Doors – Peace Frog

I hope everyone is having a great Sunday. I grabbed the album Morrison Hotel yesterday and was caught off guard by this song. I don’t remember it from when I originally played the album. The music is cool as hell with the guitar in a groove with the drums. I thought this could have been an instrumental and have been good…but the lyrics make it great.

Come to find out…the song started out as an instrumental as Robbie Krieger said: “I had written the music, we rehearsed it up, and it was really happening, but we didn’t have any lyrics and Jim wasn’t around. We just said, ‘Fuck it, let’s record it. He’ll come up with something.’ And he did. He took out his poetry book and found a poem that fit.”

I always liked album cuts…sometimes a little more than hits. This a great song on a Sunday to kick back to. I never thought of the Doors as the ultimate groove band but this one fits. Morrison Hotel peaked at #4 on the Billboard Album Charts, #3 in Canada, and #12 in the UK in 1970.

The lyrics about the Indians supposedly refer to a car accident that happened when he was a child. The accident involved some Indians and Morrisons thought the Indians joined his soul.  The Blood in the streets in the town of New Haven lyric refers to when the singer was arrested in New Haven in 1967. Morrison was backstage with a girl. He explains it in the quote below.

Jim Morrison: “We started talking and we wanted some privacy and so went into this little show room. We weren’t doing anything. You know, just standing there talking, and then this little man in a little blue suit and a little blue cap came in there. He said ‘Whatcha doin’ there?’ ‘Nothin’.’ But he didn’t go away, he stood there and then he reached round behind him and brought out this little black can of something. It looked like shaving cream. And then he sprayed it in my eyes. I was blinded for about 30 minutes.”

Peace Frog

There’s blood in the streets
It’s up to my ankles
There’s blood in the streets
It’s up to my knees

Blood in the street
The town of Chicago
Blood on the rise
It’s followin’ me

Just about the break of day
She came in
And she drove away
Sunlight in her hair

Blood on the streets
Runs a river of sadness
Blood in the streets
It’s up to my thighs

The river runs down
The leg of the city
The women are crying
Red rivers of weeping

She came in town
And then she drove away
Sunlight in her hair

Indians scattered on dawn’s highway bleeding
Ghosts crowd the young child’s fragile
Egg-shell mind

Blood in the streets
In the town of New Haven
Blood stains the roofs
And the palm tress of Venice

Blood in my love
In the terrible summer
Bloody red sun of
Fantastic L.A.

Blood screams her brain
As they chop off her fingers
Blood will be born
In the birth of a nation

Blood is the rose of
Mysterious union

There’s blood in the streets
It’s up to my ankles
Blood in the streets
It’s up to my knees

Blood in the street
The town of Chicago
Blood on the rise
It’s followin’ me

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

31 thoughts on “Doors – Peace Frog”

  3. Not remembering a song from when I originally played the album pretty much sums up my brilliant music memory, Max. Of course, I wouldn’t want you to embrace my forgetfulness! 🙂

    In the case of “Peace Frog” (or should it have been peace fog?), I didn’t recall the title but remembered the song once I started listening to it – groovy! I had not seen that live clip before.

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  4. Great choice, Max as I always liked this song. The lyrics that reference Chicago, “Blood on the streets, in the town of Chicago” may come from the 1968 democrat party convention/Klan rally, held in Chicago, where massive riots broke out, but others feel this is about the time when The Doors played The Coliseum in Chicago. Jim was angry and frustrated with the way the policemen were treating the audience, so he began writhing, leaping, sliding along the floor and placing maracas into his trousers. The crowd of around 4,000 was quickly incensed and rushed forward, eventually destroying the stage and clashing with police.

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    1. LOL…I finally found one! Yea you know why? The same reason 80s synths get on my nerves…when they lead a song I don’t like it…when they provide color to the song…like this one…I don’t mind.

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  7. Depressing song but one I like and I’m surprised many don’t seem to know it …have to admit the music didn’t click in automatically with the title, but once I heard the ‘Blood on the streets…’ I instantly remembered it. Interesting, surrealistic back story , as always I guess with Jim. I just figured it was vaguely about the race riots going on in many cities in that era.

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    1. I didn’t know it….or rather I didn’t remember it when I got the album. With a title like that…you would have thought I would have went right to it.

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  10. This is a good one. I’m not Mo’s biggest fan but this is nice; maybe because the backing was done and all Jim had to do was sing over it?
    I know I’m one of the few who doesn’t believe every word or note he sang was golden, but when he was ‘on’ I can see the appeal.

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    1. I’m with you also obbverse…this one I like….things like Light My Fire and some of their album cuts I like…this one I didn’t know about.

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    1. Wow…that is cool that you knew it. I love the groove but yes…New Haven would be perfect with this one.
      BTW Liam…I’m thinking about a music draft again. Would you be interested? I think it would be Album Cuts only…but I’m narrowing it down.
      Sorry I took so long with this…the SPAM filter had this one.

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