Loading ...To mark the anniversary – just – of Jim Morrison’s death (he died in Paris on this day in 1971, aged just 27), I’d like to know which Doors songs you love and, if you’ve the capacity to use wild imagination and appreciate that covering a song doesn’t mean replicating it detail by minute detail or mimicking the original vocalist, which Doors song can you imagine David performing.
I reckon ‘Riders on the Storm’ would fit right in with some of Pink Floyd’s earlier, more experimental setlists. What do you think? It could have slotted into one of Barbet Schroeder’s films quite nicely, alongside a ‘Burning Bridges’ or ‘Cirrus Minor’.
Lastly, as I won’t be blogging tomorrow, Happy Independence Day to all residing in, or originating from, the USA. I’m confident that Jim Morrison is considered an American icon, but welcome your nominees in celebration of what the USA has given the world. (Bob Dylan will forever be the greatest gift of them all, of course…)
Comments (46)
Follow this post's comments by having them delivered to your preferred feed reader.
You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.
definitely riders on the storm and the end… both feel like saucerful of secrets or careful with that axe eugene…
also david playing moonlight drive would be great fun.
How about the very under-rated ‘Yes, The River Knows’ or Robbie’s lovely song ‘Wishful Sinful’, one of Jim’s most delicate vocal performances?
No, it would have to be “Light My Fire”.
Yes, Jim is considered, in America, to be an American icon. That was the first group, and he was the first male singer, I fell in love with. Jim was very artistic and he wrote the songs and he also wrote poetry, a film and a short documentary. The Doors had 743 songs, but most people listened to 4.
America has given a lot to the musical world but probably the credit should go to Elvis Presley for being the greatest gift of them all.
Bob Dylan is awesome but he could never accomplish the stage presence Elvis did.
Happy holidays all.
Patricia
Thanks for this tribute to the Lizard King, FEd. My thoughts always turn to Jim Morrison and The Doors this time of year.
I’ll second what Paulo wrote above — definitely “Riders On The Storm,” and “The End.” No disrespect to Mr. Krieger at all, but I’d love to hear a Gilmourian interpretation of the guitar solos on both of these.
But, to be honest, I’d love to hear David doing anything by The Doors, as long as it involved a 7 minute kick-ass solo in the middle of the song! Can’t go wrong with that!
It’s a toss up for me… definitely either People Are Strange or Love Her Madly.
Doesn’t matter really, anything David does would be heavenly.
My apologies, FEd. Couldn’t help but do that with Leonard Cohen. I have really studied his work, thoroughly.
The song I’d like to hear David do of The Doors would be “Love Me Two Times” or at least I think that’s the name of it.
Had Jim not passed away, I think the Doors would still be having hit records today.
riders on the storm and the end are good.
it would be really funny to see david playing light my fire and moonlight drive.
Wow! Un nouveau post un vendredi soir à 23:56, ça m’ impressionne! A coup sûr, ce n’est pas une heure pour travailler, surtout par une telle chaleur. Bravo, total respect.
Happy 4th of July to all our American friends!
‘Independence’ and ‘Freedom’ are among my favourite words.
Along with ‘Revolution’, of course…
Michèle
Beautiful words…
Mais un nouveau post un vendredi soir à 23:56 parce que j’ai oublié à 19:00.
Freedom. This reminded me of the Hendrix song (of the same name) I heard covered by an artist called Steve Lukather. I ordinarily can’t stand to hear anyone else cover a Hendrix song, (though I still would like to hear David do Rainy Day Dream Away, was that the one I said when Fed asked us this one…?), anyway, I heard this guy on the radio and had to track it down. It was a great version with believe it or not, Paul Rodgers on vocals!
Back to the business in hand though. A Doors song we think might suit David? Other people have said Riders on the Storm and I agree with them.
(Quite the anarchist, you are Michele.)
ash X
I’ve never really been into the Doors and the songs that I have heard of theirs have never taken me to places like the Floyd songs do. I liked Iron Butterfly better than the Doors (I suppose one could say that they sounded similar).
Richard ‘The Magician’ Wright’s keyboards coupled with David’s ethereal falsetto vocals took me to the most magical places one could ever go, but the Doors never did this to me. I could never compare the Doors with the Barbet Schroeder stuff either.
The only song that I liked by the Doors was ‘People are Strange’, but only for the lyrical content.
Have a lovely weekend everyone.
I definitely like The Doors. Love them. My favorite is Riders On The Storm because it has some similarities with the ”psychedelic type” which Pink Floyd usually has.
What attracts me most is the ”keyboard” sounds by Ray Manzarek (2nd behind Richard Wright). I think of Interstellar Overdrive every time I listen to Riders On The Storm.
I’d love so very much to hear David playing Roadhouse Blues (especially with his awesome guitar playing). Maybe because the song has some blues and rock n roll in it and also sort of ”Money” type of song.
And, here are my favorite songs by The Doors (rest in peace Jim Morrison) :
01) Riders On The Storm
02) Light My Fire
03) People Are Strange
04) Break On Through
05) Take It As It Comes
06) Love Me Two Times
07) Five To One
08) Whiskey Bar
09) Roadhouse Blues
10) LA Woman
That’s a fine list.
The thought of Richard having such space to experiment on ‘Riders on the Storm’ swung it for me. I can really imagine the 2006 line-up having some fun with that one.
Sincerely, I could never be a fan of The Doors and the main reason is that (I know it will sound strange, but that’s the truth) I don’t like at all Jim Morrison’s voice. I’m sorry about it, because, apart from that, they wrote some beautiful songs.
Imagining someone else to sing them, David for example
, some tracks I like, that could also suit him fine, are “The Crystal Ship”, “End of the Night”, “Riders on the Storm” and “Strange Days”.
“The End” is also a beautiful song, but I don’t think it would suit him very much, too “decadent” and obscure, in my opinion.
Happy Independence Day to all the American bloggers.
I’ve always thought the Doors to be one of the most over rated bands of all time… I really don’t like anything they did or any thing about Jim Morrison… David could only improve any thing they did.
Sorry for being a big wet blanket!
Cheers,
Paul
I agree with this statement. So over rated!
Best American right now is Bruce Springsteen, who was amazing at Glastonbury.
Hey FEd,
I love the Doors and sadly missed a chance at seeing the remaining members play a free concert in Lockport NY last August 8th.
To your question… I’d love to hear David do his own dreamy version of Crystal Ship. I think he would most definitely make it his own. That or People Are Strange.
Off to celebrate my b’day today with long-time friends and family… hasta!
Darren
Happy Birthday to you, Darren. Enjoy your day.
For me, The End is just about the best thing The Doors ever did. I could well imagine David Gilmour adding some great riffs on his Black Strat. If we’re getting experimental, how about if he played his Cumbus? (Nah, didn’t think so!)
American icons for me would be the American parts of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Richie Havens is a national treasure as well. If you’ve ever seen him live, you have seen a great (if understated) show. The Eagles are American icons, and R.E.M. is approaching that status.
For those of us who are on the US side of the pond: Happy Independence Day. Hope your fireworks are not shut out by our lousy economy!
Happy July 4th to all Americans and Happy Weekend to everyone!
Hi Fed.
The one true great thing the USA gave the world was the help in the 2nd world to free the world of tyranny.
I don’t know if you would put this on the site, but my youngest brother died suddenly on Tuesday morning, the 30th. He was just 43.
I would just ask if anybody out there would pray for him, it would mean a lot. His name is Dean.
Losing Rick was a tragedy, losing my baby brother is going to be a struggle.
Thanks Fed and everyone.
Damian
My most heartfelt condolences to you and your family, Damian.
Hang in there.
Damian, what a shocking and sad thing to read this morning. My thoughts and prayers go out to you and your loved ones in these very dark times.
May time be the healer of your losses, and memories be the balm for your sorrow.
Darren
My condolences, Damian.
Damian:
So very sorry to hear the news about your brother.
Jan
Well, apparently ‘Alabama Song’ wasn’t composed by The Doors at all – but can I go for that one anyway?
I take back what I said about David and Light my Fire. Since Touch Me has an orchestra and a sax player (very unusual for those times), it reminds me more of his playing. So I would rather see him play that than Light my Fire because that is Jim’s hit that nobody could fully imitate.
“Love Me Two Times”
Same tone as Interstellar Overdrive.
Pretty much any Doors song would lend itself to a David cover. Riders especially.
LA Woman could be interesting, Soul Kitchen too.
Wouldn’t even mind Dave doing Wishful Sinful or Love Me Two Times.
Well the list could go on and on, and I can bet on it that Dave can do any song you name, might even do them better, LOL.
I had to think about this for a second.
I can hear David singing Riders on the Storm, yes…
But David’s singing voice is just a little higher than Jim Morrison’s…
So, I figure, Light My Fire? I mean, that song is sung so low it could go a couple octaves higher and still sound right.
Shannon,
I’ve covered ‘Light My ‘Fire’ in its original key myself, the last part of the vocal is a real test of anybody’s voice!
AFTER MUCH THOUGHT, being a dedicated fan of both bands, I would love to see David singing and doing Gilmouresque electric blowouts on:
1) Hyacinth House
2) Summer’s Almost Gone
…and of course, the Crystal Ship.
regards,
Sharad
As I am not a Doors fan I cannot say add anything to this topic except that I saw the movie, where even Billy Idol had a role in it, on crutches.
But this weekend I discovered a great song of Alan Parsons where even David Gilmour is playing, honestly I didn’t know that David ever joined the Alan Parson’s Project, and what an awesome song it is.
Take a listen: Alan Parsons – Return to Tunguska
Ulli:
Thank you for posting this. Always looking to hear things David has done that I am not aware of. That man sure knows his way around a guitar! Beautiful.
Jan
This isn’t about voice type, it is about style, the feeling of the song.
I also like ‘Riders On The Storm’, ‘The End’ and ‘The Crystal Ship’.
‘The End’ was used in the movie ‘Apocalypse Now’ by Coppola. I remember the apocalyptic vision of a burning forest, with the hypnotic music of The Doors and the sound of helicopter rotors. Great film and great band.
A few year ago we visited the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris where Jim Morrison rests (also Molière, Oscar Wilde, George Bizet, Frédéric Chopin, Eugène Delacroix, Camille Pissaro, Sarah Bernhardt, etc…).
His grave had many fresh flowers, as always, it seems. There are still constantly so many fans/tourists there that his grave is under constant surveillance by a security guard. What a legend! Amazing.
Michèle
Well, the Doors and David do not exactly go hand in hand but… some interesting things could be done with “Break on Through”.
- “Love Me Two Times”
- “Light My Fire” (actually this would probably work quite well)
- “Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)” (for sheer silliness)
- “Love Her Madly” (I imagine this totally re-arranged and elongated for blissful emotive guitar work)
- “Riders on the Storm”
…and maybe “Roadhouse Blues” (I can actually hear David doing this quite well back on the “Obscured by Clouds” album but now it would have to be reserved for when David was feeling… rowdy).
I’ll leave it to more adept Doors fans to come up with perhaps better selections.
Thank you very much indeed, good night to you.
P.S. This has nothing to do with the Doors but the ultimate cover song for David to perform (in my opinion) is “Drift Away”, as made famous by Dobie Gray.
My knowledge of the Doors is limited to the eponymous album, which is a curate’s egg if I ever tasted one.
Light My Fire is rightly considered a classic: as fine a piece of rock keyboard playing as you’re likely to find, IMHO, and Break On Through has a definite energy and feel of that moment in time.
But the masterpiece is “The End” – apart from its spooky appropriateness for Apocalypse Now… it’s so fitting that I suspect Coppola wrote the whole movie under its influence (well, that and Conrad of course)… it’s also an incredible invocation of that peculiar madness that gave birth to the American serial killer… disaffected youth collides with oppressive conformist upbringing, the paradox of the land of the free where the mid-western morality was more suffocating that the hot summers… and where young men are expected to fly to some truly god-forsaken land and fight an enemy they cannot even recognise.
Or something like that.
I think David could do a really great cover of “The Crystal Ship”, but my favorite Doors song is definitely “The End”.
I would definitely love to hear Gilmour playing his own version of L.A. Woman!
I can just imagine Gilmour’s Strat take over Ray Mazarek’s keyboard! It will be crazy!
At least sounds great in my mind!!!!
Greetings FEd, from a recently very quiet Liam. Hope you are well.
One of my favourite Doors songs, When The Music’s Over.
It seems like David could really have the opportunity to try something new with the solo in the middle, and really make it his own if he wanted to. The intro is something that, if we were fortunate to still have him with us, Rick would probably have fun playing around with too.
I agree that Riders On The Storm would really fit in with David’s early career, I’ve always adored that song.
Sorry to hear Damian, my condolences to you and family.
I lost my eldest 2 years ago. Hold on to the memories my friend.
My fave songs are The End, Roadhouse, and LA Woman.
Hi to all:
I know I am late to this subject, but always have my two cents to put in once in a while. Even if late or unwanted.
Don’t care one iota for Jim Morrison’s voice. Sorry. Don’t think much of the band. For me, there isn’t anything that they have played that David couldn’t improve even without trying hard.
My apologies to their fans. Just my opinion.
Songs always seemed very repetitious and boring and Jim’s voice just doesn’t do anything for me at all no matter how many times I hear it. (I must have something against the name Morrison, because I also can’t stand to listen Van Morrison either. Their voices are to me the equivalent of the nails on the blackboard.)
Guess that says it all for me.
Jan
I love the Doors and I love Floyd/Gilmour too.
I think it’s been said already but straight away I thought ‘Crystal Ship’. Dave would really suit that song as well as ‘Wishful Sinful’ and the more funkier ‘Peace Frog’.
Definitely ‘Riders on the Storm’ would be unreal. Performed by David.
Can’t wait to see this on YouTube and here.