Jim Morrison Archives

Album: The Doors
Year: 1967

Like a lot of folks my age, I went through a Doors phase around the time of No One Here Gets Out Alive, buying all of their albums in a two-month period near the end of 1980 — five of them in November — and yet, by the time that Rolling Stone came out with their infamous “He’s Hot, He’s Sexy and He’s Dead” cover a year later, I was already pretty much over the whole thing.

So when I lent someone at my work my entire Doors collection in exchange for three early Kinks albums — Kinks-Size, Kinks Kingdom and Kinda Kinks, so not even particularly good early Kinks albums — and neither of us ever bothered to mention trading them back, I felt like I’d won.

You can talk about genres, artists, albums, or even songs, but sometimes what keeps us coming back to music is the discovery of the transcendent musical moment. For me, “the moment” is the part of the song that fully and utterly engages me; the reason that I keep coming back to it.

I’m not necessarily talking about hooks here, because the purpose of a hook is the draw you into a song. I’m really talking more about traps: the part of a song that that keeps you there.

The is the fifth in a series. The first one had 25, the second one had 24, the third one had 23, the fourth one had 22.

Also: there is a slight — but not total – Christmas theme going on with this one. More of an arc, really. And a couple of mini-arcs, too!

Every single moment I’ve listed below kills me single every time I hear it.

Oh, and this isn’t in any kind of order, despite the numbering.

Jim Morrison

Certain Songs #329: The Doors – “Break on Through (To The Other Side)”

21 Musical Moments To Die For