My Top 1000 Tracks #388: Peace Frog

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

Only a fair-weather friend of the Doors... still, they warrant a second inclusion on the Top 1000. And where "The End" was long and slow and emotionally intense, "Peace Frog" is a concise, guitar-driven rocker--though no less apocalyptic. That's probably why I like it; the song shaves off most of the band's more ponderous sentiments, resulting in a frenetic protest song (maybe?) that captures a dark late 60s vibe ("blood on the streets, the town of Chicago"), allowing room for just a little bit of Jim Morrison's recurring imagery from stray childhood memories ("Indians scattered on dawn's highway bleeding, ghosts crowd the young child's fragile eggshell mind") before quickly shuffling back to more solid ground and that insistent riff. The bouncy bassline gives it a cathartic, funky vibe, making it one of the band's catchiest, most earworm tracks.

For whatever reason, presumably the song's brief running time, classic rock radio always paired it with the follow-up track from 1970's Morrison Hotel, the somber "Blue Sunday," which is either a gentle hangover comedown from "Frog"'s excitement, or a reminder that, while the band could sometimes hit one out of the park, they were always waiting around the corner with another meandering one. 

Live 1970 (audio only):

Some kids on YouTube and... hey, these kids are really good!