Celebration of the Lizard King??

MikeyFingers · #1 03-07-2006, 05:29 AM

A friend of mine downloaded a live recording of The Doors doing a piece called "Celebration Of The Lizard King". I have the full Doors discography and I'm a rather big fan of them, but somehow I've never heard this one before. It's like 17 minutes long, it seems to be more oriented around Jim's poetry, and is pretty much an audible acid trip. Great chunk of music, but I was just wondering where the hell this came from?
Was it just one of those special occasion type things that they only played it live?
I know of a few bands who do that (Primus, for one), they have a song that never makes it to a studio album and is considered a special treat if you happen to catch it at a concert....is that what this is? Any help would be appreciated.

flatwoundfender · #2 03-07-2006, 05:47 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebration_of_the_Lizard

Here's the info

KPJ · #3 03-07-2006, 05:50 AM

It was originally supposed to be on "Waiting for the Sun", but they were unable to get a good version down in the studio. The only part that made it on to the album was "Not to Touch the Earth". The whole poem is written out on the sleeve of the album. Its actual name is "The Celebration of the Lizard". It was performed live quite often, and there have been a few live versions released, including the one included on the boxed set and also on the Hollywood Bowl DVD.

MikeyFingers · #4 03-07-2006, 07:20 AM

COOL! Thanks for the info guys.

And now for more Doors questions..
After reading that thing from Wikipedia where it says that the song appears on their album "Absolutely Live", I did a Google search for that album. It's on Amazon, but the song is not listed on the album (unless it's listed as "Not to Touch The Earth"). In addition to that, it lists a few songs that don't appear on any other Doors albums too.
Here's a few:
Names of the Kingdom
The Palace of Exile
The Hill Dwellers

Where do these songs come from!?!? I love the Doors, but they apparently have more material then I realized, now I'm on a mission to get as much info on them as possible.

KPJ · #5 03-07-2006, 08:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeyFingers

Here's a few:
Names of the Kingdom
The Palace of Exile
The Hill Dwellers

Those are the titles of the sections of the poem. The overall work is "The Celebration of the Lizard"

KPJ · #6 03-07-2006, 08:25 AM

The seven sections of the poem are:

Lions in the Street
Wake Up
A Little Game
The Hill Dwellers
Not to Touch the Earth
Names of the Kingdom
The Palace of Exile

MikeyFingers · #7 03-07-2006, 08:31 AM

OH!! God, I should've known that. Thanks guys, that's all.