Henry Rollins talks about The Doors
2 min read
“The Doors are a band that has been in my life since I was very young, when my mother bought their first album. I didn’t understand why a group would name themselves after something like a door, but you could not have explained Aldous Huxley’s “doors of perception” concept to me at that age.
The song “Break on Through (To the Other Side)” blew my mind. It was fast, and the singer yelled. There was a lyric that grabbed me: “I found an island in your arms/Country in your eyes/Arms that chain/Eyes that lie/Break on through to the other side.”
The Doors were the first band I ever heard that made it clear that everything wasn’t necessarily going to end well. As a young adult, I reconnected with their music with a different understanding of what they were about. Their second album, Strange Days, became a well-worn ally. I made more than one pilgrimage to the apartment-building roof in Venice where, it is said, Jim Morrison composed some of his early lyrics.
The story of the band is steeped in myth-tinged legend, but the facts of their brief history are as compelling as they are at times tragic. Jim Morrison was a true wild man of rock & roll. Try as I might, I can’t imagine him past the age of his death at 27, so it seems that I have bought into the lore as well.
But why not? Some songs by the band just stop you in your tracks. The Doors truly achieved something more than just music.”
Source: LA Weekly
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