Artist: Doors, The
Label: Atlantic Records
Release: 1967
Length: 35.04
Rating: 4.5/5
In October 1967, Elektra Records released the second album by The Doors, titled Strange Days. It came out just nine months after the debut and caught the Doors at the peak of their creative powers.
In many ways, Strange Days plays like a continuation of the first Doors album. Most of the songs were written and put together around the same time, and even the cover, with its dark lines, looks a lot like the first one, except this time the guys got more original: instead of their own faces, they put circus freaks on the front and tucked themselves away in the background, on a poster bearing the new record’s title. Another special thing about the album is that on some tracks they bring in a real bass guitar, played by Douglas Lubahn, while Manzarek’s keyboard bass still reigns for the most part. The themes are even more mystical and dark than on the debut, and that’s exactly how they take a different path from most bands of the day, who were mainly singing about peace and love. While even the mighty Rolling Stones were writing songs like “We Love You”, the Doors dig into the sinful souls of the hippies and are merciless across the board. People are lost, confused, alienated and lonely – those were the main starting points of Strange Days.
The album kicks off with “Strange Days”, which tells the story of people desperately trying to find shelter and validation in each other through a suffocating fog of alienation, drugs and artificial masks. A great bass line opens “You’re Lost Little Girl”, where Morrison’s voice paints the picture of a girl running desperately into the unknown, and Krieger’s beautiful, mystical guitar conjures up just how lonely her soul is. A bluesy guitar sound starts “Love Me Two Times”, which oozes passion and lust, with sex the only way out the singer sees to save the girl from all the troubles of the world. A lovely piano intro presents “Unhappy girl” as a ballad, once again about a sad girl, but Morrison is really talking about the suffering and pain we bring on ourselves by locking ourselves in our own mental prison. One of the more interesting songs on the album is definitely “Horse Latitudes”, which dates back to Morrison’s high school days. A short, dramatic monologue recited over creepy sound effects, it’s dedicated to the horses that conquerors had to sacrifice and throw overboard to lighten the ships sailing toward America. Here we can definitely see Morrison wanting to get closer to the listener as a poet too, hinting that we shouldn’t look at him only through the eyes of a rock star. The creepy sounds are then replaced by the romantic “Moonlight Drive”, which suggests swimming in emotions, even to the point where we can drown in them. It’s also worth mentioning that this one was among the first songs Morrison recited to Manzarek, which indirectly led to the birth of The Doors, since Ray was so blown away by the song that he immediately invited Morrison to join his band at the time, Rick and The Ravens. “People Are Strange” reflects the isolation we feel when we find ourselves in an unfamiliar environment, and it also ties into criticism of the Doors’ own music, since they felt firsthand what it’s like to make music that was so different for its time that everyone took you for a weirdo. Alienation from the world and falling into drug addiction also run through “My Eyes Have Seen You, with Krieger’s gorgeous solo, and the dreamy “I Can’t See Your Face In My Mind”, where Densmore’s cymbals were recorded backwards. The album closes with the eleven-minute epic ballad “When The Music’s Over”, which shares some common ground with the closing track of the first album, “The End”. Musically it’s very varied, and Morrison’s screams of “We want the world and we want it now. Now. NOW!” definitely don’t let the listener doze off. It nicely sums up Morrison’s devotion to music, quietly telling us that music is the one thing we can turn to when times are tough, and it will never leave us hanging.
Strange Days managed to capture what you could call the typical Doors “soul” while also embracing music in which we can barely find a flaw. True, it does have one small flaw: it’s a bit too short. Thirty minutes just flies by.
Lineup
Jim Morrison: vocals
Ray Manzarek: keyboards/xylophone
Robby Krieger: guitar
John Densmore: drums
Douglas Lubahn: bass
Production
Paul A. Rothchild
Tracklist
1.Strange Days
2.You’re Lost Little Girl
3.Love Me Two Times
4.Unhappy girl
5.Horse Latitudes
6.Moonlight Drive
7.People Are Strange
8.My Eyes Have Seen You
9.I Can’t See Yor Face In My Mind
10.When The Music’s Over
