Horse Latitudes (song)
| "Horse Latitudes" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Song by The Doors from the album Strange Days | ||||
| Released | September 25, 1967 | |||
| Recorded | 1967 | |||
| Genre | Psychedelic rock, spoken word, avant-garde | |||
| Length | 1:37 | |||
| Label | Elektra | |||
| Writer | Jim Morrison (but credited to The Doors) | |||
| Producer | Paul A. Rothchild | |||
| Strange Days track listing | ||||
| ||||
"Horse Latitudes" is the fifth song from The Doors second album, Strange Days. The song is a spoken word piece by Jim Morrison with the band providing frightening noises as a backdrop. Morrison screams the lyrics, telling of a ship at sea forced to jettison the onboard horses to lighten their load. The words are taken from one of the first poems Jim Morrison ever wrote, inspired by a book cover he saw at a local bookstore as a child.[1]
Keyboardist Ray Manzarek mentions in his book Light My Fire he never believed Morrison wrote "Horse Latitudes" at such a young age, claiming the words were "too mature".
This song often segued into "Moonlight Drive", or vice versa, which follows it on the album.
The lyric is a synthesis of Morrison's interests in maritime life thus the title Horse Latitudes[2] and is also an obvious allusion to his naval upbringing.
References
- ↑ Danny Sugerman, No One Here Gets Out Alive, 1980, ISBN 0-7607-0618-2.
- ↑ Kemp, Peter. The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea, London, Oxford University Press, 1976.
