People Are Strange Break On Through (to the Other Side) The Doors

Break on Through (to the Other Side) The Doors

This was the first song on The Doors first album, and also their first single. It got some airplay on Los Angeles radio stations after their friends and fans kept requesting it.

In 1966, he said: "I like ideas about the breaking away or overthrowing of established order. I am interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos, especially activity that seems to have no meaning."... and then I was born.

The original line in the chorus was "she gets high," but their producer Paul Rothchild thought that would limit the song's airplay potential, and convinced the group to leave it out. Instead, "high" was edited out, making it sound like, "she get uuggh," but the "high" line can be heard in live versions. You can also hear the song as intended in the 1999 reissue of the album, which was overseen by their original engineer Bruce Botnick. He also replaced Jim Morrison's "f--k"s on "The End." These edits went over about as well as the digital revisions to Star Wars.

Jim Morrison got some of the lyrics from John Rechy's 1963 book City of Night. In that book, Rechy writes about "the other side" in reference to Hollywood. There's also a passage where he writes, "place to place, week to week, night to night," which Morrison appropriated in the lyrics:

Made the scene
Week to week
Day to day
Hour to hour

Robby Krieger's guitar melody was inspired by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band of "Shake Your Money Maker," which was released on the group's debut album in 1965. Krieger was a huge fan of Butterfield, and found himself emulating the riff when they were working on "Break On Through."

The Doors didn't have a bass player, so their keyboard player Ray Manzarek created most of the low-end sounds. On this track, he borrowed the bass notes from the Ray Charles song "What'd I Say."

In 1967, Jim Morrison did an interview with Hit Parader magazine where he said that he wrote this song while crossing canals in Venice. "I was walking over a bridge," he said. "I guess it's one girl, a girl I knew at the time."

John Densmore added the knocking drum sound by hitting his drum stick sideways across the snare.

Elektra Records boss Jac Holzman commissioned a promotional film for this song - later known as a music video. The video, directed by Mark Abramson, is fairly basic but with excellent production value, centering on the very photogenic Morrison singing the song. The video was sent to many broadcast outlets in hopes they would air it. The group was an unknown commodity so very few did, but they did get some use out of the clip, playing it at concerts in 1967 and 1968. It was later used in various Doors video compilations and played on networks like MTV. Like The Beatles, The Doors were innovators in the music video medium, creating films of various kinds to accompany some of their songs.

The vocals are a mix of two of Morrison's takes.

Elektra Records promoted the album with a billboard on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood with a photo of the band and the headline, "The Doors Break On Through With An Electrifying Album." It was likely the first billboard advertising a rock band ever displayed in that area, and it got lots of attention for the band.

This was one of six songs The Doors recorded for a demo on Aura Records while they were trying to get signed in 1965. Robby Krieger was not yet with the group.

As John Densmore states in The Doors Box Set, the beat of this song was inspired by Brazilian Bossa Nova like Joao Gilberto and Tom Jobim.

In The Doors box set, Ray Manzarek said this was the last song they played live. It was during the Isle of the Wight Festival in the summer of 1970. The festival occurred while Morrison was on trial in Miami faced with charges of indecent exposure, and the band got a special five days of recess to be in England and get back to US. "This was to be the first gig of an European tour just as Miami was to be the first gig of a 20-city US tour. We never got beyond the first date of either one," said Ray.

This is one of a few Doors tunes used in Forrest Gump as Forrest becomes adept at ping pong, and the only one included on the two-disc soundtrack.

Break On Through
The Doors
Written by: Jim Morrison

You know the day destroys the night
Night divides the day
Tried to run
Tried to hide
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side

We chased our pleasures here
Dug our treasures there
But can you still recall
The time we cried?
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side

Everybody loves my baby
Everybody loves my baby

She gets high, she gets high, she gets high
She gets high

I found an island in your arms
A country in your eyes
Arms that chain us
Eyes that lied
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side
Break on through oh yeah

Made the scene, week to week
Day to day, hour to hour
The gate is straight
Deep and wide
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side

Break on through, break on through
Break on through, break on through

Yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah...