Light My Fire

If at any point in your life you went through a brooding, poet/rocker, adolescent rebellion-connoisseur phase then chances are you spent several years blasting The Doors, drinking beer, and pining for the 'tortured-genius' of Jim Morrison. Depending on how old you were during the 1990s, you probably also watched Oliver Stone's bio-pic, and if you were me, then you watched it with another Door's fanatic who screamed about how Jim Morrison never really whipped it out on stage in Miami, but that it was his finger instead, and that the subsequent criminal charges and bad publicity rattled the Doors and Morrison in a way they would never recover from. It was, according to him, the beginning of their downward spiral, and a great loss for American music.

In hindsight, I have no clue how true a statement that is. It's been nearly 10 years since I've seen the film, and while that moment is ingrained in my memory, the other part that I can still clearly recall is the scene after Jim dies when one of the band members sells the licensing rights to "Light My Fire." It was the end of that to-hell-in-a-bucket ride from anti-corporate rock-juggernauts into what the other angry band members deemed 'Selling Out,' shilling for the businessmen and not for the music...

The song went on to be covered alot after it hit the market.

Shirley Bassey does one of my favorite versions:


In regard to that scene in the movie, I don't know how this song being licensed really affects the legacy of the Doors in the least, and I'm sure that the remaining band members (unless they got screwed) were probably able to live comfortably for years off the royalties.

Jose Feliciano's take, which he also performed at the Grammy's in '68 or '69, and which probably made the band a lot of money:


There's something funny about the music of the Doors that makes it a perfect soundtrack for teenage rebellion (and/or experimenting with psychedelics), but their catalog has little of the lasting power of other artists from that era. While I will gladly put on a Jimi Hendrix or Beatles record and get reminiscent about the old days, I don't have nearly the same taste for the Doors that I used to. Not to say that if I'm out, have had a drink and hear something like "Alabama Song" on a jukebox then I have to run for the door. Just the opposite. I'll probably hoist a glass and sing the first verse if the mood is right. But for some reason I know a lot of people, myself included, who claim the Doors as a staple of their adolescence, and yet who haven't listened to them in years, probably since the first or second year of college at the latest.

This is probably my favorite of all the covers (mostly because of the bitchin' sitar):

Light my fire - Ananda Shankar

In fact, if I met someone between the age of 25-35 who said that he or she is currently a huge Doors' fan, and listens to them regularly, I'd probably judge that person in a pretty harsh light, partly for ignoring all the amazing things that have happened in the last 40 years of music, but also for probably never really escaping the period of life where Jim Morrison seems more like a tortured poet-genius than an entertaining rock icon channeling unresolved family issues and serious case of narcissism (although how many rock legends don't have a touch of that?) into some kick ass blues-based rock and/or intentionally obscure poetry about birds.

But besides the vivid memory of that scene in the Doors movie (which might have been one of the first times I was exposed to the concept of artists 'selling out' now that I really think abou tit), what is so interesting about the cover versions is that they do still appeal to me, now more than the original. I was playing that Ananda Shankar version in regular rotation (he's Ravi's cousin btw) for awhile, and while I get the same sense of familiar nostalgia from the covers that I would get from replaying originals of some Hendrix (Electric LadyLand is such a good album) or other artists who led my teenage self from classic rock to heavy metal to punk and beyond, I don't feel any more than mild aversion for the Doors' version now.

So, whichever Doors' member it was that thought it was a bad idea to license those songs, I hope the money helped you get over it, because honestly, these covers aided your longevity a lot more than artistic integrity, at least in my book. Except for the disco covers, which were actually pretty bad...I'd be upset about those too:

This is the only one I could find online, but I have two other disco versions on 45 that are much worse:


Possibly the worst cover though comes from UB40, you might remember their hit song "Red, Red Wine."

Light My Fire - UB40

The music business can be a dangerous game.