THE DOORS' "UNHAPPY GIRL" AND WOMEN'S SOCIAL ISSUE IN THE 60s
Throughout the 1960s, British and American groups and
artists sought to explore deeper and more complex themes in their lyrics.
Among them were women's feelings, a subject that was
becoming more important than it had been in the past. In fact, this theme was
struggling to overcome the stereotypes and clichés accumulated by the music of
previous decades.
In the analysis of the problems faced by women at this
historical moment, sadness and loneliness also appear, in this case considered
apart from sentimental disappointments.
In fact, it became important for many musicians to
explore the reasons for a personal dissatisfaction that saw women involved in
dynamics other than the ones related to love. Jim Morrison, poet and composer
of most of The Doors' songs, was no exception.
Within the LP "Strange Days", released on
September 25, 1967, we find an example of this trend in track number four:
"Unhappy Girl".
The song takes an original and unexpected look at the
state of sad resignation experienced by a girl. The young woman is a prisoner
of a lifestyle that compromises her aspirations and personal fulfillment.
The relative difficulty of conveying this
unconventional content does not prevent the band from giving space to the
dissatisfaction experienced by the female component of a generation undergoing
radical changes.
The music is infused with psychedelic studio effects,
such as the presence of some instruments recorded backwards, which provide a
fascinating backdrop to the words sung with subdued passion by Morrison.
The song just mentioned, however, is not the only one
in which the feelings of women suffering from the social situations in which
they are somehow trapped are expressed. Let us cite two other great pieces from
the 1960s that analyze this topic and its consequences in new and original
ways.
The first example, which anticipates "Unhappy
Girl" by about a year, is The Beatles' song "Eleanor Rigby",
released on the album "Revolver" in August 1966.
Here, the female character lives a life of regret and
loneliness that leads her to an equally lonely death. The song's wonderful
melodies are accompanied by the surprisingly experimental nature of the
arrangement, which consists of only eight strings.
The second example, also from 1966, is "Mother's
Little Helper" by the Rolling Stones, released on the LP
"Aftermath" in April of that year. In this case, the female
protagonist of the lyrics spends her existence in the role of a housewife.
Meanwhile, her desires are frustrated by this social
condition in which she seems to be hopelessly stuck. In order to cope with the
role that life has assigned her and from which she seems unable to escape, she
takes increasing doses of psychotropic drugs.
After the mid-1960s, more famous musicians with larger
audiences embarked on this new conceptual path.
The latter would gradually lead to women being
considered in all their facets in popular culture and no longer being relegated
to lyrics that more or less superficially spoke of love relationships.
The Doors were also part of this important trend, with
the lyrics of "Unhappy Girl" exploring the female universe in the
context of their contemporary society.
Most of the credit goes to Morrison's lyrics, which in
a few poetic lines cast such a penetrating glance at the problems of women in
the 1960s that they are still valid and useful almost sixty years later.
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