Break on Through (To the Other Side)

The title of the band is a different expression of the same idea, and it came from a quotation by William Blake, later the title of a book about mind-expanding drug use by Aldous Huxley:

"If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite."

This is an idea that Morrison was obsessed with, that there is a pathway to become truly enlightened, to see and feel fully, things that ordinary people and ordinary experience do not permit. He believed this of music, and he believed it of life, that reaching towards an alternate, more complete form of experience was the ultimate reward.

Is this song about "drugs"? That's an oversimplification. For Morrison, breaking through was about every kind of experience – this song alludes to drugs, but also to sex, to sleep deprivation, to nonstop activity, to wild risk-taking. All of those more intense ways of living were part of the quest to break through to another side. Crossing a barrier to a purer and more intense reality is the metaphor that the band name the "Doors" was chosen to suggest, and Morrison's brief and wild life was devoted to that cause.

Many Doors songs contain a transition from a slower, softer beginning, a slow build up, to a climax. This mimes the transition that Morrison felt that people should seek. "Break on Through," however, starts fast and ends fast. The opening lines, implying a long spell of sleeplessness, introduce us to a persona who is living wildly, chasing the other side. Maybe Morrison found the other side, and maybe we can hear that in his music.