The Doors

The music and lyrics of The Doors was – and still is – a big influence on popular culture.

The Doors’ first album is The Doors.

The Doors – The Doors

Tracks are: Break On Through (To the Other Side) – 2:29/Soul Kitchen – 3:35/The Crystal Ship – 2:34/Twentieth Century Fox – 2:33/Alabama Song (Whisky Bar) – 3:20/Light My Fire – 7:06/Back Door Man – 3:34/I Looked at You – 2:22/ End of the Night – 2:52/Take It as It Comes – 2:17/The End – 11:41

The Doors’ second album is Strange Days.

The Doors – Strange Days

Tracks are: Strange Days – 3:11/You’re Lost Little Girl – 3:03/Love Me Two Times – 3:18/Unhappy Girl – 2:02/Horse Latitudes – 1:37/Moonlight Drive – 3:05/People Are Strange – 2:13/My Eyes Have Seen You – 2:32/I Can’t See Your Face in My Mind – 3:26/When the Music’s Over – 10:58

The Doors’ third album is Waiting for the Sun.

The Doors – Waiting for the Sun

Tracks are: Hello, I Love You – 2:14/Love Street – 2:53/Not to Touch the Earth – 3:56/Summer’s Almost Gone – 3:22/Wintertime Love – 1:54/The Unknown Soldier – 3:23/Spanish Caravan – 3:03/My Wild Love – 3:01/We Could Be So Good Together – 2:26/Yes, the River Knows – 2:36/Five to One – 4:26

The Doors’ fourth album is The Soft Parade.

The Doors – The Soft Parade

Tracks are: Tell All the People – 3:23/Touch Me – 3:12/Shaman’s Blues – 4:49/Do It – 3:08/Easy Ride – 2:41/Wild Child – 2:38/Runnin’ Blue – 2:33/Wishful Sinful – 3:02/The Soft Parade – 8:37

The Doors’ fifth album is Morrison Hotel.

The Doors – Morrison Hotel

Tracks are: Roadhouse Blues – 4:03/Waiting for the Sun – 3:58/You Make Me Real – 2:53/Peace Frog – 2:51/Blue Sunday – 2:13/Ship of Fools – 3:08/Land Ho! – 4:10/The Spy – 4:17/Queen of the Highway – 2:47/Indian Summer – 2:36/Maggie M’Gill – 4:23

The Doors sixth album is Absolutely Live – their first live album.

The Doors – Absolutely Live

Tracks are: House Announcer – 2:40/Who Do You Love? – 6:02/Alabama Song (Whisky Bar) – 1:51/Back Door Man – 2:22/Love Hides – 1:48/Five to One – 4:34/Build Me a Woman – 3:33/When the Music’s Over – 16:16/Close to You – 4:04/Universal Mind – 4:54/Petition the Lord with Prayer – 0:52/Dead Cats, Dead Rats – 1:57/Break On Through (to the Other Side) – 4:41/Lions in the Street – 1:14/Wake Up – 1:21/A Little Game – 1:12/The Hill Dwellers – 2:35/Not to Touch the Earth – 4:14/Names of the Kingdom – 1:29/The Palace of Exile – 2:20/Soul Kitchen – 7:15

The Doors’ seventh (and last) album is L.A. Woman.

The Doors – L.A. Woman

Tracks are: The Changeling – 4:21/Love Her Madly – 3:20/Been Down So Long – 4:41/Cars Hiss By My Window – 4:12/L.A. Woman – 7:49/L’America – 4:37/Hyacinth House – 3:11/Crawling King Snake – 5:00/The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat) – 4:16/Riders on the Storm – 7:09

Finally, there’s An American Prayer, which is Jim Morrison’ poetry and poetic observations and musings with a musical backing by the other members of The Doors.

An American Prayer

Tracks are: Awake – 0:36/Ghost Song (edit) – 2:50/Dawn’s Highway – 1:21/Newborn Awakening – 2:26/To Come of Age – 1:01/Black Polished Chrome – 1:07/Latino Chrome – 2:14/Angels and Sailors – 2:46/Stoned Immaculate – 1:33/The Movie – 1:35/Curses, Invocations – 1:57/American Night – 0:28/Roadhouse Blues – 5:53/The World On Fire – 1:06/Lament – 2:18/The Hitchhiker – 2:15/An American Prayer – 3:04/Hour For Magic – 1:17/Freedom Exists – 0:20/A Feast Of Friends – 2:10

The best albums to listen to are The Doors, Strange Days, L.A Woman and An American Prayer.

For those who want a concise package of good music, there’s always The Very Best of The Doors, which is a reasonable compilation of (most of) the best tracks.

Tracks are: (Disc 1) Break on Through (To the Other Side) – 2:27/Light My Fire – 7:07/The Crystal Ship – 2:32/People Are Strange – 2:09/Strange Days – 3:08/Love Me Two Times – 3:14/Alabama Song – 3:18/Five to One – 4:25/Waiting for the Sun – 3:58/Spanish Caravan – 2:57/When the Music’s Over – 10:56 (Disc 2) Hello, I Love You – 2:15/Roadhouse Blues – 4:02/L.A. Woman – 7:49/Riders on the Storm – 7:10/Touch Me – 3:11/Love Her Madly – 3:17/The Unknown Soldier – 3:23/The End – 11:42

With regards to Jim Morrison’s writings outside The Doors, I enjoyed reading his poetry. There are three collections:

The Lords & the New Creatures

The Lords/The New Creatures

Wilderness

Wilderness

The American Night.

The American Night

There’s also a book about Jim Morrison and The Doors that’s worth reading. It’s entitled No One Here gets Out Alive and it’s by Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugarman.

Some critics have claimed it exaggerates certain events – and that may be so – however it’s still a very entertaining read.

There’s also a very good documentary about The Doors, called The Doors are Open.

It’s worth finding on DVD.

Finally, of course, there’s The Doors, the movie made by Oliver Stone and starring Val Kilmer as a very convincing Jim Morrison.

It’s an interesting and entertaining film with a great soundtrack. What else does anyone want from a movie?

All in all, there are some fascinating Jim Morrison and Doors-related CDs, books and DVDs available. Some good video clips too. Here’s one to be going on with:

The legacy of The Doors is quite an interesting artistic legacy – one that’s definitely worth investigating.

www.rjdent.com

Clive Barker

Clive Barker (born 5 October 1952) is an English author, film director and visual artist best known for his works of metaphysical fantasy and horror fiction.

Clive Barker

Barker came to prominence in the mid-1980s with The Books of Blood, a 6-volume series of short stories which established him as a leading young horror writer. He has since written many novels and other works, and his fiction has been adapted into motion pictures, notably the Hellraiser and Candyman series.

When The Books of Blood were first published in the United States in paperback, Stephen King was quoted on the book covers: ‘I have seen the future of horror, his name is Clive Barker.’

Barker is one of the leading authors of contemporary horror/fantasy, writing in the horror genre early in his career.

Barker’s distinctive style is characterized by the notion of hidden fantastical worlds coexisting with our own, the role of sexuality in the supernatural and the construction of coherent, complex and detailed universes. Barker has referred to this style as ‘dark fantasy’ or the ‘fantastique’. His stories are notable for a deliberate blurring of the distinction between binary opposites such as hell and heaven, love and hate, pleasure and pain.

Clive Barker has said, ‘I want to be remembered as an imaginer, someone who used his imagination as a way to journey beyond the limits of self, beyond the limits of flesh and blood, beyond the limits of even perhaps life itself, in order to discover some sense of order in what appears to be a disordered universe. I’m using my imagination to find meaning, both for myself and, I hope, for my readers.’

Barker is also involved in movie production, although his films have received mixed receptions. He wrote the screenplays for Underworld (1985) and Rawhead Rex (1986), both directed by George Pavlou. They garnered little critical success. Displeased with the way his material was handled, Barker moved to directing with Hellraiser (1987), based on his novella The Hellbound Heart. After his film Nightbreed (based on his novel, Cabal), was widely considered to be a flop (although it is now a much-valued cult classic), Barker wrote and directed Lord of Illusions. Barker was also an executive producer of the film Gods and Monsters, which received major critical acclaim. A short story titled ‘The Forbidden’, from Barker’s Books of Blood, provided the basis for the film Candyman and its two sequels.

Japanese director Ryuhei Kitamura directed Midnight Meat Train from Jeff Buhler’s screenplay, which was based on Barker’s short story of the same name. Barker will write and produce the upcoming films Born, and The Thief of Always.

Bibliography:

The Books of Blood – Volumes 1-6 (1984-5)

The Damnation Game (1985)

The Hellbound Heart (1986)

Weaveworld (1987)

Cabal (1988)

The Great and Secret Show (1989)

Imajica (1991)

The Thief of Always (1992)

Everville (1994)

Sacrament (1996)

Galilee (1998)

Coldheart Canyon: A Hollywood Ghost Story (2001)

Tortured Souls (2001)

Abarat (2002)

Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War (2004)

Mister B. Gone (2007)

Absolute Midnight (2009)

The Scarlet Gospel (forthcoming)

Clive Barker is a writer, film-maker and artist of prodigious talent – he has a vast imagination and is able to impart some very important messages and interesting ideas in his fiction, be it in book, film or visual art form. He is worth listening to and worth reading. Have a look at his paintings, or watch one of his films, in particular Hellraiser and/or Nightbreed, or read one of his books, in particular Cabal, Weaveworld or Imajica.

Here’s a link to Clive Barker’s website:

http://www.clivebarker.info/

I hope you enjoy Clive Barker’s work as much as I do.

http://www.rjdent.com/