Dance on fire as it intends ...

… is a line in the lyrics to, 'When the Music's Over' one of the cornerstone compositions of the mighty Doors.

So why am I dancing?

A week or two ago I bought a Doors' compilation CD called, 'Weird Scenes inside the Goldmine'. Nothing unusual about that - there's a veritable tsunami of such compilations out there, a witness to the premature death of yet another ill-fated rock star. But for me this has special memories. I bought it, in double-disc vinyl format, aged seventeen during my first year at University.

I'd heard the rough-edged 'Roadhouse Blues' erupt from the speakers of the Student Union disco-floor like some mad bar-room brawl, danced with increasing fervour to the cries of 'Mr Mojo Risin'…', the anagrammed Taoist puzzle tucked deep in the heart of the lyrics to 'LA Woman' and embraced passionately with the love of my life to the draining drizzle that presages the arrival of 'Riders on the Storm'.

And now I had to have some for myself!

My very first Doors' purchase, but certainly not the last, 'Weird Scenes' was the perfect introduction to the dark magus of James Douglas Morrison and his intrepid band of fellow travellers.  With each new song I became more and more entranced and during the thirty nine years that followed it has occupied a very special place in my music collection.

The history of the Doors is by now a well-trodden path and there is little I can add other than to observe it was a unique place in time that brought together a dark, brooding and self-obsesseed Neitzschean disciple with three musicians of impeccable standing capable of negotiating hair-pin turns between the colliding worlds of blues, jazz, rock and the classics with seemingly effortless ease.  The plentiful supply of cheap alcohol and psychotic drugs probably helped some, too.

Two weeks ago the long-deleted 'Weird Scenes' re-appeared on the racks, for the first time ever in CD format. How could I resist?  It would be like ignoring a long-lost friend travelling the other side of the street. And so it comes to pass that today the windows of my car are cranked down, the music is cranked up and I'm screaming through Spaghetti Junction with Big Jim as we near the denouement to 'When the Music's Over'.

Let me tell you, brothers and sisters, I am indeed dancing as it intends ……...