"Strange Days" is a song by The Doors. It was released in 1967 and is the first track on the album of the same name. According to a review at Allmusic by Tom Maginnis, the song seems to find lead singer Jim Morrison "pondering the state of the then emerging hippie youth culture and how they are perceived by mainstream or 'straight' society." A visit to New York City by The Doors inspired Jim Morrison to write "Strange Days" and other songs on the Strange Days album, the band's second.
According to No One Here Gets Out Alive, "Strange Days" finds Ray Manzarek recording "one of the earliest examples of the Moog synthesizer in rock." The synth was hooked up with the help of Paul Beaver and played by vocalist Morrison.
Two music videos were made for the song. The first featured footage of the band backstage and onstage, as well as Jim Morrison driving his car into a hole in sand and jumping on the hood in frustration. The second features the same circus performers on the Strange Days cover photo, who would explore New York City. It also included footage of various people, which was made "swervy" and distorted to fit in with the strange theme of the song. All of this new footage was mixed with footage of the old video, and re-released as a re-mixed video.
Famous quotes containing the words strange, days and/or doors:
“Grumble and swear and curse,
brother, god and the boat,
and the great waves,
but could you guess
what strange terror lurks in the sea-depth,
you’d thank the gods for the ship.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“You have to be nice and congenial and enthusiastic. What makes that so difficult is you have to be nice, congenial, and enthusiastic three hundred and sixty-five days in a row!... You can’t have a day off.”
—Shirley Cothran-Barnet (b. c. 1955)
“At the last, tenderly,
From the walls of the powerful fortress’d house,
From the clasp of the knitted locks, from the keep of the well-closed doors,
Let me be wafted.
Let me glide noiselessly forth;
With the key of softness unlock the locks—with a whisper,
Set ope the doors O soul.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)