Doors – Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)

In the 1980s, I went through my first Doors phase. Read every book and even bought an album called An American Prayer, full of Jim Morrison’s poems. I saw the Oliver Stone movie and many of the documentaries at the time. They came back in popularity big time in the 1980s with Morrison making the Rolling Stone cover with the headline “He’s Hot, He’s Sexy, and He’s Dead.” At the time…I thought…well, that is disturbing sounding. 

When The Doors released their debut album, The Doors, in 1967, most listeners expected songs written by Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, and John Densmore. But tucked into the record was something unusual, “Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar).” It wasn’t written by the band at all. The song came from German theater, written by Bertolt Brecht with music by Kurt Weill for the 1927 stage production Little Mahagonny, later used in the opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.

They discovered the song through Manzarek, who had studied theater and classical music. The band kept the original English lyrics but changed the arrangement. Instead of an orchestra, they built it around Manzarek’s carnival organ. It stood out on the album, but it fit the band’s taste for the theatrical.

Manzarek’s keyboard carries the melody while Krieger adds small guitar lines. It circles around the refrain, “Show me the way to the next whiskey bar,” until it feels like something being shouted across a room. The structure is simple, but the mood is uneasy because of Manzarek and Morrison. You can hear a slight German polka sound in this. 

The album peaked at #2 on the Billboard Album Charts,  #42 in Canada, and #43 in the UK in 1967. 

Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)

Well show me the wayTo the next whiskey barOh don’t ask whyOh don’t ask why

Show me the wayTo the next whiskey barOh don’t ask whyOh don’t ask why

For if we don’t findThe next whiskey barI tell you we must dieI tell you we must dieI tell you, I tell youI tell you we must die

Oh moon of AlabamaWe now, must say goodbyeWe’ve lost, our good old MamaAnd must have whiskeyOh, you know why

Oh, moon of AlabamaWe now must say goodbyeWe’ve lost, our good old MamaAnd must have whiskeyOh, you know why

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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.

47 thoughts on “Doors – Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)”

  1. Pingback: Doors – Alabama Song (Whisky Bar) – MobsterTiger

  3. This was one of my favorite Doors songs. I wouldn’t call the German polka slight, though. It is, through Manzarek’s carnival organ, as you call it, a foundation of the song.

    The history of the song, away from the Doors, adds strength of it.

    And I love the drama of the song.

    Great selection, great recording.

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    1. Thanks…no not a slight at all…but that is what came to my mind. It’s incredible they took this song and turned it into this…I would have never guessed it was a cover….thats putting your stamp on a song.

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  4. I never noticed they didn’t write it but it makes sense, it doesn’t ‘sound’ like them. I like Manzarek’s keyboard s and that seems to be the top factor for people liking or disliking The Doors…still overall, kind of like you, I was real into them in the early ’90s revival in popularity, now, will still listen to them if they pop up on radio but that’s about all.

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    1. It’s like they come in to popularity at different times… it was a book that did it in the 80s for me and documentaries…then yes…Oliver Stones movie did it again.
      I would have never guessed this wasn’t written by them.

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  5. Kurt Weill’s success in the US charts gives you an idea of the range of the charts over the years. Bobby Darin won the Song of the Year Grammy in 1959 for his cover of “Mack the Knife”, which stayed at #1 for nine weeks. Judy Collins recorded “Pirate Jenny” (from the same opera) on her album “In My Life”. The album was nominated for a Grammy.

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    1. I will admit…before this post I never knew of him before…I should have because of Mack the Knife alone. So, this was a learning post for me.
      The Doors made it to their own, I would have never guessed it was a cover.

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  6. having turned 10 just before the start of the 70s, while aware of the Doors (yes watched the Ed Sullivan Show with my Parents) but like many Danny Sugarman’s book the reintroduced us to Morrison and the Doors …I’ll have to go back and listen to the first album again…I think they nailed their sound more as they went along and really used Morrison’s voice…Love her Madly, LA Woman, Morrison Hotel….actually a lot like Iggy Pop, no matter what, it always comes down to that voice

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  10. On the same note as we were on yesterday. I’m a huge fan of this band. I missed the Stone film I think we talked about Morrison before and his demons. Again if I stick to the music I’m still drawn in. Songs like this I liked because they were mixing it up and it worked.

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  12. It’s pretty left field. Not what most bands would add to an album, even in ’67 when (until Sgt Pepper) rock/pop albums were usually a hit or two per side, the rest of the tracks were usually old tried and true standards, mostly padding.

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  13. This was a perfect cover for the Doors, Max. The one-act opera was fleshed out into a full opera in 1930 follows various characters as they travel to, and establish their lives in, and later depart from Mahagonny, a city of hedonism and earthly pleasure.  ‘Alabama Song’ appears in the second scene of the modern opera as a band of prostitutes eagerly travel to the city in search of new customers, so they could earn money for drugs.  The young Jewish composer Kurt Weill and the socialist playwright Brecht Weill were radicals that achieved success, despite Nazi protests.  Weill was convinced that the opera of his day had become isolated.  He felt it should do more to appeal to a broader public and it should be open to influences from society, not in a superficial way but down to its core and deep within its musical structure.  Brecht was even more extreme, as he was not sure opera had any future at all.  In his view, the operatic practice of the day with its focus on visual and musical entertainment served an outmoded social system.

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      1. To me taking something from one era and shaping it into something that works in another era is musical genius. It’s a damned shame Morrison died too soon. Very twisted Rolling Stone headline! Wow!

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      2. Yes it was a disturbing headline to me. You are the only one to comment on that…I thought it was just me! Thanks for making me feel a bit better about myself!
        Oh…I lied Lisa…didn’t mean to…but with all of the Buddy excitement…I won’t get yours until a little later but it’s coming!

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      3. I can see where Jann thought he was being clever with the headline, but what the …!? He had so many who loved him and to be that cavalier about it is just distasteful.

        OK on the post. We have 3 weeks left so no worries.

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  14. I have heard this somewhere in the fuzzy past. The accordian is just right for the song. The off-key aspects transport me to a strange and magical place. Great find, Max! Not real familiar with The Doors discography but this tune is a winner in my book.

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  15. I’ve long related the Three Penny Opera, including this song, with what they took in terms of music in Cabaret. Maybe it is just me, but it is a very powerful song, and artifact.

    I’ve also always been fascinated with the way Morrison sings “No, don’t ask why.”

    I am surprised this is new to so many people. But then, there’s all sorts of music from the 80s going forward that I am completely ignorant about.

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      1. But running network cable is so much fun!!! (NOT). Ethernet cable. I got kids that are younger than Ethernet cable. God bless PARC.

        Actually, Ethernet network cable is older than most of the stuff we talk about here.

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