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

"Unhappy Girl"
(4)
"Horse Latitudes"
(5)
"Moonlight Drive"
(6)

"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

  1. Danny Sugerman, No One Here Gets Out Alive, 1980, ISBN 0-7607-0618-2.
  2. Kemp, Peter. The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea, London, Oxford University Press, 1976.


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