THE DOORS' "UNHAPPY GIRL" AND WOMEN'S SOCIAL ISSUE IN THE 60s

Throughout the 1960s, British and American artists sought to explore deeper and more complex themes in their lyrics.

One such theme was women's feelings, which was becoming a more important subject than it had been in the past. However, this theme struggled to overcome the stereotypes and clichés accumulated by music in previous decades.

The second half of the 1960s marked a turning point, with many American and British musicians starting to view women's emotions and issues as distinct from the purely sentimental domain.

Jim Morrison, the poet and composer of many of The Doors' songs, was no exception.

An example of this new cultural trend can be found in track number four of the LP "Strange Days", released on 25 September 1967: "Unhappy Girl" (link here).

The song offers a fresh and unexpected perspective on the resignation felt by a young woman. She is a prisoner of a lifestyle that compromises her aspirations and personal fulfilment.

Despite the relative difficulty of conveying this unconventional content, the band gives voice to the dissatisfaction experienced by the female members of a generation undergoing radical changes.

The music is infused with psychedelic studio effects, such as instruments recorded backwards, providing a fascinating backdrop to Morrison's subdued yet passionate vocals.

However, this song is not the only one in which the feelings of women trapped in their social situations are expressed. Among others, two great tunes from the 1960s analyze this topic and its consequences in new and original ways.

The first, released about a year before "Unhappy Girl", is The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby", from the masterpiece album "Revolver" (August 1966, link here).

Here, the female character lives a life of regret and loneliness, ultimately dying alone. The wonderful melodies of the song are accompanied by its surprisingly experimental arrangement consisting of only eight strings.

The second example, also from 1966, is "Mother's Little Helper" by the Rolling Stones, which was released on the album "Aftermath" in April of that year. In this song, the female protagonist is a housewife (link here).

Her desires are frustrated by this social condition, from which she seems unable to escape. To cope with this role, she takes increasingly large doses of antidepressant drugs.

Since the mid-1960s, more famous musicians with larger audiences began to explore this new concept.

This would gradually lead to women being depicted in all their facets in popular culture, rather than being confined to lyrics that superficially addressed love relationships.

The Doors were also part of this important trend, with the lyrics of "Unhappy Girl" exploring the female experience in the context of contemporary society.

Much of the credit goes to Morrison's lyrics, which cast such a penetrating glance at the problems of women in the 1960s in just a few poetic lines that they remain valid and useful almost sixty years later.

P.S.: My book "The Doors Through Strange Days"- The most comprehensive journey ever made through The Doors' second LP, is available on Amazon.com, .uk, .mx, .it, etc.

Here’s a link:

Amazon – “The Doors Through Strange Days”