The Story Behind the Song: The urban alienation at the heart The Doors’ ‘People Are Strange’
No band embodied the counterculture revolution of the 1960s quite like The Doors. From their inception in 1965, the Jim Morrison-fronted rock band established themselves as one of America’s premier psychedelic outfits. The group have no shortage of utterly iconic tracks, including the Apocalypse Now epic ‘The End’ and, of course, ‘Riders on the Storm’, but across their discography, ‘People Are Strange’ remains a definite highlight.
Although it did not make much of a commercial impact outside of their native USA, where it reached number 12 in the singles charts, ‘People Are Strange’ remains a fan-favourite among Doors fanatics. Imbued with a sense of haunting psychedelia, coming from the organ playing of Ray Manzarek, as well as endearingly simple yet profound lyrics provided by Morrison, the track is an excellent encapsulation of the band as a whole.
So, where did the inspiration for ‘People Are Strange’ actually come from? It could easily be an autobiographical track – The Doors were, indeed, pretty strange people. However, the actual origins of Morrison’s masterpiece are somewhat disputed. According to drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger, the lyrics came after a group hike into the Laurel Canyon area of Los Angeles, in the Hollywood Hills. Morrison, who had been fairly depressed at the time, returned from the hike reportedly euphoric, with the first draft of ‘People Are Strange’ all sorted.
However, there is an alternative origin story which is much more interesting. Organ player Ray Manzarek claimed in an interview with Ultimate Classic Rock that Morrison wrote the song after a long night spent at The Factory, the legendary gallery owned and operated by pop art progenitor Andy Warhol in New York City. After a night spent partying with people who were, presumably, very strange, Manzarek explained, “I don’t know if [Morrison] even fell asleep or anything. He got up about five o’clock, five-thirty in the morning, looked around, everybody’s passed out.”
After surveying the chaotic remnants of a night well spent, Morrison decided to take an early-morning stroll back to The Doors’ digs in midtown Manhattan. It was on this walk, as the Big Apple awoke from its elusive slumber that The Doors songwriting started piecing together the lyrics for his classic track. Seeing workers emerge gradually from the city’s subway system, and the streets becoming busy, Morrison was awash with feelings of alienation and isolation.
After all, Morrison was a rock star at the top of his game, but this was New York. Nobody is noteworthy in New York; everybody is simply another faceless figure in the street, another unimportant ‘stranger’. According to Manzarek, the song is “about the people coming out of the New York subway as Jim Morrison was walking back from Andy Warhol’s Factory to our hotel in midtown Manhattan.”
The lyrics of ‘People Are Strange’ seem to adhere more towards the urban alienation of New York City than the natural surroundings of Laurel Canyon. Whatever the truth behind the iconic song, it is much more fun to imagine Morrison feeling inspired by a wild night in Andy Warhol’s gallery. In any case, it is worth remembering the manifesto of Factory Records boss Tony Wilson: “If it’s a choice between the truth and the legend, print the legend.”
