Break On Through (To the Other Side)

The first song on the debut was recorded in one afternoon session on 12 September 1966 at Sunset Sound and mixed the following month. Densmore opens it with a bossa nova groove, a clave pattern played as a rim click under a driving ride cymbal. Krieger said the guitar riff came from the Paul Butterfield Blues Band's version of Shake Your Moneymaker, Manzarek said his keyboard part was inspired by Getz/Gilberto, and the organ solo resembles the introduction of Ray Charles's What'd I Say. Writing for the Guardian in 2021, Annie Zaleski noted that the band members have admitted the song takes aspects of tunes by Paul Butterfield, Ray Charles, Stan Getz and Them, yet still sounds fresh and explosive.

The refrain originally said she gets high. Rothchild took the word out while mixing, leaving a repeated she get, and Densmore recalled that the band reluctantly agreed. Botnick restored it in a new mix for the 1999 box set The Complete Studio Recordings. As the group's first single it reached only 126 in the US, but Pitchfork's Stuart Berman wrote in 2006 that it was a taunt and a dare. It became a minor hit in Britain at 64 after it was reissued in 1991 from the film soundtrack, and the Guardian ranked it second among the band's 30 best songs in 2021.

Live

It appears in 123 of the 296 logged Doors setlists that list songs. When Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, they played it with Eddie Vedder on vocals.