After “The Soft Parade” swarmed in such different directions, the more classic blues rock on “Morrison Hotel” may have felt disappointing.
Back then, Lester Bangs wrote of “mechanical, stereotypical rock arrangements” that you really couldn’t recommend to anyone. Anyone who was only allowed to hear the album later can hardly understand what was wrong with it.
Jim Morrison and The Doors wanted everyone to see it
The Doors were still reeling from the Miami scandal of March 1969 when they recorded the eleven songs – and the nagging uncertainty obviously meant they wanted to prove to everyone that they were still a force to be reckoned with.
The “Roadhouse Blues” opens the journey to a dark land where Indians and fools, sailors and the “Queen Of The Highway”, rock’n’roll star and old bluesman meet. Archetypes that Morrison brings to life.
Everything sways, threatens and rumbles, and such a sensual threat as he occasionally utters in “The Spy” has perhaps never been heard again: “I know your deepest, secret fears.”