Light My Fire

Encyclopedia : L : LI : LIG : Light My Fire

"Light My Fire" is a song written by Robby Krieger and performed by The Doors on their self-titled first album, which was recorded in September of 1966, and released in January of 1967. It peaked at number one on the Billboard Pop Singles chart in 1967, then was re-released in 1968, peaking at number 87. Cover versions were recorded by Astrud Gilberto, Will Young, Natalia Oreiro, Jose Feliciano, Nancy Sinatra, Divididos, UB40, Massive Attack, Amorphis, hide, Minnie Riperton, Stevie Wonder, Al Green and Ananda Shankar. The Challengers did an instrumental version in 1969, as title track to one of their last albums. "Light My Fire" is a prime example of psychedelic rock, with long instrumental solos (though it was shortened from 7 minutes to 3 minutes for the radio version) and some Eastern influences. Its harmonic progression and catchy rhythm lent itself readily to pop or MOR styled cover versions.

"Light My Fire" was performed by The Doors on their infamous appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. In an oft-told legend, The Doors were asked to change the lyrics of the song (specifically, the line "girl, we couldn't get much higher" to "girl, we couldn't get much better") to be more suitable for a (conservative) coast-to-coast live audience. The band promised to do so, but Jim Morrison opted to not change the lyrics at the last minute and performed the unedited version live on-air [link]. Ed Sullivan was so upset that he refused to shake Morrison's hand as he left the stage and the band was subsequently banned from appearing on the show again.

John Densmore recalls [link] that when Buick wanted to buy the piece for use in a 1967 TV commercial ("Come on, Buick, light my fire" [link]) and Morrison, who had been out of town, learned that other group members agreed, Morrison called Buick and threatened to have a Buick smashed with a sledgehammer on a TV show should the (presumably ready) commercial be aired.

External links

[1998 Fresh Air with Terry Gross interview of Ray Manzarek with detailed segment about the creation of the song Light My Fire]
[''Song Lyrics]
[}}}] at YouTube
[}}}] at YouTube
[}}}] at YouTube - in Paris?
[}}}] at YouTube by Jose Feliciano

|- style="text-align: center;"

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.