Waiting for the Sun: The Doors’ Sunrise That Almost Never Rose
uly 3, 1968. While half the world was still reeling from assassinations, protests, and the endless grind of Vietnam on the television, The Doors quietly released their third album: Waiting for the Sun.
It’s the one with “Hello, I Love You” — the bright, poppy single that shot to #1 and made grandmothers tap their feet. It’s also the one that, for decades, felt like the “lesser” Doors album to the acid-casualty cognoscenti who swore allegiance only to the debut and Strange Days.
But time has been kind. Waiting for the Sun is the moment The Doors stepped out of the midnight alley and into the harsh daylight — hungover, blinking, beautiful, and more than a little dangerous.
The Record That Melted
The cover of the original LP is deceptively tame: a group photo in a garden, flowers everywhere, Jim looking like a Greek god who just woke up in someone else’s body. Inside, though, things drip and dissolve.
You can practically feel the wax melting on “Spanish Caravan,” hear the L.A. heat bending the strings on “Summer’s Almost Gone,” and taste the cheap red wine in Ray’s carnival organ on “Wintertime Love.” Even the hit single hides a sneer — “Hello, I Love You” was originally titled “Hello, I Love You, Won’t You Tell Me Your Name?” because Morrison knew exactly how disposable pop could be.
And then there’s the closer: “Five to One.” The ratio, allegedly, of drunk college kids to cops on Sunset Strip in ’68. Or babies to old men. Or liquor to truth. Take your pick. Jim never explained. He just screamed it into the void and let the tape roll.
The One That Got Away
The real legend of Waiting for the Sun, though, is the song that isn’t there.
“The Celebration of the Lizard” — a 17-minute theatrical suite meant to take up the entire second side — was rehearsed, recorded, printed on early promo copies… and then scrapped at the last minute. Too long, too weird, too theatrical, the label said. Fragments survived: “Not to Touch the Earth” became the album’s dark heartbeat, and “Names and places have been changed to protect the innocent” still feels like a confession whispered 50 years too late.
Waiting for the Sun, then, is an album about almost.
Almost dawn. Almost revolution. Almost transcendence. Almost collapse.
The Poster
That tension — sunrise that might turn into heatstroke — is why this minimalist poster works so well.
A single black vinyl disc, half-submerged, bleeding red into the water below like the sun itself is melting the groove. No faces. No text beyond the title and the band name. Just red, black, and the suggestion that something beautiful is either rising or drowning.
Hang it in direct sunlight and watch the red scream. Hang it in a dark hallway and it becomes a black hole with a pulse.
Either way, it reminds you that The Doors were never really a rock band. They were a fever dream you could dance to.
Waiting for the Sun turns 57 in 2025, but it still sounds like tomorrow morning at 5:47 a.m. — that brutal, gorgeous moment when the night finally admits it’s over and the new day hasn’t decided yet whether it’s bringing salvation or just another hangover.