10 Most Underrated Songs (On Classic Albums)
5. The Wasp - The Doors
Throughout their career, The Doors always attempted to combine the rock song with high art. With Jim Morrison's interesting lyrical approach, the messages of these songs could be read like poetry compared to the more generic messages of their contemporaries.
Once it came time for the band to record LA Woman, they ended up digging through their back catalog for "The WASP." Subtitled "Texas Radio and the Big Beat," much of the lyrics were originally from a long spoken word piece Morrison would occasionally perform during the Doors' shows. With the band now settling into a more bluesy direction for this outing, the poem came up as something to potentially work on.
Instead of just using the piece as an interlude, the band put together an arrangement that gave the initial poetry a swing beat. The lyrics are also some of the best of Morrison's career, as he talks about feeling immaculate in the middle of the desert. This song brought all the great tropes of the blues and took them to a completely different level with the mind-expanding words on top. This album may have been Morrison's swansong, but "The WASP" showed that he had not lost his touch even in his worst days.