The Doors Top 50 Countdown (#45-41) & This Week's Statistics

It's that time of the week; time for our statistics and for our top 50 countdown of songs by the Doors. We begin with a song found on the last studio album that Jim Morrison appeared in.

At #45 is Crawling King Snake, a song from L.A. Woman (1971). This album was the reason that the Doors parted company with the producer of all their previous albums, Paul Rothchild; he just wasn't inspired by the songs. The Doors decided to produce the album themselves, along with their sound engineer, Bruce Botnick. The sense of freedom that ensued made this, according to most, one of their best albums, second only to their amazing debut.

Crawling King Snake is a blues song believed to have originated as a Delta blues in the 1920s and be related to earlier songs, such as Black Snake Blues by Victoria Spivey and Black Snake Moan by Blind Lemon Jefferson. In 1941 the bluesman Big Joe Williams became the first to record it. A few months later, Tony Hollins recorded it. Hollins was dating Hooker's sister Alice, and taught John Lee the song. He included it in his live sets, and in 1949 he recorded the song with his producer, Bernard Besman. Besman and Hooker are listed as the official writers on the song, since their version was the first one copyrighted.

Like many blues songs, this one is about sex, with the "king snake" a fairly obvious metaphor. Long before rockers and rappers did it, blues musicians like Hooker often bragged about their sexual prowess.

The Doors played this at many of their early concerts before covering it on L.A. Woman. In Jim Morrison's biography No One Here Gets Out Alive it was said that Morrison sang this in a Paris bar just weeks before his death. It could have very possibly been his last performance.

At #44 is another song from the same album, Been Down So Long. It was written by Morrison himself and like Crawling King Snake it is a blues song. Lyrically, the song draws upon themes of depression, liberation, and sexuality. The title makes reference to the 1928 Furry Lewis song, I Will Turn Your Money Green ("I been down so long/It seem like up to me"), and the first verse may have been inspired by Richard Fariña's novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me which was about Fariña's college experiences and travels. Robby Krieger is impressive on slide guitar.

At #43 is Wild Child. It was the B-side to their hit single Touch Me (#3, US), released on December 1968. It was also included in the album The Soft Parade (1969). Most of The Soft Parade album contains songs embelished by horns and strings, but Wild Child is closer to The Doors' early sound, highlighted by a Robby Krieger bluesy guitar solo. Morrison's poetic lyrics describe a free spirit who is "savior of the human race." The song is very much open to interpretation.

Here they are, performing the song on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour:

At #42 is the title song from The Soft Parade (1969). At the beginning of the song, Jim Morrison starts out with spoken words reminiscent of a Christian revivalist preacher. This part of the song is referred to as the "Petition the Lord with Prayer" section. The song then goes into a harpsichord driven semi-introductory piece mainly known as "Sanctuary", with lyrics such as, "Can you give me sanctuary, I must find a place to hide" referencing his then-current problems like the Miami and New Haven arrests. Afterwards, the beat picks up and the song progressively gets faster, and features a psychedelic pop section, followed by an upbeat, soft section before going into a wild blues rock part that ends the song.

The melody in this song is something The Doors came up with in 1966 when they did music for a Ford corporate video. Morrison put the lyrics together out of pieces of poetry he had written.

The Doors played this live in its entirety only once: on a PBS television special in 1969. Here it is:

Morrison Hotel (1970), was the band's follow-up to The Soft Parade. Responding to critics' and fans' complaints that by using intricate orchestrations in their previous album they sold out to pop, this album was mostly back to basics; the sound was harder and more straightforward. From this album, the closing track, Maggie M’Gill, is at #41 in our list.

The Doors started working on this in 1967 after a concert at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Morrison created the character Maggie M'Gill, a woman in the Old West who resorts to prostitution. Musically, it is yet another pounding blues rocker.

Now, let's continue with last week's statistics. This week we had a drop in the number of visits; it seems that people don't want to do a lot of reading during their holidays. Russia's big increase in visits, combined with a healthy increase from Greece, Cyprus and Brazil, helped keep the number in acceptable levels. There was a number of countries that visited us the same as last week, like the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Belgium, Spain and Canada. The United States are still falling, in fact Russia has overtaken it for this week's top spot. Also dropping are the United Arab Emirates, and Italy (just a little). Here are this week's Top 10 countries:

1. Russia

2. the United States

3. Greece

4. the United Kingdom

5. Cyprus

6. Germany

7. France

8. Italy

9. Brazil

10. Spain

Here are the other countries that graced us with their presence since our last statistics (alphabetically): Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Fiji, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mayotte, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, 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 = 7.7%

4. the United Kingdom = 6.8%

5. Russia = 5.2%

6. Germany = 4.4%

7. Cyprus = 1.11%

8. Italy = 0.95%

9. the United Arab Emirates = 0.76%

10. Belgium = 0.74%

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