This blog is a student run project to delve into Break on Through written by Jim Morrison and performed by The Doors. The posts that follow will contain a textual and contextual analysis of the lyrics, the writer’s word choice, how the music emphasizes certain lyrics, and how those lyrics function in the world.
The Doors were formed in 1966 in Las Angeles, California. Lead by controversial frontman Jim Morrison The Doors broke into the American rock scene in the summer of 1967 with their self entitled album. It would instantly become a classic, chaning the face of rock n' roll forever. The album is haunted by Jim Morrison's dark poetry focusing around subjects such as death, war, revolt and revolution. One of the first singles on their album was "Break On Through", a heavily guitar / drum based song with lyrics about breaking through the doors in your life.
The band is named after a qoute by poet / writer William Blake. "If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite", Blake said. This means that man must "break through" the doors of his mind so that he can truly live his life as it were intended. Everyone could have their own set of doors, different things that limit them or keep them from being happy or sincerely living their life to the fullest. Since their are different doors for each of us, we each have our own ways or means to break through. Jim Morrison was a regular drug user and heavy drinker. To him breaking through could have been a revalation obtained through the use of hallucinogens, or an overcoming of the feeling of pain he constantly said he had.
To me the song essentially is about letting go. Letting go of yourself so that you can be free, and eventually get back more of yourself than you knew you had. Finding something deeper about yourself, your beliefs, and the ones you love. Break On Through.
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3 comments:
I feel pretty certain that the band's name and the song Break On Through were inspired by Aldous Huxley's 1954 book The Doors of Perception and perhaps even the 1956 book Heaven and Hell where he writes about the psychedelic experience and his experiments with mescalin.
Actually Aldous Huxley's book "The Doors of Perception" came out after William Blake's book titled "The Marriage of Heaven & Hell". Aldous Huxley named his book after a quote in William Blake's novel.
"If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite."
Jim references this is several interviews you can find online and also in the 1991 Oliver Stone film "The Doors".
Thanks for the commnent though!
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