Stand-out essay on the making of The Doors album, L.A. Woman.
Ditching mystic metaphors for sinewy, dirty realism, Morrison sings like a cripple with a cough: wrecked, filthy and flailing at real and imagined demons. All Doors albums court the darkness, but previous efforts burst with the goofball color of a bad acid trip. L.A. Woman is sullen and kidney-colored, full of the mysterious bruises of the diseased and drunk. It's microscopic Americana: hellhound blues, liberated jazz, Hank Williams and the big beat, Ol' Blue Eyes, Bo Diddley. It's a lawless AM radio station manned by a schizo, spinning dive-bar bands for people more damaged than he is — broadcasting live from La Cienega.
I get the sense that Jeff Weiss wanted to write about this for a while now. And having the chance, he throws everyting he's got into it. His heart and soul, leaving nothing behind.
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