“Strange Days”: the Doors laboratory according to Ray Manzarek

“By now the recording studio was a place where we could really experiment”, in those words, collected by Harvey Kubernik for “Best classic bands”, Ray Manzarek tried to summarize the meaning of “Strange days”, the Doors’ second album, originally released on September 25, 1967. It was the moment of stop being just an overwhelming group on stage and consciously become a creative organismcapable of using the studio as a space for research, risk and transformation. For Manzarek, “Strange days” marked a decisive transition, which photographed him, Jim, Robby Krieger and John Densmore no longer just as four boys launched by a lightning debut, but as musicians who recognize themselves as such, ready to ideally wear a laboratory coat and treat the recording as living material. While the February 12 fallsanniversary of Ray Manzarek’s birthborn in 1939 and passed away in 2013, the announcement has arrived in recent days that on April 18, 2026 The Record Store Day will return to turn the spotlight on that era with “The Doors, strange days 1967: a work in progress, part 2”, an ideal sequel to the first part published last year. So there you have it an invitation to dive or re-enter inside those rooms of the Hollywood Sunset Sound, where the Doors learned to think differently.

“Strange days” according to Ray Manzarek

“When I first heard Jim sing in Venice, I immediately thought he had it. ‘Moonlight drive’ was the first song Jim Morrison sang to me. It was after graduating from UCLA and I met him by chance on the beach”. That fortuitous meeting, made up of a song sung almost as a challenge and a dialogue that today sounds like a founding scene of the perfect biopic (and in fact the moment was not missing in the 1991 film directed by Oliver Stone), marked the genesis of the Doors and the birth of a song destined to find a special place in the second album, becoming one of his most enigmatic jewels.

“Strange days” was in fact born from the same creative reservoir as the eponymous debut, with many songs dating back to the two-year period between 1965 and 1966, when the group was still defining its identity. Yet, despite following in some ways the structure of the album of the same name, the second album did not replicate its triumphant path in the charts. “Moonlight Drive”, the second song ever written and rehearsed by the Doors, had a first version shelved, described by Robby Krieger as “really dark and relaxed, very disturbing”, then lost. The reincarnation on “Strange days” instead tells of a more confident band, more aware of the studio space, capable of reinventing their material.

The leap was also technological. “The first album was four-track,” Manzarek explained in “The Doors anthology”: “And it was more or less what the Doors sounded like live. But the second album was a studio album.” With eight tracks at their disposal, the band could finally layer, experiment, add layers. “We really began to use the studio as a tool“, recalled the musician, citing songs such as “Strange days”, “You’re lost little girl” and “When the music’s over”, the latter enriched by one of Krieger’s most memorable solos.

The historical context did the rest. “It was a truly fertile period“, John Densmore told “Modern Drummer” in 2010, recalling listening to the preview of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” by the Beatles and a musical climate in which everything seemed possible, from the most advanced rock to the jazz of Miles Davis. In this scenario, “Strange days” alternated immediate songs such as “People are strange” and “Love me two times” with more challenging moments, without giving up the poetic tension that Morrison brought to the center of the project. Even though the album stopped at number three on the “Billboard 200” chart and the singles did not match the success of “Light my fire”, the album continued to grow over time. At the time of its release, there was no shortage of criticism and to those who highlighted obvious parallels between “When the music’s over” and “The end”, Krieger found a way to respond without hesitation and state in an interview for “Guitar World”: “I admit that they were similar in length and structure, but who cares? If something works, you do it again“.

In “Strange days” the Doors managed to bringing together radical inventions and subtle detailsbetween keyboards played backwards, marimbas that accentuate the exoticism of “I can’t see your face in my mind”, the almost ritual fury of “Horse latitudes”, with Morrison reciting poetry over a sonic chaos constructed by hitting everything that was within reach in the studio. “I knew Jim was a great poet“, Manzarek said to “Best classic bands” reflecting on ““When the music’s over”, explaining how the band was born precisely to combine poetry and rock’n’roll, bringing together flamenco, blues, jazz, marches and literary suggestions: “There’s no doubt about that. That’s why we put the band together in the first place. It had to be poetry together with rock’n’roll: Our version of rock’n’roll was whatever each person brought to the table. Robby, bring your flamenco guitar. Robby, bring that bottleneck guitar, bring the sitar tuning. John, bring your parade drums, snare drums and four-quarters straight. Ray, bring your classical, blues and jazz background. Jim, bring your Southern Gothic poetry, the poetry of Arthur Rimbaud. Everything works in rock’n’roll. Jim was a magnificent poet. I loved his poetry. He was doing ecological poetry: ‘What have they done to the earth?‘. The words were well crafted. Jim was very good at that when it came to songs. He put his words in a completely different context, a musical context, a hit single in three minutes.” This is where “Strange days” finds its deepest voice.

“The Doors, strange days 1967: a work in progress”

Record Store Day 2025 opened an unexpected window into that sound laboratory with the release of “The Doors, strange days 1967: a work in progress” The album collects alternative versions and rough mixes dating back to the original sessionsprior to the completion of the overdubs, brought to light and mixed by Bruce Botnick already in 1967today accompanied by new notes signed by the same sound engineer. Pressed in a numbered edition on translucent blue vinyl, the record offers a raw and unrefined look at the material from “Strange Days”.

The selection of songs runs through the heart of the album, from the title track to “You’re lost little girl”, from “Love me two times” to “Horse latitudes”, up to “I can’t see your face in my mind” and “When the music’s over”, with the addition of “We could be so good together”, destined to find a home the following year on “Waiting for the sun”. As has already happened with other rediscoveries of the Doors catalog on the occasion of the RSD – just think of the outtake “Paris Blues”, published in November 2022 (read more here) – these are not editions designed to amaze in terms of sound, but historical documents. Rough mixes show songs still in progress, with missing elements, compressed dynamics and solutions that will later be refined or abandoned.

Yet, precisely in this imperfection lies the charm, as Morrison’s voice more natural and reverberated on the title trackthe harpsichord that emerges more clearly, the intimacy of “You’re lost little girl”, the aggressiveness of Krieger’s guitar in “Love me two times”, the less chaotic but still suspended dimension of “Horse latitudes”. They are snapshots that tell the story of the journey, not the finish line.

What to expect from part two for RSD 2026

With Record Store Day 2026 comes “The Doors, strange days 1967: a work in progress, part 2“, the second chapter of this exploration into the 1967 sessions. The release features rough mixes without the final overdubs on side one and previously unreleased takes of “When the music’s over” on side two, further broadening the perspective on one of the most defining moments in the Doors’ history. Pressed in a limited edition on transparent turquoise vinyl, with poster included, the album promises an even more direct immersion in the creative process.

The tracklist alternates iconic songs in stripped versions – “People are strange”, “Moonlight drive”, “Strange days” in backing track form – with working materials such as “Love me two times” without the final voice and two takes of “When the music’s over”, which allow you to observe the evolution of a monumental song from the inside. As Bruce Botnick explained, it’s about “a document showing some of the give and take of studio recordingof focusing the songs and where they would then go.”

More than simple curiosities for collectors, these releases convey the sense of a time when The Doors were learning about themselves and pushing themselvestransforming the studio into a laboratory and “Strange days” into a work that is still alive, capable of speaking to the present through its imperfections and intuitions.

Here is the tracklist of “The Doors, strange days 1967: a work in progress, part 2”:
Side 1:
1. PEOPLE ARE STRANGE
2. LOVE ME TWO TIMES (Backing Track)
3. WE COULD BE SO GOOD TOGETHER
4. MOONLIGHT DRIVE
5. STRANGE DAYS (Backing Track)
Side 2:
1. WHEN THE MUSIC’S OVER (Take 1)
2. WHEN THE MUSIC’S OVER (Take 2 – inc.)