The divine Mz. K's dad fliked off some old LPs onto me the other day. Big Brother and the Holding Company -- Cheap Thrills (better than I imagined psych-rock guitar and a Crumb cover at a scale such that you can actually read the captions), Salif Keita - Soro (Allmusic) (West African rock gone kinda 80s synth-pop, but not as bad as it sounds), and....... The Doors' L.A. Woman.

It's the original edition of the LP, in adequate condition and in a fantastic ltd. edn. jacket -- rounded corners and a die-cut window into which an transparent acetate with B/W band photo has been glued. The inner-sleeve is yellow so sliding it in gets you the original cover design. Hopefully you get the idea from the pic (above).

I'm no longer much of a fan of the Doors by any means, but playing the LP through a couple of times in accompaniment to all my fetishistic obsessing about this great artefact -- I discovered I really, really liked this song.

Doors - Hyacinth House (2.93 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download)

Isn't it great!? What a cute pop song! What an utterly fantastic organ part in the latter parts of the track -- all quasi-carnivalesque and possibly even quoting from something that I can't quite place. I even like the lyrics, which for me is a rare occurrence:

What are they doing in the Hyacinth House? x 2
To please the lions this day

I need a brand new friend who doesn't bother me
I need a brand new friend who doesn't trouble me
I need someone, yeah, who doesn't need me

I see the bathroom is clear
I think that somebody's near
I'm sure that someone is following me, oh yeah

etc..

I mean, it's classic Jim Morrison -- unintentionally goofy, hard to take seriously, and ruined in part by throwaway rock-godisms ("Oh yeah") but what the hell. For some reason I like the idea that he's looking over his shoulder because of something he's done, and the someone(s) he's done it to.

Labels: music