Ironically, 50 years later, Rolling Stone is still writing about The Soft Parade. This is a Rolling Stone article published yesterday. Robby Krieger is interviewed and he mentions about "Rock Is Dead" -- "I think it’s been out on the internet but this is a better mix." So does that mean Botnick remixed Rock Is Dead for this box set from the two original 1-inch 8 track tape reels? Or did they simply re-use an ancient stereo mix down from the 1980s? Or a combination of the two? ==================================== The Doors’ Robby Krieger on ‘Touch Me’ and the Lyric Jim Morrison Refused to Sing A new, stripped-down version of the song appears on the 50th-anniversary reissue of the band’s 1969 LP, ‘The Soft Parade’ By Kory Grow September 19, 2019 Rolling Stone When the Doors’ producer, Paul A. Rothchild, suggested adding orchestral strings and horns to guitarist Robby Krieger’s song “Touch Me,” Krieger was not happy. It was two years after Sgt. Pepper, and he says he was wary of the band being seen as copycats. “I said, ‘Oh, God. Now we’re copying the Beatles,’ and the Stones had just done their version of the orchestra thing,” he recalls. “So it was like we were keeping up with the Joneses or something.” Also, he worried the move might alienate the band’s fan base. “We were a four-piece band,” he says. “Touch Me” was one of several songs Rothchild wanted to orchestrate, and it wasn’t until Krieger heard what arranger Paul Harris, who had worked with B.B. King, had come up with that he was on board. These days Krieger thinks “Touch Me” is “one of [his] better songs.” But now, half a century later since he made peace with the orchestrations, the Doors are releasing a version of the song without the strings that will appear on a new box-set reissue of the band’s 1969 LP, The Soft Parade. A couple of months back, Krieger recorded a new guitar solo for the track that he based on Curtis Amy’s saxophone solo and added some of his own ideas to it. “It sounded empty without it,” he says. Krieger now hears the song a little differently: John Densmore’s drumming and Ray Manzarek’s keyboard playing stand out more to his ears since they were previously covered with strings and horns. “It was cool to strip that stuff down,” Krieger says. “You can’t say, ‘Oh, this is what it would have been like if we didn’t do the horns and strings, because I think we would have approached it differently, but you have an idea of what it sounded like. I think it’s kind of cool.” Although he’s proud of the song, he remembers the time surrounding the recording of The Soft Parade as unpleasant. The group had more resources than ever before, and it meant they spent much more time in the studio working, especially with the orchestrations. Meanwhile, the musicians were growing apart from their singer. Once upon a time, he and Jim Morrison, who was similar in age to him, were very close and would take acid and smoke pot. But now Morrison was more interested in drinking. “Jim was starting to drink too much,” Krieger says. “John and I were pretty close, I think we were living together, but Ray and [his wife] Dorothy were always off by themselves. The only time we came together was to work on the record. So we would spend all day on the drums in the studio, and Jim would get bored and go get drunk. If you needed him for a vocal, he was useless. But considering all that, I think it came out great.” Even though Morrison was erratic and undependable, he embraced Krieger’s “Touch Me” — at least, once they agreed on the title. “Originally it was called, ‘Hit Me,’ about the idea of playing blackjack,” Krieger says. “Jim said, ‘I’m not saying that. People might take me literally.’ I said, ‘How about, “Touch Me”?’ ‘All right, “Touch Me.”‘ so then I wrote the words to fit ‘Touch Me.'” Krieger says it was one of the few times Morrison — “the expert at poetic writing,” as Krieger calls him — objected to one of the guitarist’s lyrics. Krieger simply felt out the rest of the song’s words. He especially laughs at the line, “Can’t you see that I am not afraid?” “Afraid of what?” he says. “I don’t even know what that means.” He says he took the line “Now I’m going to love you ’til the heavens stop the rain” from a Joan Baez tune whose title he can’t remembers. (Internet searches don’t turn up a Baez song with similar lyrics.) Krieger says he once asked Baez if she was mad about him stealing a lyric but that she “didn’t seem to care one way or the other,” since she recorded mostly traditional songs. Did Joan Baez like “Touch Me”? “To tell you the truth, I don’t know if she even ever heard it,” he says. “She probably hated the Doors.” He laughs and takes it back, adding that hers was the only autograph he ever asked for. “I had her sign my hand,” he says. Did he take a picture of it? “I wish,” he says. “That was stupid.” Despite the tensions around making the album, Krieger still has a few happy memories surrounding The Soft Parade. Once, while Morrison was out drinking, the band jammed on Morrison’s “Roadhouse Blues,” and Manzarek sang on it. A recording of that jam, with a new bass line by Stone Temple Pilots’ Robert DeLeo, appears on the box set with vocals credited to Screamin’ Ray Daniels. “Ray was definitely a singer,” Krieger says. “Even before Rick and the Ravens, which was the precursor to the Doors, he was billed as Screamin’ Ray Daniels from Chicago. He was trying to be like Muddy Waters. He’s pretty good.” And on another occasion, they all jammed together with Morrison for an hour on a tune they called “Rock Is Dead” that they never officially released. “After a big dinner with a lot of drinking, we all came back in and were just messing around,” Krieger recalls. “I think it’s been out on the internet but this is a better mix. Jim was pretty prophetic saying, ‘Rock is dead.’ I think he was right. In the next couple of years, disco came in and punk and all that stuff, so rock as we knew it was going to be dead.” By the time they made their next album, Morrison Hotel, the band was having fun in the studio again. Although touring became a slog, due to Morrison’s drinking and the general pallor that fell upon them after he was charged with public indecency for allegedly exposing himself at a 1969 Miami concert, the studio was the place they could connect. “It’s kind of weird,” Krieger says. “But when we eventually did L.A. Woman, it was really good for all of us to be able to produce it ourselves and just have fun. That was probably the most fun we had, except for the first one.” Source: The Doors’ Robby Krieger on ‘Touch Me’ and the Lyric Jim Morrison Refused to Sing
Not sure. But I'm just here to defend the album by saying that it's brilliant and the naysayers don't know what they're talking about.
I think there is a likely possibility that Morrison’s negative sentiment about Light My Fire had more to do with being sick of being expected to perform the same big hit every time out and always being asked about it by writers and the public. It is very common for artists to get tired of being exclusively associated with certain material (for example, Glenn Frey stated he got sick of having to perform Take It Easy every night, but knew he had to put in the effort because the paying audience expected to hear it). I don’t suspect Morrison would have been okay with all of the Light My Fire scrutiny had he been the sole composer — I suspect he wanted to move past some of the early staples.
The title track is one of my favorites. But the album was largely panned by the press back in 1969. That 1969 Rolling Stone review is brutal.
Burton Cummings mentioned Jim was driving a Silver GTO with a black top during what was apparently a May 1969 encounter. Unclear if Morrison purchased this car or simply rented it after he drunkenly wrecked his blue Ford Shelby Mustang GT500. Here are some photos of some 1969 silver GTOs with a black top. Pretty sharp lookin' ride!
And we can't forget the aluminum washtub of beer in the trunk of Jim's GTO that Cummings described. Cummings said Morrison was bearded and wearing a suede bomber jacket and black jeans during their May 1969 encounter. That description matches this Frank Lisciandro photo of Jim taken in late April 1969 at the NET Critique TV performance in New York.
Krieger must have been partially deaf to think Manzarek was a "pretty good singer." I wish those tracks weren't on this set to break up the coolness of the rest of it.
I mostly agree with you. I find the contemporary overdubs more offensive. At least the Ray vocals were how things went down in the studio.
I actually think Ray was a good singer. He wasn't smooth or trained and didn't try to sound like Jim but that isn't a problem. He's better at singing than Jim would have been at playing the keyboards probably. I always enjoy the bits were the band members step outside their standard spot and take a few chances. It just adds another dimension to their work. Really looking forward to hearing this release.
Robbie or Lynn Kreiger can't remember who was a room mate in 1968-1969? What month was Ray's Roadhouse recorded? I'm still doubting it's from the first half of 1969.
Rolling Stone reviewers were brutal to a whole lot of top 60s acts: Steppenwolf, Spirit, Zeppelin, and certainly the Doors. They thought it was cool to put everybody down (except the Stones, the Beatles, and CCR [a local group; the magazine had animosity to L.A. groups]). Reading the old record reviews shows just how daft they were.
It has to be somewhat cringeworthy for some of those so-called journalists to read some of their old reviews that trashed albums by Cream, Zeppelin, Derek & The Dominos, etc that ultimately would stand the test of time and are now considered iconic albums.
Sorry, but that's just your opinion and one I would have to disagree with. I think RS of old got a lot right. It's the modern era where RS has arguably become a predictable irrelevance.
Well, the old Rolling Stone got its fair share wrong, but I suppose that was part of the entertainment value. With respect to the modern era, RS has been irrelevant for a couple of decades on all fronts.
That applies to almost everybody else's comments here, too. It's hardly a rare opinion. But the magazine is not irrelevant on current affairs, IMO.
It is utterly bizarre that someone - anyone - thought it was a good idea to add that guitar solo. It was great to hear this with just the core band...and then that solo comes in and just ruins it. instead of being in late '68 at Elektra, we're in '19 again. Any doubt I had about whether to get this has been eradicated. Now I know I won't. Isn't the version on Perception somewhat stripped down but with the sax?
I've always liked the Soft Parade, from the day it was released. I still remember the first time I listened to it at the house of a friend I went to school with. We were both huge fans of the Doors, and almost every other band releasing albums. I was 16 turning 17 later that year, it was great time to grow up in.
True. I was coming from the perspective of the archivist or a collector-mindset, where we're completely used to getting fragments and musical artifacts in their natural, discovered state. As in, I don't think I would have noticed or thought twice about getting a track with missing components. I'm just so used to it. There's been examples where an artist never got to record something as crucial as their vocal (I'm thinking of Dennis Wilson's "Holy Man" for example) -- and to finally imagine what it could have been like completed, someone records a new vocal. The Touch Me guitar solo just seemed more revisionist to me. Not sure why it was thought necessary. But, again I totally get what you're saying.
Something had to go in the month of November. I just bought a ticket to see Dylan in Lowell, then there's the massive Beethoven 250 set, Dylan Bootleg Series #15 and the Prince 1999 set. The Doors will have to take a bow. The 2019 guitar overdubs, the unnecessary vinyl record and Screamin' Ray's "Captain Quint fingers-on-chalkboard" singing breaking up the flow of the tracks just made it all the more easier which one to choose.
