Doors – Hello, I Love You

In my teens, I got into the Doors. It happened at just the right time because their popularity rose in the 1980s. When I heard this song after listening to their other music…I thought wow this is very radio-friendly for The Doors. Some fans called them a sell-out…saying it was too top 40 which I don’t think is right…not their best song but a good one. Every song cannot have lyrics like “Don’t chase the clouds pagodas” in them.

I liked it and still do and I heard The Kinks All Day and All of the Night in the song. I wasn’t the only one that heard it. Morrison admitted it and would pay Ray Davies royalties after it hit. Morrison wrote this after seeing a beautiful woman in 1965 walking down a California beach. I also read that he helped popularize the pickup line…” Hello, I love you. Won’t you tell me your name?”  that probably hasn’t worked for anyone…ok maybe Jim.

This song was on their demo to shop for a record deal…I have it at the bottom of the post. They didn’t put it on an album until 1968 when they needed material for their third album Waiting for the Sun. They needed more material for that album and pulled up this one from their original demo to re-record it. Although you can hear the Kinks in there… Krieger and Densmore borrowed the finished version’s rhythm from Cream’s Sunshine of Your Love. Robby Krieger also ran his guitar through a fuzz box to get a distorted effect like Cream’s “Sunshine Of Your Love.”

The song peaked at #1 in the Billboard 100, #1 in Canada, #12 in New Zealand, and #15 in the UK in 1968. Waiting For The Sun peaked at #1 on the Billboard Album Charts, #3 in Canada, and #16 in the UK.

I always liked Ray Davies’s response to the song’s similarities to his All Day and All of the Night.

Ray Davies: “The funniest thing was when my publisher came to me on tour and said The Doors had used the riff for ‘All Day And All Of The Night’ for ‘Hello, I Love You.’ I said rather than sue them, can’t we just get them to own up? My publisher said, ‘They have, that’s why we should sue them!’ (laughs) Jim Morrison admitted it, which to me was the most important thing. The most important thing, actually, is to take (the idea) somewhere else.”

This would be the Door’s last #1 song…Light My Fire is the first one. The R.E.M. song “Pop Song ’89” is a play on this. Instead of talking about sex, they talk to the girl about politics and the weather. This song was also used in the movies Platoon, Casualties of War, and Forrest Gump.

The demo of Hello, I Love You. 

Hello, I Love You

Hello, I love you, won’t you tell me your name?
Hello, I love you, let me jump in your game
Hello, I love you, won’t you tell me your name?
Hello, I love you, let me jump in your game
She’s walking down the street
Blind to every eye she meets
Do you think you’ll be the guy
To make the queen of the angels sigh?
Hello, I love you, won’t you tell me your name?
Hello, I love you, let me jump in your game
Hello, I love you, won’t you tell me your name?
Hello, I love you, let me jump in your game
She holds her head so high, like a statue in the sky
Her arms are wicked, and her legs are long
When she moves my brain screams out this song
Sidewalk crouches at her feet
Like a dog that begs for something sweet
Do you hope to make her see, you fool?
Do you hope to pluck this dusky jewel?
Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello
I want you, hello, I need my baby
Hello, hello, hello, hello

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball fan, old movie and tv show fan... and a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

36 thoughts on “Doors – Hello, I Love You”

  2. It doesn’t really bother me when people borrow or steal from another song as long as it turns out good. I can understand that you would feel differently if you were the one who wrote it, but as just a listener it shouldn’t bother you. And I actually think the more radio-friendly the Doors were the better they were. I think their greatest record is Touch Me, which a lot of people think went too far in that direction. But not me, I love it. It’s their most exciting record I think.

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    1. I don’t have a problem with borrowing music as long as they give credit…then I have no problem and Morrison admitted it so I can’t fault him on that.
      I liked that they had a variety…some out of left field songs mixed with radio friendly songs.

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  4. A great song even if it was a bit ‘commercial’ for them. I never really picked up on the Kinks sound but once you mention it, yep, I can hear that. I never had heard of any connection to ‘Pop song 89’ either, that’s cool… I’ve got to go listen to that one again.

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    1. I was a huge Kinks fan before the Doors so I heard it back then….but yea…I didn’t know about the Pop Song 89 connection at all…when I read the lyrics yea…it is.

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  5. Good tune, though not my favorite by The Doors, who are among my favorite ‘60s bands. Had you not mentioned it, I wouldn’t have picked up on the Kinks. At least Jim Morrison had the decency to admit he had borrowed from them. All too often, big egos and greed drown out honesty in the music business.

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    1. I remember James Dobson. I forgot if he was one of the ones I liked or disliked. Some of them were kind of inoffensive and friendly, as opposed to the mean and nasty ones. I used to watch them when I was younger because there was nothing else on TV on Sunday morning. I hated ones like Jerry Falwell and Jimmy Swaggart. My favorite one was Katherine Kuhlman. She was so over-the-top that she was like a parody of an old time evangelist that you would see in an old movie or something. Hysterical.

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  7. I may have said before, but the Doors were one of those groups that almost everyone rated… I just… didn’t get it. Good yes, great? Ummmmmm…
    I know, I know, my two bits worth don’t amount to a hill of beans.

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    1. Sure they are! I got them as a teen and then got out when I realized Morrison sometimes got on my nerves. Dave is the culprit who got me listening to them again lol.

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  10. Oh boy that organ again! lol I will say I can tolerate this song. Amazing how messed up Jimbo was but he could some lyrics out of the park. Says something about taking drugs lol

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      1. Ask Tyler and Perry. After I got hosed on buying the last Aerosmith album “Music From Another Dimension” I wish they were back on drugs as that album was a disappointment except for a couple of tracks. I love Aero but …ugh

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  11. Doors are one of my favorite bands . Grew up listening to them. Vinyl Daft Dad and I did a collab on ‘Morrisin Hotel’. That was fun. One day when we hook up Ill tell you a Doors story. We’ll save it for a campfire a drink and a smoke.

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  12. Pingback: Doors – Hello, I Love You – MobsterTiger
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