- Writers: The Doors
- Producer: Paul A. Rothchild
- Recorded: Fall 1966 at Sunset Sound Recorders, Hollywood
Released: January 1967 - Players:
Jim Morrison — vocals
Ray Manzarek — keyboards
Robbie Krieger — guitar
John Densmore — drums - Album: The Doors (Elektra, 1967)
- Also on:
Weird Scenes Inside the Goldmine (Elektra, 1972)
The Doors Greatest Hits (Elektra, 1980)
The Best of the Doors (Elektra, 1987)
The Doors (soundtrack) (Elektra, 1991)
The Complete Studio Recordings (Elektra, 1999) - The Doors formed in 1965 in the Los Angeles area after Florida transplant Jim Morrison met keyboardist Ray Manzarek in the UCLA Theater Art Department. Manzarek recruited fellow student John Densmore, whom he met at a Transcendental Meditation course, and Densmore brought in Robbie Krieger, who he’d played with in a band called the Psychedelic Rangers.
- Morrison named the group The Doors, inspired by William Blake’s poem “The Doors: Open and Closed:” “There are things that are known and things that are unknown/In between are doors,” and the Aldous Huxley book, The Doors Of Perception.
- The lyrics deal with the desire to “break on through to the other side” of perception and consciousness, a theme in sync with the late ’60s pop counter-culture.
- “Break on Through” was the group’s first single; it received some airplay but did not chart.
- Some radio and TV stations forced the group to edit the bridge portion of the song, where Morrison sings “She gets high.” In 1967, such references were shunned by mainstream media. On the edited version of the single, Morrison sings “She gets…”
- Thanks to the chart-topping second single, “Light My Fire,” the Doors’ debut album was a smash, peaking at Number 2 on the Billboard Top 200 and selling more than two million copies.
FAST FORWARD:
- Morrison died of mysterious causes on July 3, 1971 in Paris.
- The other three recorded two more albums before breaking up in 1973.
- The group’s career was the subject of Oliver Stone’s 1991 film The Doors.
- The Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.
- Manzarek and Densmore have both written memoirs about their days in the group.
Manzarek and Krieger continue to play Doors songs under the name Riders on the Storm. Former Fuel singer Brett Scallions is currently fronting the band.