“PALACE IN THE CANYON” BY THE DOORS: A HIDDEN GEM

Of all the songs that The Doors did not record for their albums but played live, none is as obscure or as overlooked as “Palace In The Canyon”.

We are in December 1970, the final phase of Jim Morrison's time with the Californian group. Around four months later, he would leave for Paris, never to be seen by the other three band members again (he died in the French capital on 3 July).

On 11 December '70, The Doors played a concert in Dallas that was fortunately recorded as a bootleg.

This live performance was designed to promote the new LP, L.A. Woman, which was recorded between December '70 and early '71.

Although the sound quality is poor, the Dallas performance is an important document in the band's history. In fact, it is the last live recording available before Morrison's death.

This historic live show also featured the shadowy and previously unheard song: "Palace In The Canyon" (here's the link), which was never mentioned during the "L.A. Woman" recording sessions.

Furthermore, there is no other evidence of the song appearing at any other time during the band's career, either on stage or in the studio. This means that the 11 December 1970 concert in Dallas is the only documented evidence of the song's existence.

This discographic mystery in no way diminishes the desperate beauty and heartbreaking magic evoked by this enchanting hidden gem in The Doors' repertoire.

The conception of the piece can be attributed to Morrison, who first wrote it as a poem before sharing it with the rest of the group to give it its final shape.

The arrangement of drums, electric organ and electric guitar around the singer's poem is remarkable for at least two reasons.

Firstly, it represents a striking musical innovation; secondly, it exerts an unusual, gloomy charm on the listener.

Is it a song or a poem set to music? In this case, personal preference is the answer, as we are faced with a style of rock music that was unheard of in 1970 and beyond.

Lacking a well-defined form, 'Palace In The Canyon' unfolds through a succession of verses, with the performance becoming increasingly agitated and intense.

The sonic atmosphere shaped by the band is based on two main elements.

The first is the solemn funeral march repeated by John Densmore on the drums, which accompanies the development of the composition with constant, sad resignation.

The second element can be found in the elongated chords of Ray Manzarek's electric organ. They seem to expand space and time, freeing the listener's perception from all constraints.

Against this instrumental backdrop, Robby Krieger's electric guitar, distorted with the so-called "wah-wah" pedal, plays short, recurring phrases that convey a sense of sadness and bitterness.

These phrases become more incisive in the finale, like a scorching, irregular solo that emphasizes the anguished rage of the last minute of the tune.

Of course, it is Jim Morrison's vocal performance that fills 'Palace in The Canyon' with the haunting sadness that makes it so wonderful.

Here the vocals stand at the evocative intersection of singing and dramatic acting. It is a musical territory that has never before been explored by any voice in this way. The frontman combines love, disappointment, drunkenness, disillusionment, frustration, tenderness, despair and rage.

Throughout the three-and-a-half-minute song, the vocal part follows an upward trajectory in power and harshness, hand in hand with the progressive overlap of the singer's human and artistic sides.

In the final moments of 'Palace In The Canyon', we hear Morrison's heartbreaking, painful and angry cry, directed simultaneously at the microphone and the sky.

This represents the focal point of the piece, marking the tragic conclusion of a life and musical journey that began four years earlier with the energetic and mysteriously sensual scream heard at 1:50 in The Doors' debut single, 'Break On Through (To The Other Side)'.

The lyrics of 'Palace in The Canyon' portray the loneliness of a poet whose soul is torn apart by an impossible and fatal love for life and for Pamela Courson, a love that he lived up to its unbearable agony.

The melancholic lyrics are perfectly merged with the beautiful melody and the original vocal line, creating a grim poetic ceremony suspended between fire and tears.

With the menacing and stern presence of death already upon him, Morrison sings and screams his own testament with a blank look and a burning heart. Hats off to this astonishing and harrowing live proof of a cursed and bright genius whose career was nearing its sad end.

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

Here’s a link:

Amazon – “The Doors Through Strange Days”