Psychedelic Lunch

Welcome to our “Psychedelic Lunch” series where we find out how deep the rabbit hole really goes and explore psychedelic tunes from the 60’s and 70’s. Weekdays at Noon. Enjoy the trip!

The Doors Strange Days

The lyrics are about how normal places can still be strange and uneasy. Jim Morrison’s vocals were heavily processed to enhance the feel.

This song was one of the earliest uses of the Moog synthesizer.

In the book The Doors: Unhinged, John Densmore gives some insight into the meaning of “Strange Days.” Around the time that Morrison wrote the song, the other three Doors band members decided to sell “Light My Fire” to Buick so that the song could be used in a commercial. Morrison went absolutely “ballistic,” calling his lawyers to tell them to tell Buick that he would smash a Buick to pieces on stage if they didn’t drop the contract.

Even after resolving the issue and getting Buick to retract the commitment, Morrison felt that something had changed for the worse and that the Doors were now on a slippery slope to selling out. He began seriously proposing that they all move to an island and start all over again. These thoughts were on Morrison’s mind when he wrote “Strange Days.” As Densmore reports, he was “saying that our old way of making music was being destroyed and we should find a new town. He was trying to get back, to renew that elusive quality that was with us in the rock ‘n roll garage many years before.”