The Doors
"AN AMERICAN PRAYER"
Elektra/Asylum records
Produced and Engineered by John Haeny
Produced and Directed by
John Densmore, Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek
with Frank Lisciandro.
Released on vinyl 1978
TRACKS and LYRICS
-
AWAKE GHOST SONG
BLACK POLISHED CHROME (Latino Chrome.)
AN AMERICAN PRAYER/ HOUR FOR MAGIC
FREEDOM EXISTS/ A FEAST OF FRIENDS
Awake Ghost Song
Is everybody in?
Is everybody in?
Is everybody in?
The ceremony is about to begin.
WAKE UP!
You can't remember where it was
had this dream stopped?
AWAKE
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity
First thing you see.
A vast radiant beach in a cool jeweled moon
Couples naked race down by it's quiet side
And we laugh like soft, mad children
Smug in the wooly cotton brains of infancy
The music and voices are all around us.
Choose they croon the Ancient Ones
The time has come again
Choose now, they croon
Beneath the moon
Beside an ancient lake
Enter again the sweet forest
Enter the hot dream
Come with us
Everything is broken up and dances.
DAWN'S HIGHWAY
Indians scattered on dawn's highway bleeding
Ghosts crowd the young child's fragile eggshell mind.
Me and my -ah- mother and father - and a
grandmother and a grandfather - were driving through
the desert, at dawn, and a truck load of Indian
workers had either hit another car, or just - I don't
know what happened - but there were Indians scattered
all over the highway, bleeding to death.
So the car pulls up and stops. That was the first time
I tasted fear. I musta' been about four - like a child is
like a flower, his head is just floating in the
breeze, man.
The reaction I get now thinking about it, looking
back - is that the souls of the ghosts of those dead
Indians...maybe one or two of 'em...were just
running around freaking out, and just leaped into my
soul. And they're still in there.
Indians scattered on dawn's highway bleeding
Ghosts crowd the young child's fragile eggshell mind.
Blood in the streets in the town of New Haven
Blood stains the roofs and the palm trees of Venice
Blood in my love in the terrible summer
Bloody red sun of Phantastic L.A.
Blood screams her brain as they chop off her fingers
Blood will be born in the birth if a nation
Blood is the rose of mysterious union
Blood on the rise, it's following me.
Indian, Indian what did you die for?
Indian says, nothing at all.
NEWBORN AWAKENING
gently they stir, gently rise
The dead are newborn awakening
With ravaged limbs and wet souls
Gently they sigh in rapt funeral amazement
Who called these dead to dance?
Was it the young woman learning to play the ghost song on her baby grand?
Was it the wilderness children?
Was it the ghost god himself, stuttering, cheering, chatting blindly?
I called you up to anoint the earth
I called you to announce sadness falling like burned skin
I called you to wish you well
To glory in self like a new monster
And now I call you to pray
TO COME OF AGE
A military station in the desert.
Can we resolve the past
Lurking jaws, joints of time?
The Base
To come of age in a dry place
Holes and caves.
My friend drove and hour each day from the mountains
The bus gives you a hard-on with books in your lap
Someone shot the bird in the afternoon dance show
They gave out free records to the best couple
Spades dance best, from the hip.
BLACK POLISHED CHROME (Latino Chrome.)
The music was new
black polished chrome
And came over the summer
like liquid night.
The DJ's took pills to stay awake
and play for seven days
They went to the studio
And someone knew him
Someone knew the TV showman
He came to our homeroom party
and played records
And when he left in the hot noon sun
and walked to his car
We saw the chooks had written
F-U-C-K on his windshield
He wiped it off with a rag
and smiling cooly drove away
He's rich. Got a big car.
My gang will get you
Scenes of rape in the arroyo
Seduction in cars, abandoned buildings
Fights at the food stand
The dust
the shoes
Open shirts and raised collars
Bright sculptured hair.
Hey man, you want girls, pills, grass? C'mon...
I show you good time.
This place has everything. C'mon...
I show you.
ANGELS AND SAILORS
Angels and sailors
rich girls
backyard fences
tents
Dreams watching each other narrowly
soft luxuriant cars
Girls in garages, stripped
out to get liquor and clothes
half gallons of wine and six-packs of beer
Jumped, humped, born to suffer
made to undress in the wilderness.
I will never treat you mean
Never start no kind of scene
I'll tell you every place and person that I've been.
Always a playground instructor, never a killer
Always a bridesmaid on the verge of fame or over
He manouvered two girls into his hotel room
One a friend, the other, the young one, a newer stranger
Vaguely Mexican or Puerto Rican
Poor boys thighs and buttock scarred by a father's belt
She's trying to rie
Story of her boyfriend, of teenage stoned death games
Handsome lad, dead in a car
Confusion
No connections
Come 'ere
I love you
Peace on earth
Will you die for me?
Eat me
This way
The end
I'll always be true
Never go out, sneaking out on you, babe
If you'll only show me Far Arden again.
I'm surprised you could get it up
He whips her lightly, sardonically, with belt
Haven't I been through enough? she asks
Now dressed and leaving
The Spanish girl begins to bleed
She says her period
It's Catholic heaven
I have an ancient Indian crucifix around my neck
My chest is hard and brown
Lying on stained, wretched sheets with a bleeding virgin
We could plan a murder
Or start a religion.
STONED IMMACULATE
I'll tell you this...
No eternal reward will forgive us now
For wasting the dawn.
Back in those days everything was simpler and more confused
One summer night, going to the pier
I ran into two young girls
The blonde one was called Freedom
The dark one, Enterprise
We talked and they told me this story
Now listen to this...
I'll tell you about Texas radio and the big beat
Soft driven, slow and mad
Like some new language
Reaching your head with the cold, sudden fury of a divine messenger
Let me tell you about heartache and the loss of god
Wandering, wandering in hopless night
Out here in the perimeter there are no stars
Out here we is stoned
Immaculate.
THE MOVIE
The movie will begin in five moments
The mindless voice announced
All those unseated will await the next show.
We filed slowly, languidly into the hall
The auditorium was vast and silent
As we seated and were darkened, the voice continued.
The program for this evening is not new
You've seen this entertainment through and through
You've seen your birth your life and death
you might recall all of the rest
Did you have a good world when you died?
Enough to base a movie on?.
I'm getting out of here
Where are you going?
To the other side of morning
Please don't chase the clouds, pagodas
Her cunt gripped him like a warm, friendly hand.
It's alright, all your friends are here
When can I meet them?
After you've eaten
I'm not hungry
Uh, we meant beaten
Silver stream, silvery scream
Oooooh, impossible concentration.
CURSES, INVOCATION
Curses, Invocations
Weird bate-headed mongrels
I keep expecting one of you to rise
Large buxom obese queen
Garden hogs and cunt veterans
Quaint cabbage saints
Shit hoarders and individualists
Drag strip officials
Tight lipped losers and
Lustful fuck salesman
My militant dandies
All strange orders of monsters
Hot on the tail of the woodvine
We welcome you to our procession
Here come the Comedians
look at them smile
Watch them dance an Indian mile
Look at them gesture
How aplomb
So to gesture everyone
Words dissemble
Words be quick
Words resemble walking sticks
Plant them they will grow
Watch them waver so
I'll always be a word man
Better then a bird man
AMERICAN NIGHT
All hail the American night!
What was that?
I don't know
Sounds like guns...thunder.
(Roadhouse Blues)
...Alright! Alright! Alright!
Hey, listen! Listen! Listen, man! listen, man!
I don't know how many you people believe in astrology...
Yeah, that's right...that's right, baby, I...I am a
Sagittarius
The most philosophical of all the signs
But anyway, I don't believe in it
I think it's a bunch of bullshit, myself
But I tell you this, man, I tell you this
I don't know what's gonna happen, man, but I wanna have
my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames
Alright!
THE WORLD ON FIRE
The World on Fire...Taxi from Africa...The Grand Hotel...
He was drunk a big party last night back going back
in all directions sleeping these insane hours I'll never wake up
in a good mood again I'm sick of these stinky boots
LAMENT
Lament for my cock
Sore and crucified
I seek to know you
Aquiring soulful wisdom
You can open walls of mystery
Stripshow
How to aquire death in the morning show
TV death which the child absorbs
Deathwell mystery which makes me write
Slow train, the death of my cock gives life
Forgive the poor old people who gave us entry
Taught us god in the child's praye in the night
Guitar player
Ancient wise satyr
Sing your ode to my cock
Caress it's lament
Stiffen and guide us, we frozen
Lost cells
The knowledge of cancer
To speak to the heart
And give the great gift
Words Power Trance
this stable friend and the beast of his zoo
Wild haired chicks
Women flowering in their summit
Monsters of skin
Each color connects
to create the boat
which rocks the race
Could any hell be more horrible
than now
and real?
I pressed her thigh and death smiled
death, old friend
death and my cock are the world
I can forgive my injuries in the name of
Wisdom Luxury Romance
Sentence upon sentence
Words are the healing lament
For the death of my cock's spirit
Has no meaning in the soft fire
Words got me the wound and will get me well
I you believe it
All join now and lament the death of my cock
A tounge of knowledge in the feathered night
Boys get crazy in the head and suffer
I sacrifice my cock on the alter of silence
THE HTCHHIKER
Thoughts in time and out of season
The Hitchhiker
Stood by the side of the road
And leveled his thumb
In the calm calculus of reason
Hi. How you doin'? I just got back into town L.A.
I was out on the desert for awhile
"Riders on the storm"
Yeah. In the middle of it
"Riders on the storm"
Right...
"Into this world we're born"
Hey, listen, man, I really got a problem
"Into this world we're thrown"
When I was out on the desert, ya know
"Like a dog without a bone
An actor out on loan"
I don't know how to tell you
"Riders on the storm"
but, ah, I killed somebody
"There's a killer on the road"
No...
"His brain is squirming like a toad"
It's no big deal, ya know
I don't think anybody will find out about it, but...
" take a long holiday"
just, ah...
"Let your children play"
this guy gave me a ride, and ah...
"If you give this man a ride"
started giving me a lot of trouble
"Sweet family will die"
and I just couldn't take it, ya know
"Killer on the road"
And I wasted him
Yeah
AN AMERICAN PRAYER/ HOUR FOR MAGIC/
FREEDOM EXISTS/ A FEAST OF FRIENDS
Do you know the warm progress
under the stars?
Do you know we exist?
Have you forgotten the keys
to the kingdom
Have you been borne yet
& are you alive?
Let's reinvent the gods, all teh myths
of the ages
Celebrate symbols from deep elder forests
[Have you forgotten the lessons
of the ancient war]
We need great golden copulations
The fathers are cackling in trees
of the forest
Our mother is dead in the sea
Do you know we are being led to
slaughters by placid admirals
& that fat slow generals are getting
obscene on young blood
Do you know we are ruled by T.V.
The moon is dry blood beast
Guerrilla bands are rolling numbers
in the next block of green vine
amassing for warfare on innocent
herdsman who are just dying
O great creator of being
grant us one more hour to
perform our art
& perfect our lives
The moths & atheists are doubly divine
& dying
We live, we die
& death not ends it
Journey we more into the
Nightmare
Cling to life
Our passion'd flower
Cling to Cunts & cocks
of despair
We got our final vision
by clap
Columbus groin got
filled w/green death
(I touched her thigh
& death smiled)
We have assembled inside this ancient
& insane theatre
To propagate our lust for life
& flee the swarming wisdom
of the streets
The barns are stormed
The windows kept
& only one of all the rest
To dance & save us
W/the divine mockery
of words
Music inflames temperament
(When the true King's murderers
are allowed to roam free
a 1000 Magicians arise in the land)
Where are the feasts
we are promised
Where is the wine
The New Wine
(dying on the vine)
resident mockery
give us an hour for magic
We of the purple glove
We of the starling flight
& velvet hour
We of arabic pleasures's breed
We of sundome & the night
Give us a creed
To believe
A nightr of lust
Give us trust in
The Night
Give of color
hundred hues
a rich mandala
for me & for you
& for your silky
pillowed house
a head, wisdom
& a bed
Troubled decree
Resident mockery
has claimed thee
We used to believe
in the good old days
We still receive
In little ways
The things of Kindness
& unsporting brow
Forget & allow
Did you know freedom exists
in school books
Did you know madmen are
running our prisons
w/in a jail, w/in a gaol
w/in a white free protestant
maelstrom
We're perched headlong
on the edge of boredom
We're reaching for death
on the end of a candle
We're trying for something
that's already found us
Wow, I'm sick of doubt
Live in the light of certain
south
Cruel bindings
The sevants have the power
dog-men & their mean women
pulling poor blankets over
our sailors
I'm sick of dour faces
Starong at me from the T.V.
Tower, I want roses in
my garden bower; dig?
Royal babies, rubies
must now replace aborted
Strangers in the mud
These mutants, blood-meal
for the plant that's plowed
they are waiting to take us into
the severed garden
Do you know how pale & wanton thrillful
comes death on a stranger hour
unannounced, unplanned for
like a scaring over-friendly guest you've
brought to bed
Death makes angels of us all
& gives us wings
where we had shoulders
smooth as raven's
claws
No more money, no more fancy dress
This other kingdom seems by far the best
until its other jaw reveals incest
& loose obedience to a vegetable law
I will not go
Prefer a feast of friends
To the Giant family
