[Twotone]

Lots of interesting tidbits from Steyn...although I can't imagine this song being done well by anyone other than The Doors.

[dainbramaged]

Great song, great band. Morrison should have been more careful with his various recreational activities.

[dfwgator]

Certainly better than the Jose Feliciano version.

[Chainmail]

I remember first hearing Light my Fire when I came home on my Extension Leave from Vietnam in March ‘67. I liked it just fine and told everyone about it when I got back “in country” later in the month.

[ifinnegan]

Doors would hands down be worst band of all time if there weren’t myriad worse bands.

[HLPhat]

"The fire is in the minds of men, not on the roofs of houses"

--Fyodor Dostoevsky, "The Possessed"

"METROPOLIS", 1927
https://youtu.be/Q0NzALRJifI?t=1h24m12s

 

[Publius]

What sold the long version were Densmore's and Manzarek's rock/jazz riffs in the middle. The rest of the song wasn't up to their musical gifts.

The Doors: "Light My Fire" (album version)

[dfwgator]

When they performed it on the Ed Sullivan Show, they were told not to say the word “Higher”.....Of course, Jim made a point of emphasizing the word “Higher” when they performed it.

[truth_seeker]

Jose Feliciano did the song, very well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx0meyQf62w

The youth culture was what it was, but the music is timeless.

That is why it is still played, and talked about.

[sparklite2]

The Boomer cultural juggernaut has come to my mind, too. I remember thinking at the time that having the Rolling Stones play the half-time a few years ago at the Super Bowl was the equivalent in years passed of having the Clicquot Club Eskimos of 1922 play at the 1967 Super Bowl.

[Fiji Hill]

Not everyone was listening to the "Light My Fire" and "Sgt. Pepper" in the summer of 1967. "All the Time" by Jack Greene spent a few weeks atop the country/western charts that summer.

[PGR88]

As Mitteleuropean groovers like to say, "Gekommen auf Baby, mein Feuer beleuchten!"

When in doubt about a song-lyric, always translate it into German for fun.

[YogicCowboy]

What If Department:

What if Brian Wilson had not pulled release of SMiLE in January of 1967, recorded many months before SGT. Pepper’s?

What if Brian Wilson had not withdrawn The Beach Boys as the headlining act of The Monterey Pop Festival in 1967?

Certainly rock history would look different, and that group would not have been effectively banned from FM radio, and hence, from classic rock stations.

[Fiji Hill]

An interesting recording by the Doors is The End (1967). It seems to me to be about the coup d'etat of November 1, 1963 that overthrew the government of South Vietnam.

[Gay State Conservative]

The 60’s was...far and away...the best decade in human history for music.

[NEMDF]

This thread makes me feel OLD, like no other thread ever has. Just sayin’

[Rummyfan]

"Gekommen auf Baby, mein Feuer beleuchten!"

Gotta love Mark Steyn...

[Rummyfan]

"Gekommen auf Baby, mein Feuer beleuchten!"

Gotta love Mark Steyn...

[Fiji Hill]

And within a few years it was established as one of those iconic long-form works - "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Stairway To Heaven", "A Day In The Life", "Like A Rolling Stone", etc - that are regarded as the acme of rock.

My favorite of those, hands down, is Stairway to Heaven (1960)--a true rock classic.