Even though Waiting For The Sun was released just the year after their resounding self-titled debut (7/3/68), plus a follow-up of sizable, if slightly lesser magnitude Strange Days—arguably the stronger of the first two records out only months later—the proverbial bloom was off the rose for The Doors by the time 1968 rolled around, creatively if not commercially.
Indeed, much of the mystery within and around the LA-based quartet was gone by their third album, despite the fact it became their sole Number One-charting title. And while the cover doesn’t exactly say it all, it tells a lot: in contrast to the shadow imagery of the first album and the nightmarish cover art of the one immediately following it, a fairly conventional group photograph portrays the quartet looking more or less disconsolate.
Over the course of his essay inside the LP-sized booklet in the 50th-Anniversary Edition of the record, Rolling Stone Magazine‘s David Fricke communicates as much about the band’s collective mindset, Meanwhile, engineer Bruce Botnick reaffirms those impressions in his prose, despite the remastering of the original recording by the Doors’ aforementioned long-time sound guru: while the enhanced audio offers clarification of the music in its own way, but it does not (because it simply cannot) gloss over the subpar nature of much of the material.
The wholly justified confidence that permeated the first two Doors albums was based in large part on the wealth of material they had to work with. With those resources markedly depleted, the self-assurance had given way to often false bravado. The simplistic “We Could Be So Good Together” is of piece with the bombastic sloganeering of “Five to One.”
Instances of the incandescent ingenuity that prevailed on the previous LPs were fleeting at best. Still, some close scrutiny, combined with over fifty years of hindsight, reveals some flashes of brilliance. The ghostly intonations of Morrison’s voice during his personal intimation of mortality: “Summer’s Almost Gone,” sound all the more haunting in comparison to the predictable likes of “Wintertime Love.” If only he hadn’t waited so long to hone his singing skills.
The frontman also has some moments as a lyricist (…’Noon burned gold into our hair…’) but “My Wild Love” is altogether strained. “The River Knows” is but an early (and saccharine) sign of his infatuation with Sinatra, while “Not To Touch The Earth” seems an utter non-sequitur; granted, it can hardly sound otherwise on a record where, much more often than not, the Doors hewed to conventions of composition and arrangement.
Still, the editing of the latter track is also indicative of the halting and frustrating nature of the recording sessions in general: as it’s culled from a larger piece titled “Celebration of the Lizard,” (appearing in its entirety only in the 40th Anniversary package of this LP), a less-than-fully conceived pet project of Morrison’s. In contrast to his errant focus is the musicianship of the other three Doors and additional musicians accompanying them.
For instance, guitarist/composer Robbie Krieger’s electrified (and electrifying) flamenco-based playing redeems “Spanish Caravan” as does Ray Manzarek’s piano solo during “Love Street” Meanwhile, the sympathetic support bassists Leroy Vinegar, and Kerry Magness, and Doug Lubahn supply to drummer John Densmore only further enlivens the latter’s muscular percussion, even when on his own for “We Could Be So Good Together,”
As related in more than one latter-day reminiscence, The Doors were aware of the erratic nature of the proceedings. That said, while the group had previously avoided overtly topical material, instead shrouding its cultural observations in the generalized likes of that which populated the previous long-player, the quartet took the brave step of releasing “The Unknown Soldier” as the first single from the album.
It was nowhere as successful in that regard as the crass “Hello I Love You”–which became the Doors’ second US number-one after the iconic “Light My Fire”–but it worked brilliantly as oblique social commentary and, rendered theatrically in a video, it also became an effectively dramatic (and deserved centerpiece) of their live shows around this time of global unrest,
The aforementioned ennui radiating from the cover photo stunted the band’s inclinations to improvisation, an approach that might well have mitigated the shortfalls of Waiting For The Sun as originally released (not to mention precluding the failed extravagance of production experimentation on the next effort, of 1969’s The Soft Parade).
Rather than take an almost all-or-nothing approach to Morrison’s aborted magnum opus, producer Rothchild and the Doors might’ve considered inserting snippets of the large piece throughout the album. Alternately submerging and highlighting Jim’s prominence (at least somewhat) in the context of the Doors’ instrumental work might have muffled the untoward attention afforded the lead vocalist’s persona at the time, thus rendering a more equitable balance in the overall perceptions of the band.
Yet that in itself would constitute more than a little irony as the success of Waiting For The Sun was, in a very real sense, the logical extension of such misperceptions about the group as parlayed through the media of the time. With over a half-century perspective on the public’s fascination with the Doors, the recurring and almost predictable cycles of such heightened attention seem a fait accompli when it comes to this erratic record.
