"Love Me Two Times"

This is, by the Doors' standards, a really taut song. I can't help but compare anything the Doors performed with some of their more rambling, unfocused epics like "The End", which is just about as self-indulgent as any band could ever get and never fulfils the aching promise of the opening minute. This however is just fantastic, a dark, brooding blues - could a song about sex ever be as dark as this? Drummer John Densmore does some of his best work here, driving the song with tight little rolls and some excellent fills, and Ray Manzarek's keyboards are honky-tonk in just the right way. But of course it's Morrison we all focus on. His raw, hoarse voice is losing its power and this gives the song just a hint of despair (as perhaps the Lizard King was losing his mojo in real life?), and you can sense what a struggle it was for him to reach the final codas. There's a lack of confidence in that voice, a lack of the strutting, preening peacock who set the tone for the late 1960s. He's human now, and it scares him. There's a real irony for you: as Morrison starts to come apart at the seams, the rest of the band comes together to pick up the slack and carry him just a little further.