"HORSE LATITUDES": ANIMALS AS SYMBOLS IN 1967 ROCK

 

Within "Strange Days", the Doors' second album (September 1967), track number 5, "Horse Latitudes", places an animal at the center of its lyrics. In fact, a horse is the protagonist of the dramatic poem that Jim Morrison recites with desperate solemnity over a background composed of disjointed and eerie sounds. This is an extremely innovative part of the album as well as unprecedented in form and content for the music scene of the time. This is even more surprising when we consider that it is a poem placed within a Rock record, a completely unknown practice at that time in history.

The horse is used by the Doors' singer to suggest the concept of beauty placed inside human behaviors, which cause its destruction and disappearance. The figure of the animal plays a crucial role in this composition: the link between the deeper meaning of the poetic text and the listener.

"Horse Latitudes", although unique in its way of expression, is not the only example in the musical landscape of 1967 that confronts us with the presence of animals in the words of wonderful songs. We will bring two demonstrations in which the characteristics of certain animals were an inspiration to great artists active during this fundamental year in music history.

The first tune is "Lucifer Sam", written by Syd Barret and recorded by Pink Floyd in the spring of '67. It would be released shortly thereafter on the British band's August 1967 LP ("The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn"). This highly inventive psychedelic pop-rock talks about a mysterious cat who hits the narrator imagination because it seems to possess indefinite supernatural powers. The words of the chorus sum up the meaning of the song perfectly: "That cat’s has something I can't explain".

The song flows smoothly on the pressing dark-colored guitar riff, evocative of a mystery known only to the cat itself. "Lucifer Sam" is also propelled with firm rhythm by the steady drums pattern and the bold bass line devised by Roger Waters.

The second example is dated Nov. 24, 1967, the day when the Beatles' single, not contained on any of the band's albums, consisting of "Hello Goodbye" (A-side) and "I Am The Walrus" (B-side) was released on the English market. The latter had been written and recorded thanks to the shining genius of John Lennon a couple of months earlier, in September '67.

It is impossible to give in a few concise words a precise idea of this absolute masterpiece of modern music. We’d like to mention only the dreamy interlude that halfway through the song opens a magical glimpse of creativity taken to the highest level (listen from min. 2.00 to min. 2.24).

In the lyrics of "I Am The Walrus", Lennon gives space to his critical and ironic side through words that deliberately lack a coherent meaning. In fact, at that time he didn’t want to be caged by the interpretations given by critics to the lyrics of Beatles’ songs.

With this aim, surreal images follow one another in the stanzas until reaching the refrain where an enigmatic walrus is suddenly conjured regardless of the previous context. In this way, this animal is elevated to an symbol of irrationality that frees the artist from the shackles of conformism and from the need to assign a completed meaning to everything written and played. The walrus is thus chosen by Lennon for the purpose of emphasizing his desire to escape from reality or to expand its boundaries to include even those aspects considered absurd by society.

A horse, a cat, a walrus, these are all animals and metaphors that allowed great artists such as Jim Morrison, Syd Barret and John Lennon to express their feelings and emotions in 1967. Those songs and those metaphors based on animals are still shining brightly more than fifty-five years later.