#96

The Doors
LA Woman
LA Woman (1971)



I was listening to the best of The Doors the other day and realized that I probably have 25 Doors songs that could be put on this list. I think I will only put two or three on, just so I can spread out the net of knowledge further out.

On a blog I read they made reference to the new Doors documentary narrated by Johnny Depp. They said everyone goes through a Doors stage. I know for myself that s true. I discovered the Doors around the time the Oliver Stone movie came out. Me and one of my buddies from scouts got into at the same time, I remember the two of us scouring the record sellers at the Scout Flea market for any Doors records, but alas there were none. I think the first Doors record I owned was the sound track for the movie. Which is a nice beginners course on the Doors. From there I went on to buy most of their albums. All these years later, and I am still rocking’ out to the Doors in the car.

The first morning when we were in Los Angeles, I was driving along the high way going towards the office. And the song LA WOMAN popped into my head. The sunshine, the mountains, and the traffic everything seemed right. It stayed with my as we drove around Hollywood that night. I don’t think you can understand someone’s words until you can really picture where they are setting those words. Seattle was like that for the music of Nirvana, and Los Angeles is like that for The Doors.

Back to LA Woman, the song is a love song to a city. Personified as a lover. The music was made for riving around on the high way, it rambles on like smooth asphalt never getting in the way of Jim Morrison’s words. All the while never giving up any ground to the vocals.

Like most of the Doors music there is a heavy blues influence on the music. I could imagine a song like this being played at a rock club jam-packed with the beautiful people or some small out of the way blues club with the local drunks. On a slight tangent the "MR MOJO RISIN" portion of the song became a rallying cry for the 1999 Mets team that made a run into the playoffs as a wild card.