The Doors on The Ed Sullivan Show, September 17, 1967.
Front: Jim Morrison. Behind him, left to right:
John Densmore, Robbie Krieger, Ray Manzarek
Note the actual doors suspended from the ceiling.
From 1948 to 1971, "The Tiffany Network" aired The Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday nights at 8:00 Eastern Time. Ed was progressive in some ways, willing to air rock and roll acts, and black performers of all kinds, when most variety-show hosts wouldn't.
But there were, occasionally, issues. In 1956, he said he wouldn't have the hot newcomer of the moment, Elvis Presley, on his show, until rival Steve Allen brought him to his show on NBC. Ed saw Allen's ratings, too the hint, and had Elvis on his show 3 times, the last time showing him only from the waist up, to hide his gyrations.
In 1963, Bob Dylan was scheduled for the show. He wanted to sing his song "Talking John Birch Paranoid Blues." The censors, afraid that he would look like a Communist, told him after the 1st rehearsal to drop it. He refused. Ed backed him up. And Ed usually got what he wanted. This time, they overruled him. Dylan never appeared on the show, but he kept Ed's respect.
In 1964, Ed booked The Beatles, and 73 million people watched. At the time, it was the biggest audience in U.S. TV history. That led to several other British bands being booked, one of them The Rolling Stones.
But on January 15, 1967, mere hours after Super Bowl I, the Stones wanted to sing their song "Let's Spend the Night Together." Trying to avoid a conflict with the censors, Ed's producer, and also his son-in-law, Bob Precht, suggested a slight change: "Let's Spend Some Time Together." The Stones did it that way, but their anger is obvious on the tape.
At that point, The Doors had just released their self-titled debut album, a groundbreaking opus that helped bring "psychedelic rock" into the mainstream, including the song "Light My Fire," which had hit Number 1. Ed booked them, but their biggest song contained the line, "Girl, we couldn't get much higher." You couldn't say the words "get high," or any variant, on prime-time U.S. TV in 1967, because it would be taken as a drug reference.
Ray Manzarek, the organist and spokesman for the group, told Precht, "We'll think of something." So they discussed it.
John Densmore, drummer: "What are we gonna do?"
Robbie Krieger, guitarist, who had written the lyrics: "It's my lyric, I don't care. Whatever you guys want to do, I'll do it."
Jim Morrison, lead singer, who usually wrote the lyrics, and sang them: "I'm not gonna change the lyric."
Manzarek: "Then let's not change the lyric." And, presuming they would get caught breaking the rules, they settled on their story.
Also on this show that day were comedians Jack Benny, Rodney Dangerfield and Flip Wilson; married singers Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme; the singing Kessler Sisters, Alice and Ellen; and actor Yul Brynner, who did a classical guitar routine. All of it live, coast-to-coast, from CBS Studio 50 at 1697 Broadway, between 53rd and 54th Street in Midtown Manhattan. The building had recently been renamed the Ed Sullivan Theater.
The Doors opened the show with a song from their 2nd album, "People Are Strange." When it was over, there was a pause, as Ed's usually straitlaced audience wasn't sure what to make of them. Even the teenagers, usually put in the balcony of the theater to scream at the rock bands, didn't applaud at first. The applause that followed was tepid.
At the end of the show, The Doors played "Light My Fire." Jim didn't change the lyric. (Unlike in the 1991 film The Doors, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Val Kilmer, Jim did not stick his face in the camera and make a point of it. He just sang it as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on.) They played a short version, similar (but not identical) to the single version, rather than the album version, which has gone down in music history as "The Long Version."
As the song ends, the camera shifts to Ed, who looks mad. To hide this, the director quickly fades to black and goes to commercial.
Afterward, Precht walked up to the band, and rips them for saying, "higher."
Manzarek presented the story the band agreed on: "Sir, it's The Ed Sullivan Show, we were nervous, and we just did the song the way we've done it a thousand times, we didn't think about it, and we're sorry!"
Precht told them, "We were gonna book you for 6 more shows. But now, you'll never do The Ed Sullivan Show again!"
The members thought they'd blown it. But Morrison said, "Hey, man, we just did The Ed Sullivan Show."
True to his word, Precht made sure The Doors were never on the show again. The show last aired on June 6, 1971. Within a month, Jim Morrison was dead. Three years later, so was Ed Sullivan.
However, Precht inherited control of the Ed Sullivan Show recordings, and had no qualms about lending the performance of "Light My Fire" back to CBS for TV specials commemorating the show. Various nostalgia networks now air the show on cable, and the September 17, 1967 episode is in regular rotation.
One more note: On Christmas Eve, December 24, 1967, a little more than 3 months later, George Carlin was a guest on The Ed Sullivan Show. He did his Al Sleet, the Hippy-Dippy Weatherman routine. Referring to a symbol on his weather map, he said, "This is a Canadian low, which is not to be confused with a Mexican high." It was his 4th appearance on the show. Since it was played for laughs, and Al Sleet was clearly not someone the average viewer would want to emulate, Carlin got away with it, eventually making 11 appearances.
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The night was still young. On February 5, 1967, CBS debuted The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Tom and Dick Smothers had been a big comedy act for a while, and had been a hit on Ed Sullivan. They went for a hipper-than-thou vibe. And, apparently, it was Ed who had a problem with The Doors, not CBS: They appeared on the "Smos Bros" on December 15, 1968, singing "Wild Child" and "Touch Me." (Come to think of it, George Carlin was on that episode.)
On September 17, 1967, at 9:00 Eastern Time, while Ed Sullivan and Bob Precht were still steaming over "Girl, we couldn't get much higher," the Smothers Brothers went on the air, albeit on tape rather than live. In addition to show regulars, comedian Pat Paulsen and singer Jennifer Warnes, the show featured acting legends Bette Davis and Mickey Rooney.
And British rock band The Who.
Ed Sullivan was just short of his 66th birthday, making him old enough to be the grandfather of the eldest Door, Manzarek, 28. In contrast, Tommy Smothers was 30 years old, Dick was 27. So they were only a few years older than The Who: lead singer Roger Daltrey was 23, bass guitarist John Entwistle was about to turn 23, guitarist and main songwriter Pete Townshend was 22, and drummer Keith Moon was 21. The Brothers could relate to their guests a lot more easily than Sullivan could, and while the bandmembers were a bit more far-out than the Brothers were, the Brothers did handle things better.
The Who were already known for destroying their instruments onstage, having done so 3 months earlier at the Monterey Pop Festival in California. They were also known for destroying other things, like hotel rooms, and even cars: Moon had drunkenly driven one into a hotel pool.
The Who played their signature song, "My Generation," with Daltrey stuttering the lyrics because, as Townshend explained, the character is so hopped up on amphetamines (the drug of choice for British "Mods," as The Who's members had been). The key lyric seemed to be, "Things, they do look awful c-c-cold, I hope I die before I get old."
At the end of the performance, the members did wreck their instruments. This included Moon setting off an explosion in his bass drum. Unfortunately, Townshend got too close to it, and it wrecked his hearing. Now, like Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, he was practically deaf in one ear.
Died before they got old: Jim Morrison, 1971, from a drug-induced heart attack, age 27; Keith Moon, 1978, from a drug-and-booze combination, 32; and John Entwistle, 2002, from a drug-induced heart attack, 57.
Lived to be old: Ed Sullivan, 1974, from cancer, 73; Ray Manzarek, 2013, from cancer, 74; and the following, all still alive at this writing: Tom Smothers, 79; Dick Smothers, 76; Roger Daltrey, 72; Pete Townshend, 71; John Densmore, 71; Robbie Krieger, 70. (UPDATE: Tom Smothers died in 2023, at 86.)
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