So why is The Doors’ L.A. Woman on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
I saw The Doors movie in the theater when I was around 15 years old, and it had a profound impact on me.
Now, let’s be clear: it’s not a particularly great movie – even at the time I didn’t believe this to be the case – but the Oliver Stone-directed film has some extraordinary things going for it. Val Kilmer’s performance as Jim Morrison is chief among them; it’s one for the ages.
Most of all though, it was The Doors’ music that took hold in me, that sound fusing into my emerging musical identity without me being fully conscious of it. I just knew that I felt different when I walked out of that movie theater than I had felt heading in.
A few scenes from the end of the movie tie in with my thoughts about L.A. Woman, the band’s final studio album prior to Morrison’s death at the age of 27.
One is when we get a glimpse of the moment when storm sounds are added to the beginning of “Riders on the Storm.”
In some ways, “Riders” is the quintessential Doors song: dark, mysterious, a little weird, catchy, soothing, and an exquisite composite of blues, jazz, and other influences all in one mesmerizing sonic package.
And just to pull the rug out from under the pretentiousness of that a tad, I also love the bit that comedian and former Simpsons writer Dana Gould does, imagining the B-52’s covering “Riders on the Storm,” Fred Schneider declaring in his over-the-top voice:
There’s a killer on the road
His brain is squirmin’ like a toad
Here’s a really cool video featuring an older Ray Manzarek, sitting at his keyboard, talking about the origin story behind creating “Riders on the Storm” with Morrison and Robbie Krieger.
I would never have imagined that it started out with an old cowpoke went riding from an old cowboy song called “(Ghost) Riders in the Sky,” by Stan Jones!
Arguably the best scene in The Doors is the closing credits sequence, where we see a rollicking and party-like recording session for “L.A. Woman.”
It does a great job in conveying the energy and aliveness of the song, a strange and loving homage to Los Angeles. L.A. Woman is the blues album Morrison had long been itching to create, and its title track embodies the band’s evolution as an early ‘70s blues rock band, one no longer nearly as interested in psychedelic mysticism nor even “big band” acclaim.
One can only wonder what would have happened to The Doors had Morrison “somehow” cleaned up his act and lived to make more music, but L.A. Woman gives us hints of what this would have looked like – and it’s pretty great stuff.
Of course, “L.A. Woman” is not a straight ahead blues rock song by any means, with its suite-like construction, “Mr. Mojo Rising” sequence, and nearly eight minutes of playing time.
I think of the middle sequence, with its fast tempo and rolling bassline as the quintessential soundtrack for Los Angeles, a city I lived on the outskirts of for years – Pasadena, nestled just to Los Angeles proper’s northeast – and puzzled over what the city was really about in the big picture sense.
It also contains some of the best lyrics The Doors ever produced. The love letter to LA is also a brutally honest one, cutting through the sheen and glamor that Hollywood movies promise.
Drivin’ down your freeways
Midnight alleys roam
Cops in cars, the topless bars
Never saw a woman
So alone, so alone
So alone, so alone
And then comes one of the most arresting and astonishing lines I’ve ever heard:
Motel money murder madness
Let’s change the mood from glad to sadness
What does Mr. Mojo mean or represent, and what does his risin’ entail, promise? Perhaps it’s a bookend to The Doors of “Break On Through.”
To the other side. To death. To life. To what’s next. Tomorrow. Something.
While “Riders” and “L.A. Woman” are the album’s tentpoles, there are gems aplenty across the other tracks.
“Love Her Madly” is one of the very best radio-friendly rock/pop numbers the band ever produced. Endlessly catchy, it still feels fresh as hell over half a century later.
“Been Down So Long” is stripped down, boot stomping and driving blues rock, and a hell of a good time at that.
Alternatively, “Cars Hiss By My Window” is a soft, slower blues number, a wonderful song that makes me think of sitting in a car in traffic while it’s raining for some reason.
I also dig the hell out of this:
The cars hiss by my window
Like the waves down on the beach
I got this girl beside me, but she’s
Out of reach
Don’t get fooled though that this is a dead ahead blues rock album – there are some delightfully bizarro and arguably experimental numbers on this one.
“L’America” takes quite a while to find its groove but finally gets rather incredible in its second half. And “The Wasp (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)” is poetry over hard blues. You probably have to be a pretty hardcore Doors fan to be into this one, but I for one find it exciting as hell.
I’ve probably spent more time thinking about the lyrics to “The Wasp” than any other Doors song. At one point in my young adult life I wrote an entire essay about this line:
I love the friends I have gathered together on this thin raft
We have constructed pyramids in honor of our escaping
This is the land where the Pharaoh died
There’s something about it, the feeling of motion, moving through life, through memories, through pain and through joy, surrounded by friends and loved ones, that is deeply meaningful to me.
On a final note, “Hyacinth House” is just a spectacular and delightful pop song, a song that I could almost imagine R.E.M. injecting into the early ‘80s college rock mix. If nothing else, it’s a counterweight to the (dumb) argument that The Doors is music for frat boys or for unserious music fans, or some such.
Here’s a really cool, bluesy acoustic version of “Hyacinth House” from a demo recorded at Robbie Krieger’s home studio in 1969, off of Behind Closed Doors – The Rarities.
Some stats & info about The Doors – L.A. Woman
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Hard Rock, Blues Rock, Psychedelic Rock, SoCal Bands
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4.5 out of 5 stars
- When was L.A. Woman released? 1971
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #36 out of 1,000
The Doors’ L.A. Woman on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from The Doors’ L.A. Woman that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
Are you a lucky little lady in the city of light? Or just another lost angel, city of night.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.