Break on Through (To the Other Side)

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Break on Through (To the Other Side)

You know the day destroys the night
Night divides the day
Tried to run
Tried to hide
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side, yeah

We chased our pleasures here
Dug our treasures there
But can you still recall
The time we cried
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side

Yeah!
C'mon, yeah

Everybody loves my baby
Everybody loves my baby
She get
She get
She get
She get high

I found an island in your arms
Country in your eyes
Arms that chain us
Eyes that lie
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side
Break on through, oww!
Oh, yeah!

Made the scene
Week to week
Day to day
Hour to hour
The gate is straight
Deep and wide
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side
Break on through
Break on through
Break on through
Break on through
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

"I wrote Break on Through one morning in the Venice canals. I was walking over a bridge. I guess it's about one girl. A girl I knew at the time."
Jim Morrison

The Doors first attempt at breaking on through into America's psyche. Didn't quite make it but contained a lot of the elements that would eventually bring them fame. Literature, jazz, blues and Bossa Nova.

Jim Morrison's thoughtful lyrics often led people to imagine the songs were about more than was actually the thought behind them. Morrison's overly simple explanation of Break on Through a perfect example. The other side being where he was going when he walked across the bridge.

Writing about what was there before him. A talent the best songwriters display.

We the listener search for a deeper meaning and that is what separates a good song from a great song.
Break on Through was a great song.
Musically Break on Through had it's roots in Elmore James, Dexter Gordon and Paul Butterfield.
John Densmore, who was inspired by the emerging Brazilian Bossa Nova movement, set the scene for The Doors first statement of intent during that Acid summer of 1967 when The Doors would begin their journey to change the way we think of music.

Elmore James - Stranger Blues
www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI3Zoa-5KMI

Dexter Gordon -Soy Califa
www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-o8EeITzYM

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band - Shake Your Money-Maker
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOaOVAgGIhE

[kristyob]

What's on the other side when you do ? What does this phrase mean to you ? I want to know!!

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

We always assume that there is a deeper meaning to Morrison lyrics because the guy was smart and often used his lyrics in that way. But if you look at the simplistic explanation he offers as to what the other side was you will see that sometimes he simply used what he saw.
We assume that breaking on through meant using drugs such as LSD to reach a higher plane of understanding. So the other side was 'enlightenment'.

But as The Beatles Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds shows not all 60s songs were about drugs.

Of course we see Morrison singing 'she get's higher' and of course assume a drug connection.

Morrison claims this was a love song about a girl he knew so perhaps breaking on through to the other side referred to the next stage in a relationship. The other side being evolution of a relationship which we all go through throughout our lives.

Of course most Doors fans, and I include myself in this, believe the drug connection to be the correct one but Morrison being smart may well have written the song to point to that analysis but in effect mislead us all and it was simply a song about a girl he met written as he was walking across a bridge in Venice Beach.

I like this idea of contradiction in what Jim wrote and see another layer of cleverness to his lyrics and poetry. Like his self made image Jim was aware of what people would think and directed them in a direction towards a conclusion that may well have been wrong. But only he knew it.
smart guy!

[kristyob]

Interesting Alex, I had never heard that he wrote it about a girl he met on the bridge. Do you remember where you read this quote ?

I think humans inhereantly look for meaning...it is our very nature to do so. So when something doesn't make sense, we try to figure it out.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Thats the beauty of a good song. It sends you off on tangents even the songwriter might not have thought of.
Morrison was obviously aware of how his songs would be perceived by the media and the audience and I am sure he slipped in a few red herrings along the way.
He liked to play games with those around him which is why he never explained 5-1. He knew people would get the wrong idea and think that was it. We will never know what he meant by it but we are always thinking we do.
That's the fun about songs. I am very much into songwriters and have great respect for those who can write smart.
It's an art form wordplay and one which Morrison was adept at.

Can't recall where I got the quote. Been on here for a lot of years and I just found it looking for stuff about songs.

[kristyob]

As yes...a work of art doesn't come truly alive until it's interpreted.....then the song becomes entirely the listener's.

Here are some quotes that I think fit:

Jim Morrison - "That's why for me poetry is the ultimate art form, because what defines us as human beings is language. The way we talk is the way we think, and the way we think is the way we act, and the way we act is what we are."

Michael McClure - "The role of a poet in society today is the same role as that of any artist and that is to maintain the thoroughfares, to maintain these pathways of the imagination in a society that would close down the pathways of the imagination. In other words, to keep the imagination moving. I mean, all of the arts have the same function, and all of them are to maintain a kind of state of crisis, to keep a state of crisis in existence, a state where we're alive and not just robots filling out social positions one after another...I think Jim would have agreed with that wholeheartedly."

I really think the song is about Mary Werebelow (mixed with other things).

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Yeah Mary was the reason he wrote The End (the opening bit) so seems pretty much that BOT was as well.

[casandra]

Apr 28, 2011 16:55:51 GMT kristyob said:

Jim Morrison - "That's why for me poetry is the ultimate art form, because what defines us as human beings is language. The way we talk is the way we think, and the way we think is the way we act, and the way we act is what we are."

Thanks, Kristy. I loved this quote, I had never read it.

[kristyob]

Me too Casandra! Sometimes he was just so damn smart!

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Apr 28, 2011 16:55:51 GMT kristyob said:

As yes...a work of art doesn't come truly alive until it's interpreted.....then the song becomes entirely the listener's.

Exactly. It is the interpretation the viewer or listener puts on a work that sets it above it's peers.
A good song can become a great song only from those who listen to it and see it as something special.
A painting is just a painting until someone starts to extoll it's artistic merits and the same goes for a song.
I have done just this many many times in my life and told someone about a song in such a way they went out and listened to it and saw either what I did or something completely unique to them.
It's like a virus and can be spread from mouth to ear and elevate a work from being just a song into something very special.
It's the same with a band like The Doors.
They are seen as one of the top acts ever because we the fans say they are.
When we stop saying that, they will dissapear into obscurity.
Something they seem not to have learned this last 40 years sadly!

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

It is interesting that we have the Green Songbook which is believed to be from 1965/66 in which we see some of Jim's earliest notes and attempts at songs.

Break on Through may well have evolved from a song/poem called Angel Flight in which some rejected lines from the poem became something else.

Angel Flight

The hiss
of the viper is heard in the land

What's
happening, here

What's going on

What's happening,
hey

What's going on

What are these people

Walking
thru the room

These strange youths I hope it's
over soon

The garden of earthly
delights You're going too far out

Well we're almost there
now I see the stair (now)

Get on your
feet They're friends to greet

We're right on time Just
yours and mine (break)

Get Ready, Ready,
Ready


As we drive on Drive on
Drive on
Drive on
Drive on

I'm lost

It's too late Go
back

Go back Too fast Too fast I'm gone So
long Good bye Don't cry

The night will come &
close your eyes

Work out
fast!
Work out fast Now work out fast

We're so
close

We're so close

Get in line
Collect your
time We have to climb

We have to climb I'll
help you now

I'll help you now I see the
lights

I see the lights We're got to

Keep on
moving
Keep on moving

Get in stride Keep on
moving Till we get inside





Note: After the line "till we get inside" at the same margin and intended to be a part of "Angel Flight" but later edited out are these four lines:

Keep on drivin, till we break thru, break
thru, break on thru to the other side, our bodies
gather & divide.

These lines, in pencil, like the rest of "Angel Flight" are crossed out in blue ink.




####Note that these pages are NOT in Jim Morrison's handwritting. The writing was too faint to photocopy so the pages were transcribed by the perosn who made the copy.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Notes from Green Songbook!





Page 4 is blank, and on pages 5 and 6 'Break On
Thru' was created, seemingly inspired by the excised
lines from "Angel Flight" included are corrections in
Jim's hand. (I have put the corrections in brackets)

Page 5

We gotta break on thru to the other
side

(The day begins the day night destroys the
night)

You know the day/destroys the (day) night & the
night/divides the (night) day

We tried to run/(I) we tried
to hide

We/gotta break on thru to the
other side

We/gotta break on thru/to the other
side (band)

We chased/our pleasures here

We dug/our treasures
there

Can you still recall/the times we
cried

We/gotta break on thru/to the other side

I found an island/in your arms I found a country/in
your eyes

Arms that chained us/eyes that lied

We/gotta break on thru To the other side

We/gotta
break on thru/ To the other side

We made the scene/from (day to day) week to week(week to week)

From
day to day/(year) hour to (year) hour

The gate is strait/ & (big) & wide

We/gotta
break on thru/To the other side

We/gotta break
on thru/to the other side


Green Songbook

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Break on Through II
Dead cats, dead rats
Can't you see what they were at, all right
Dead cat in a top hat, wow
Sucking on the young man's blood
Wishing he could come, yeah
Sucking on the soldier's brain
Wishing it would be the same

Dead cat, dead rat
Can't you see what they were at?
Fat cat in a top hat
Thinks he's an aristocrat
Thinks he can kill and slaughter
Thinks he can shoot my daughter

Yeah right! Oh yeah!
Oh right! Yeeah!

Dead cats, dead rats
Think they're an aristocrat
Crap, now that's crap!

Morrison sometimes expanded Break on Through with this rap as an intro.
Probably another off the cuff moment on stage.
Perhaps from one of his poems. It is now known as Break on Through II.
The Vietnam elements are rather obvious.
Fat cats sucking on soldiers brains thinking they can kill and slaughter.
Probably one of Morrison's most overt statements.
It was recorded during the 1970 tour and appeared on Absolutely Live.
The band start off with a general BOT but Morrison extends the intro with this allowing some improv from the group members and Robby to some slidework.
A quite effective version of the song.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Brazilian Bossa Nova was popular at the time, so I tried to incorporate it into a rock beat.
John Densmore

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]