THE BOTTOM OF MY COWBOY SHOES

There were two further significant Doors' releases that predate the grave-robbing "Is Jim really dead?" crap that reared its distasteful head in the late 70s: Absolutely Live and Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine. (13 was a greatest hits package released prior to L.A. Woman that stuck to the short, digestible stuff, but proferred nothing "new.")

Absolutely Live contains a couple of covers that did not make it onto any of the studio albums, none of which are revelatory, although Who Do You Love? is definitely in their comfort zone. Then there are some original oddities...

Love Hides
"Love hides in molecular structures"-- it was funny then, and it's funny today...

Build Me a Woman
Cry me a river. Buy me a vowel. Give me a break.

Universal Mind
This could have improved The Soft Parade, and it certainly would not have sunk Morrison Hotel. I guess it's actually sort of an acid-fried cousin to The Spy...

Dead Cats, Dead Rats
It is with great generosity of spirit that I assume this riff on Break on Through was improvised, and not a proper "song." Because, really, you should hear the shit that comes out of my mouth sometimes...

Celebration of the Lizard
One of my good friends in high school was prone to freak a little easily when he got stoned, and I was always there to push him over the edge with an in-your-face recitation of this. I remember writhing around on a lunch table, mewling through the whole Go Insane part, while the lunch ladies scratched their heads. I hear you lunch ladies, I hear you...

Weird Scenes is an interesting, slightly discursive collection. It eschews chronological sequencing, and is the better for it.

Who Scared You?
Fun fact: This is the only Doors song title that contains a question mark. This was the B side to Wishful Sinful, and is another song that would have improved The Soft Parade.

(You Need Meat) Don't Go No Further
If I had wanted to listen to Ray butcher (sorry) old blues tunes, I would've bought Other Voices and Full Circle.

The version of Roadhouse Blues that pops up in the middle of An American Prayer ain't half bad, with a gunka chunka be bop section that goes on and on and on.

Now let us leave these fag ends of The Doors and move on...