Waiting for the Sun & The Soft Parade

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by The Doctor, Dec 30, 2017.

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  1. Marvin

    Marvin Senior Member

    It's not my favorite but it may be 2nd or 3rd. I don't understand why it's so unpopular.

    Waiting for the Sun is almost as good. I'd rank all of their Morrison albums, after the first one, very close together.
     
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  2. Duke Fame

    Duke Fame Sold out the Enormodome

    Location:
    Tampa, FL
    5 pages in and nobody has talked about how cool "Wild Child" is. Definitely a top 5 Doors song for me.
     
  3. SonicBob

    SonicBob Forum Resident

    Location:
    West Virginia
    Both albums have their moments. In terms of variety, Waiting for the Sun is interesting, despite Morrison's Celebration of the Lizard being scrapped midway through the sessions and then scrambling a bit to gather material in place of it, it's a decent third effort. Soft Parade is my least favorite of the 6 albums, but that's not to mean that it's totally a waste, far from it. The emphasis of strings and horns that were added for texture and accent to numbers like Tell All the People, Runnin Blue and Wishful, Sinful offer a different bend in their creative muses. I'd very much like to hear a bare bones mix of the Parade without the embellishments. Maybe the 50th Anniversary Edition would feature that? Doubtful, but one can dream.
     
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  4. JensC

    JensC Forum Resident

    Location:
    Helsinki, Finland
    I return to Other Voices more often than I return to The Soft Parade, so to me Other Voices is the superior album of the two. The two non-album tracks from TSP -- 'Who Scared You?' and 'Whiskey, Mystics & Men' -- smoke everything on the album except the title track. Waiting for the Sun is a solid album, no problems there.
     
  5. Zack

    Zack Senior Member

    Location:
    Easton, MD
    The fact is that Jim was trying to blow it all up during the making of these albums. The bonus track on the WFTS reissue shows that the attempt at COTL was a failure (totally pales to the Absolutely Live version), but as was pointed out, the NTTTE section is the most amazing Doors song ever (Unknown Soldier is up there too.) But he likes of Wintertime Love (a song with "summer" in the title followed by one with "winter"?) plus the two old songs (WCBSG also was also a leftover) clearly indicated Jim's creativity was mostly soused. Not a fan of My Wild Love either. Still, Robby and Ray's interplay on Yes, the River Knows is among the most beautiful bits in the band's oeuvre. Robby just tried a bit to hard to steer the ship. Likewise TSP simply suffers from too much Robby due to Jim's truancy. What's up with the bluegrass bridge in Runnin' Blue? Way out of place. And as one poster pointed out, Shaman's Blues, Wild Child, and The Soft Parade are top tier Morrison. "Petition the Lord" ridiculous? Of course! It's Jim Morrison! What did he call himself? A serious thoughtful guy with the soul of a clown. All six Doors albums are outstanding. These two a bit less than the others. When things got really bad, they rallied and righted the ship (albeit the Titanic).
     
    Last edited: Dec 31, 2017
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  6. john lennonist

    john lennonist There ONCE was a NOTE, PURE and EASY...


    Could be.

    The other interesting aspect of your Side 2 is that it's the only one (of the four between us) that actually has the catalog number of the German album (42079 -- is that the U.S. and/or UK catalog number too?) in it.


    I would assume your "Butterfly" label is an earlier pressing than my White with a red “e” and black “E” label.

    I don’t know for sure what date the label on my copy emanates from, but apparently the German pressings on the Black with semi-circle of Red covering most of the bottom of the label (which I have on other albums, not on any by the Doors, however) is a 1986 Re-Issue.

    .
     
    Last edited: Dec 31, 2017
  7. Chris Schoen

    Chris Schoen Rock 'n Roll !!!

    Location:
    Maryland, U.S.A.
    Not a "Butterfly" label. I did not recall that right, it's a red "E" label like yours. (must be thinking of one of my other Doors albums...)
    My Soft Parade album jacket is shiny (laminated), and printed in France. Heh, this is a "European" issue for sure. It sounds great, btw.
     
  8. bruce2

    bruce2 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Connecticut, USA
    I'm with you, Strange Days is my least favorite Doors album. I usually keep this opinion to myself as to my surprise it seems to be the favorite of many forum members.
     
  9. 9la

    9la Forum Resident

    That's exactly what they did with the title track on the 40th Anniversary "Soft Parade" CD (the one with six bonus tracks): a bare bones mix of just the Doors' instrumentation without strings and horns... it's not an improvement on that track. But the first bonus track is "Who Scared You".
     
    Last edited: Dec 31, 2017
  10. JensC

    JensC Forum Resident

    Location:
    Helsinki, Finland
    The arrangements of the songs on The Soft Parade were created with the strings and brass in mind. The idea of some sort of Naked Parade - a mix w/out the embellishments - has been suggested many times. The fact is the songs would simply sound bare and uninteresting, with long passages of vamping on a single chord or whatnot. The orchestral arrangements are part of the songs, you cannot remove them without replacing them with something else. As we know, 50% of the band has quit the music business and are still dead as of 2018, so it cannot be done.
     
  11. SonicBob

    SonicBob Forum Resident

    Location:
    West Virginia
    I do agree with you for the most part, in regards to the songs that featured the embellishments, but a fine example of a bare bones number would be the PBS performance in '69 of Wishful, Sinful, which can be found on the Soundstage Performances DVD that came out in '02(or if you prefer, The Soft Parade VHS from '91). I think that performance stands on its own and indicates that the band's interplay was strong enough to transcend the studio version.
     
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  12. SonicBob

    SonicBob Forum Resident

    Location:
    West Virginia
    Umm. If memory serves, I don't think that the Soft Parade title song, ever had any string or horn arrangements adorned to it originally. I do own the 40th Anniversary reissue with the bonus tracks, so I'm not quite sure what you mean by "bare bones" being featured on it.
     
  13. Shak Cohen

    Shak Cohen Forum Resident

    Location:
    United Kingdom
    Can someone explain to an ignoramus like myself, why the song "Waiting For The Sun" didn't appear on the album of the same name?? It kinda would have made sense, doncha think?
     
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  14. Olompali

    Olompali Forum Resident

    Split 45 w/Houses of the Holy?
     
  15. Tristero

    Tristero In possession of the future tense

    Location:
    MI
    So this would seem to be the occasionally awkward transitional period for the band. All things considered--particularly given that they had largely burned through their original cache of songwriting and failed to fully realize the epic "Celebration of the Lizard"--Waiting For The Sun turned out pretty well. Although it doesn't have as many standout tracks as the two albums that preceded it, it holds together cohesively as a whole with great sequencing and tonal dynamics. The arrangements, the production and the overall mood of Waiting For The Sun really hit the spot for me, so I return to it often. (Quoth the Doors Fan from the classic Kids in the Hall sketch: "It's the departure point.")

    I have a much harder time with The Soft Parade, though it has some inspired moments. The whole project feels muddled, like the band was casting about to find a new direction as the 60s neared its close and the trends were in flux. While many of their peers went "back to basics" (and they later would too), here they go for a more elaborate, sophisticated sound with mixed results. The horns and orchestration are sometimes enjoyable, but on the whole, it doesn't play well to the band's more feral strengths. The first two tracks in particular seem extremely wildly uncharacteristic coming from the Doors--I enjoy them well enough in their own way, but somehow it's not entirely convincing. Inspired by this thread, I did go back to it again last night and found it to be only sporadically satisfying, though even a subpar Doors album is worth exploring.

    Here's how I rank their albums at this point. I'll admit to a certain amount of burnout with the debut, while Morrison Hotel still sounds fresh and confident.

    Strange Days
    Morrison Hotel
    The Doors
    Waiting For The Sun
    L.A. Woman
    The Soft Parade
     
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  16. douglas mcclenaghan

    douglas mcclenaghan Forum Resident

    A big shout for "Hello, I Love You". Some say it's just a pop song but that swaggering riff and the way that Morrison punctures macho masculinity in his often tongue in cheek manner, is just fantastic. Love the Doors.
     
  17. kendo

    kendo Forum Resident

    Two fine albums with no dud tracks but WFTS is too short! :)
     
  18. Six Bachelors

    Six Bachelors Troublemaking enthusiast

    I posted some thoughts in the Doors single set thread a while ago to the effect that TSP feels like an album put together from a number of singles and a range of studio experiments. The mixing is inconsistent (some tracks with centered drums/bass, some workout) and the material covers a very broad area (Runnin’ Blue alone seems the be about three or four different styles).

    I also think the label wasn’t sure how to promote it - Tell All The People was the single immediately preceding the release of the album and then they released Runnin’ Blue afterwards. Hardly chart burners.
     
  19. B. Bu Po

    B. Bu Po Senior Member

    Waiting For The Sun: better than any that came after; ditto The Soft Parade.
     
  20. 9la

    9la Forum Resident

    Does somebody pay you people to disagree with every reply? One guy says you can't remove the music embellishments, the very next guy says they were never there. Listen to the title track on the 40th Anniversary CD, it's stripped down, what's left is mainly a wimpy organ.
     
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  21. munjeet

    munjeet Forum Resident

    Location:
    Baltimore
    I like both albums a lot. I think WFTS is about as consistent as Strange Days, which I realize is kind of sacrilege.

    The Soft Parade is patchier. There are some gorgeous tracks on there, and some real dreck too. The title track manages to contain both. The intro to “The Soft Parade” (the song) is embarrassing, but once the bass & drums enter, it’s a great jam, until the portentous final lines muck it up again. The textures added by the horns & strings throughout the album are often pretty interesting. I like “Touch Me,” but I might like it better if it weren’t for this:



    Not trolling. It’s a real thing, one that I think about every time I hear The Doors cut.
     
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  22. lemonade kid

    lemonade kid Forever Changing

    After buying the first two LPs in 1967, anticipation was great back then. "Waiting For The Sun" was a disappointment, especially finding The Lizard King lyrics inside but no accompanying song in the LP. Though I fairly quickly grew to love it, it really was quite a shock after those first two wonderful albums, especially the long tracks. If was a temporary letdown. We were waiting for an epic long track on WFTS...that was likely the biggest disappointment.

    The Soft Parade was actually a return for me, and the unusual great opener---loved it.

    Nowadays, fifty years on, all five have an equal place in Doors history and I love them all.

    Like one's children, there are no favorites. Though the first born usually is, if we were honest! ;)
     
  23. Norbert Becker

    Norbert Becker Senior Member

    Location:
    Philadelphia PA
    Why is the title song not on the album? Was it released earlier as a single?
     
  24. Holy Diver

    Holy Diver Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    Waiting for the Sun is my favorite Doors' album. The Soft Parade is also great.
     
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  25. lemonade kid

    lemonade kid Forever Changing

    That whole recording session(s) was a pretty messed up affair. So it came out with much of the original concept changed. More later....
     
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