The Doors Top 50 Countdown (#40-36) & This Week's Statistics

Different feelings overtook me this week, concerning this blog. I will discuss them later, as we discuss our statistics. Now it's time for our Top 50 Countdown of the Doors' best songs. Let's go!

At #40 is a song from the Doors third studio album, Waiting For the Sun (1968), called My Wild Love. While recording My Wild Love, the band eventually gave up on the music and turned it into work song by getting everyone in the studio to clap their hands, stamp their feet, and chant in unison. The end result gave the song a timeless essence; it's as if it's always been there.

Wishful Sinful, the song at #39, is found in The Soft Parade (1969). The song was released as a single, peaking at #44 in the US Hot 100, and follows the general theme of the album by incorporating elements of classical music.

At #38 is the title song from the Strange Days (1967) album. According to a review at Allmusic by Tom Maginnis, the song seems to find lead singer Jim Morrison "pondering the state of the then emerging hippie youth culture and how they are perceived by mainstream or 'straight' society. In this song, Ray Manzarek records one of the earliest examples of the Moog synthesizer in rock.

Two music videos were made for the song. The first featured footage of the band backstage and onstage, as well as Jim Morrison driving his car into a hole in the sand and jumping on the hood in frustration. The second features the same circus performers that appear on the Strange Days cover photo, who would explore New York City. It also includes footage of various people, which was made "swervy" and distorted to fit in with the strange theme of the song. All of this new footage was mixed with footage of the old video, and re-released as a re-mixed video.

At #37 is Land Ho!, a Morrison-Krieger composition that opens the B-side of the album Morrison Hotel (1970). This story of the sea that represents a quest for freedom is a straightforward rocker, especially as far as Krieger's guitar is concerned. Yet, Manzarek adds a playful keyboard line, Densmore drums a Skiffle beat and Morrison caps it off with his dramatic delivery.

We seem to have one song from each album today; at #36 is a song from their first album, The Doors (1967). End Of The Night was recorded way before -  it was included on a demo the Doors made for Aura Records in 1965. It didn't get them signed, but they landed a deal with Electra two years later.

The title and some of the lyrics were inspired by the 1932 French novel Journey To The End Of The Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine. The lyrics "Some are born to sweet delight/Some are born to the endless night" are taken almost verbatim from the poem Auguries Of Innocence by William Blake.

Now, let's continue with last week's statistics. I started the week with a story about Chris Bell and Big Star. I researched it well, there were great but not widely known songs, and I was very satisfied with the result. To my disappointment, it was visited by only a handful of people and received no comments. I was planning to write a new story a couple of days after this but I was disheartened - nobody likes to perform for empty seats. So I didn't write the story, and more or less decided to stick to a statistics-only schedule during the height of the summer - and start writing more when people start to read more. Then on the third day, something happened: The story had two positive mentions in the Google accounts universe, from people unknown to me. I shamefully admit that I don't really know how a Google recommendation works, but these two did indeed work; more and more people were reading the Chris Bell story, until it became the most visited of the last two months (and more). Also, a comment appeared from the blog's good friend, Record Man, explaining how computer problems prevented him from commenting earlier, so my mood really changed for the better. Still, the mid-week surge didn't really spill over to the other recent stories; Andy Fraser and Michael Jackson parts 2 and 3 are still the least visited posts in 2017. Also there was a 12% drop in the overall number of visits for the week; which means that we are indeed under the influence of summer. As for my plans for the immediate future; to paraphrase a line from Field Of Dreams: "If you visit (and comment), I will write."

Russia was number one in last week's top 10, but this week it isn't even in the ten. It was replaced at the top by the United States, which stopped its decline for the first time in many weeks. Spain, India, Ukraine and Czechia also had a good week. In the all-time list, not much has changed: Everybody gets to keep their position, as well as their percentage (there are small decreases for France, Russia and the United Arab Emirates and even smaller for Italy and Belgium). Here are this week's Top 10 countries:

1. the United States

2. Greece

3. the United Kingdom

4. Germany

5. Spain

6. India

7. Cyprus

8. Ukraine

9. France

10. Italy

Here are the other countries that graced us with their presence since our last statistics (alphabetically): Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Colombia, Croatia, Czechia, Egypt, Guatemala, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Réunion, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Vietnam. Happy to have you all!

And here's the all-time Top 10:

1. the United States = 45.3%

2. Greece = 8.4%

3. France = 7.6%

4. the United Kingdom = 6.8%

5. Russia = 5.1%

6. Germany = 4.4%

7. Cyprus = 1.12%

8. Italy = 0.93%

9. the United Arab Emirates = 0.75%

10. Belgium = 0.73%

That's all for today, folks. Till the next one!