For some reason when he pIugged it in it went... And it made IittIe squeaIy...

And Botnick goes, ''Shit, I'II pIug it in where the guys are recording,

''but way off to the side over there.''

So we're pIaying Light My Fire, man.

Jim is out, after whispering in my ear and egging me on,

and he's kind of dancing around and he comes across the TV set.

And the TV set is facing the controI room window.

It's a portabIe with a IittIe handIe. He picks it up and he Iooks at it.

It's a basebaII game going on.

And he picks it up

and throws it right at the recording studio window,

and I thought, ''Oh, my...'' We aII saw it happen and it was Iike time...

CinematicaIIy, it aII went into sIow motion.

That thing came across and hit the window

and we thought, ''Oh, shit, it's going to shatter everything.''

Bounced off the window, thick, heavy gIass...

Bounced off the window, feII on the fIoor, sputtered a few times and expired.

And I was Iike, ''Thank God, man.''

RothchiId comes out and says, ''Okay, Okay. Stop the...

''HoId it, hoId it, hoId it. Jim, what are you doing?''

And he said, ''No TV sets when we're pIaying, man.

''No TV sets, no basebaII games when The Doors are pIaying.''

''AII right, aII right.'' I think he caIIed the session, sent everybody home.

We came back the next day

and pIayed another take or two of Light My Fire.

Thank God it didn't expIode.

Ladies and gentIemen, the teIevision.

And it stiII works. In bIack and white.

In fact, if we turn it on, you can probabIy go inside and be there again.

Shows from the '60s are stiII there.

It's August 19, 1966,

and we recorded that day three seIections.

They did not make it onto The Doors aIbum.

Two of the seIections were the same song, which was Moonlight Drive.

And when the band first formed,

they didn't have Robby in the band, they didn't have a guitar pIayer.

And they didn't have a bass pIayer. But they had a girI bass pIayer.

And they had Ray's brother, Rick, pIaying harmonica.

And the song is Moonlight Drive.

And here's the demo that came off on acetate.

That voice is... He's so young, it's just scary.

And this was the deaI that got them signed to CoIumbia Records.

And they never made a record, they Iet them go.

And they got to keep the money, thankfuIIy, and then EIektra signed them.

And then on August 19 we did two versions,

and this first version is very cIose to what you just heard,

except Robby being there and his sIide guitar and aII.

And it's very interesting.

Nice and reIaxed.

Crooning, very meIIow.

Robby with his fIamenco sIide guitar.

Again, it's very Ioopy, aImost drunk.

Very cooI.

If you can think of a song in the '50s being cooI, this is the cooI version.

And coming up is the second version that we did that day,

which is so off the waII and so different and so fast and very funny.

And a different key, no Iess.

Hear the echo on Jim's voice, Iocked in.

And we have a separate track of just doubIed voices.

And you can hear the Ieakage

coming through the Ioud speaker that they were overdubbing to.

The dry vocaI.

We recorded Moonlight Drive for the first record, and it just...

Something about the sound or the performance

didn't quite come up to snuff and...

That outtake is on some box sets now 'cause peopIe Iove to hear the process.

But we didn't naiI it tiII the second aIbum.

We jump forward a year to 1967,

and you have the finaI.

Much sIower.

With a bass pIayer.

Doug Lubahn from the band caIIed CIear Light.

And Doug pIayed on most of the aIbums.

And with the addition of Ray on harpsichord.

Where wouId we be in the '60s without a harpsichord?

I was teaching fIamenco when I was in coIIege up in Santa Barbara in UCSB,

and I kept it up over the years,

but Spanish Caravan was pretty much the onIy fIamenco

that we used in The Doors,

but I think my styIe that I used on eIectric guitar

reaIIy came from the fIamenco guitar with the finger-picking and everything.

So, in fIamenco you aIways have to have your hand in a proper position,

and I kept doing that even on eIectric guitar.

I reaIIy Iike the first two Iines of this song.

''You know the day destroys the night Night divides the day''

It's that oId struggIe of Iight against dark

that's part of so much reIigious and human turmoiI,

and turmoiI in our insides.

''You know the day destroys the night Night divides the day

''Tried to run...'' WeII, we aII tried to. ''Tried to hide...'' We aII did, too.

''Break on through to the other side

''Break on through to the other side

''Break on through to the other side, yeah''

That's a reaI positive statement.

WiIIiam BIake said, ''The road of excess Ieads to the paIace of wisdom.''

And WiIIiam BIake aIso said,

''Prudence is a rich, ugIy, oId maid courted by incapacity.''

And I wouId say Jim utterIy Iacks prudence.

And he certainIy doesn't have much incapacity going for him.

''We chased our pIeasures here Dug our treasures there

''We chased our pIeasures here Dug our treasures there''

I Iike the use of ''dug'' that way.

''But can you stiII recaII the time we cried?

''Break on through to the other side Break on through to the other side

''Yeah! Come on, yeah''

I keep thinking of WiIIiam BIake.

He said, ''The cistern contains...''

That is, ''The bowI contains, but the fountain overfIows.''

And this is overfIowing.

''Break on through to the other side

''Break on through to the other side Yeah! Come on, yeah''

''The cistern contains, the fountain overfIows.''

''Everybody Ioves my baby Everybody Ioves my baby''

''She gets high, she get high She get high, she gets high''

ExpIoration of consciousness through getting high.

Getting high on aIcohoI, getting high on cocaine, getting high on Courvoisier,

getting high on strange, newIy invented psychedeIics.

''I found an isIand in your arms Country in your eyes

''Arms that chain Eyes that Iie''

''I found an isIand in your arms Country in your eyes''

That's so sweet.

''Arms that chain Eyes that Iie''

Yeah, not reaIIy.

''Break on through to the other side''

Let's not stop there.

''Break on through to the other side Break on through

''Oh, yeah''

''Made the scene week to week Made it day to day, hour to hour

''The gate is straight''

Interesting use of ''straight'' there. Just technicaIIy speaking.

He was a Iover of EngIish Ianguage.

''Deep and wide Break on through to the other side

''Break on through to the other side Break on through

''Break on through Break on through

''Break on through

''Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!''

So, these Iyrics never reIent.

They repeat, but they don't reIent.

And it's not happening

as Jim and The Doors did so much Iater in bIues-Iike work,

where of course, as we know, bIues begin with a repetition, generaIIy.

BIack bIues begins with a repetition of the first Iine.

Their repetitions don't happen in the first,

theirs happen in the end when Jim gets reaIIy wound up

after he's saying what he has to say.

God, what're we going to soIo on?

I got it, we're going to do John CoItrane.

This is Iike My Favourite Things, except John CoItrane is doing it...

CoItrane Quartet is doing it in 3l4.

And we're doing it in four.

One, two, three, four.

That's what we're going to soIo on, that.

And it's aIways different. It's an improvisation.

I've never pIayed this before.

I've pIayed that before, but I've never pIayed it exactIy Iike this.

So, that was the fun of Light My Fire, it's aIways an improvisation.

Every time we pIay it Iive,

peopIe say, ''Don't you get sick of pIaying Light My Fire?''

I don't get sick of it 'cause I can aIways improvise.

And Iefty just keeps on going. He's just going.

He won't stop untiI I stop him. I have to grab him sometimes.

Then it goes into three against four. WeII, it's Robby's soIo after that.

It was aII improvisation.

And Morrison was just totaIIy out there, totaIIy wiId, and we were improvising.

And whatever he wouId do, we'd foIIow him.

We'd just... God bIess, man. Go too far. What is too far?

Too far is it gets you arrested in New Haven, Connecticut,

by Captain KeIIy and the good poIice officers of New Haven.

''You've gone too far, young man. You've gone too far.''

WeII, what did he do? He was baiting the cops.

He was teIIing the story of being maced down in the dressing room.

He was in a shower making out with a girI,

and a cop goes in and says, ''Hey, you kids, get out of here.''

And Jim Morrison says to the guy, he says, ''We're not doing anything.

''We're kissing, do you mind?''

He said, ''Get out of here! I toId you kids to get out of here!''

And Jim said, ''Hey, I'm not getting out of here.''

And the guy said, ''Oh, yeah?'' And hit him with the mace.

Then he finds out who he is. Jim comes running into the dressing room,

tearing, eyes just... Just watery, Iike, insane.

The cop then is toId by the manager,

''That's the Iead singer of the band you guys are here to protect.

''You're here to protect him, protect and serve

''and you've just maced him.''

And he's Iike, ''I'm reaIIy sorry. I'm reaIIy sorry. I didn't know who you were.''

He said, ''Oh, okay, if you're famous, you don't get maced.

''If you're just a kid making out, then you're gonna get it.''

So, it was Iike, ''HoId it, man, it doesn't work that way.''

So, Jim... On stage, we're doing Back Door Man.

And I'm doing...

Just over and over. And Jim starts to teII the story about...

He said, ''Let me teII you what just happened to me downstairs.''

And he teIIs the whoIe story about being maced.

And their motto is, ''Protect and Serve.'' And one by one, they start to turn.

And they're Iooking...

They're in front of the stage and they're Iooking at the audience.

They start to turn and Iook at Jim. And there they were, man, the buIIs.

The thick guys, thick necks,

making doubIe-time, working night, working a rock and roII show, Iot of fun.

Maybe you'II get to whack a few kids, a few teenagers.

If you can hit a coupIe of Iong hairs, even better.

And then Morrison's saying, ''That IittIe bIue man,

''in a IittIe bIue hat, a IittIe bIue pig.''

That got them, man.

And he said, ''They maced me. They did this and did that.

''Because I'm famous, I wasn't going to be maced.

''But I'm just Iike you guys. I'm just Iike you guys, man.

''He did it to me. They'II do it to you.''

And... Out comes Captain KeIIy and says, ''Stop the show. Stop everything.

''You're under arrest, young man. You've gone too far.''

And they puIIed him away. Arrested right on stage.

WeII, The End was especiaIIy one of those songs where improvisation took over

because the song was a short song. It was a...

It was about a two-and-a-haIf, three-minute song.

It was a goodbye, a Iove song to one of Jim's oId girIfriends.

And it was a...

But we pIayed at the London Fog and we had four or five sets to pIay.

So, there's nobody in the cIub. What difference does it make?

Sometimes I pIay a fIute. I had a IittIe fIute that happened to be in D.

PIay that. Or you couId just keep... Just keep going.

So, we aIways thought of it as an Indian raga.

And we'd just go.

Jim couId sing anything he wanted. We'd just foIIow him.

And at some point, the onIy thing that was different is that...

We'd know that we were going to buiId up the tempo.

As in a raga, there's a fast part. We wouId get to it eventuaIIy.

Whenever we got to it, weII...

So, for instance,

a great exampIe of improvised Iyrics is Jim singing,

''Lost in a Roman wiIderness of pain

''And aII the chiIdren are insane

''Waiting for the summer rain''

And John goes...

And of course, after a Iot of meandering...

At The Whisky A Go Go, Jim came up with this great part.

And we'd never heard it before. It's the first time he ever did this.

On stage. Whisky A Go Go. Packed.

And he had that aura about him that had just stopped the entire pIace.

Everything had gone into just... Frozen moment in time.

Nothing was going on, except this.

Densmore's drums and Robby pIaying some sitar things.

And Morrison says, ''The kiIIer awoke before dawn.''

Oh, God, what is he gonna do?

''He put his boots on

''He took a face from the ancient gaIIery and he...''

He walked on down the hallway, baby

And then you know the rest of it.

He comes into a room where his brother and his sister Iived.

And he continued on down the haIIway.

And he comes to a room with his mother and father.

And he Iooks in and he says, ''Father?'' ''Yes, son?'' ''I want to kiII you.''

''Mother?''

And we know what's coming. He's gonna do Oedipus Rex.

If he said, ''Father'', he's going to do, ''Mother'', sure enough

at the stage of the Whisky A Go Go, and the owners are going to freak.

And he says, ''Mother?''

''I want to...''

Densmore's buiIding up the drums.

And he said... And we use the ''F'' word.

''AII night Iong, baby.''

Then we're pIaying craziness. And the bass is stiII going.

And then aII of a sudden the pIace came to Iife and the audience...

And then we started.

Because they started moving, he said, ''AII right.''

We go into the doubIe-time. And Jim says...

Come on, baby, take a chance with us

Come on, baby, take a chance with us

Meet me at the back of the blue bus

Doing a blue rock on a blue bus

Doing a blue rock on a blue...

Robby's soIo.

Densmore says to kick the tempo. Faster. Faster. Faster.

The audience is swirIing. We're aII going, ''How fast can this go?''

And then finaIIy, he hits a cIimax.

And he's smashing on the drums.

We're aII doing this.

And Morrison comes back and...

This is the end

Beautiful friend

This is the end

My only friend

It hurts to set you free You'll never follow me

The end of laughter and soft lies

Listen to the Iast Iine.

The ends of nights we tried to die

This is the end

I mean, we got fired. That was it. The guy came...

The owner of the Whisky came upstairs after that and said,

''That's it, you're dirty, fiIthy...'' He started swearing Iike a drunken saiIor.

''You are dirty, fiIthy mother... You... Morrison, you are...''

Every word you can imagine, just screaming at us.

And said, ''You're fired! Don't ever come back to the Whisky A Go Go.''

And I said, ''PhiI...'' He says, ''You can't say that about your mother.''

I said, ''It's not about his mother. It's Oedipus Rex. It's Greek.''

He said, ''Greek? Greek? You want Greek? Manzarek, turn around.

''I'II give you a Greek right up the you-know-where.''

And I said, ''Jeez, God...''

''You're fired. Don't ever come back.'' Robby says to him,

''PhiI, it's a Thursday night. You don't want us to pIay the weekend?''

And he went, ''Oh. Oh, no, you pIay Friday and Saturday night.

''Then you're fired!''

Being a drummer is Iike being a pIumber. You have to negotiate aII this equipment,

and when I first went in the studio, I didn't know that

getting a sound on the drums for a record is different than pIaying Iive.

You have to muffIe things, dampen them.

And I Iearned that quickIy from Botnick and RothchiId.

At the time, we didn't have muffIers.

This drum has a muffIer inside,

but my trick, which I Iearned from the oId jazz guys,

was to put my waIIet on the snare drum and tape it down.

AIthough, many times I'd go home without my waIIet, which was distressing.

But that muffIed the snare drum sound. And it makes it fatter when it's muffIed.

See? That's a good sound.

And I aIways took off aII my artiIIery,

which I wouId Ieave in various cities with my waIIet,

because you can't drum with aII this stuff on.

Anyway, I wouId IooseIy tune

my side-tom and fIoor-tom to...

If we were pIaying a bIues, you know bIues is three chords,

so the snare-tom and fIoor-tom wouId kind of IooseIy be the chords, so...

See, this is not high enough for a bIues.

And I...

I Iiked my heads to be oId and beaten up.

I couIdn't stand it when I broke one

'cause then I'd have to have a new one and it wouId be terribIe for a few weeks.

So it's just a preference.

Tony WiIIiams, the great jazz drummer, had reaI tight heads.

And I took the bottom off. The bottoms are off aII these.

And I want them to bark back at me.

I think Hello I Love You, I go...

They're communing, they're taIking to me. And that's my sound.

Oh, another thing that I... I was a jazz fanatic.

I saw CoItrane and EIvin Jones, his drummer,

as a kid many times, and everybody eIse, MiIes Davis and aII.

And I actuaIIy became friends with EIvin. And by the end of his Iife,

I heIped him carry his drums to the car sometimes when he was in town.

But what I got from these guys... They used to caII them rivets.

They'd driII IittIe hoIes in the ride cymbaI and put IittIe metaI things in there,

and they'd give a sizzIe sound. WeII, this is...

This is the Iatest invention. So...

You get a deIay. And that's my sound. You can hear this on Riders On The Storm.

So the jazz infIuence reaIIy came in.

These are caIIed cans. Something one had to get used to.

You hear the rest of the band in these things.

The reason being that you're isoIated, each person is isoIated,

so you can turn up the sound of that individuaI and it won't affect the rest.

But a IittIe trick that Bruce taught me, and I noticed aII these...

Frank Sinatra, recorded here. You can see he did it, too.

You put it over one ear and off the other ear

so you can hear your kit and then you can hear the band in here.

So there's a IittIe anecdote.

I aIso want to mention that I use 7 A drumsticks.

This is not a commerciaI.

That's just the size of the stick, which are very thin, Iike jazz.

And you can pIay it fast, but they break.

I mean, in concert, I'm whacking away and they... And then I just grab another.

But I want the speed.

For some reason, in quiet sections now and then,

I wouId just drop a bomb.

And I don't know why. I was asked by Bruce Springsteen...

When we were inducted in the Rock and RoII HaII of Fame,

he came up and paid his respects, which was very fIattering.

And he said, ''WeII, you were different.

''You'd just crash in the quiet parts sometimes.''

I don't know. I think just my intuition toId me

that it wouId heighten the drama.

So, it wouId be...

Something Iike that.