10 Best Cover Songs In Classic Rock
7. Alabama Song - The Doors
From the band's earliest recordings, the Doors always had a sound slightly different than what was expected from a rock band. While their music was still rooted in rock and roll, the band touched on a variety of different styles from jazzy territory to even the early days of hard rock and avant garde music.
When it came time to pick tracks for the group's first album, pianist Ray Manzarak showed his bandmates an opera that he had in his record collection by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill called Mahagonny. Though most of the band found the whole thing a bit weird, the song "Alabama Song" had an interesting demented feel to it that they wanted to use.
After guitarist Robby Krieger came up with a different chord structure for the tune, the band added the German "oompah" beat and were off to the races. The lyrics detailing the incessant need for whisky seemed to fit right in with Jim Morrison's voice, turning this eerie operatic tune into a drunken pub sing-along. While the message of incessant drinking became tragically real after Jim Morrison's passing, at the time it was just a fun-filled ride through a dive bar where the alcohol flowed like water.