Track Listing

1. Tell All The People
2. Touch Me
3. Shaman's Blues
4. Do It
5. Easy Ride
6. Wild Child
7. Runnin' Blue
8. Wishful Sinful
9. The Soft Parade
10. Who Scared You (Bonus)
11. Whiskey, Mystics And Men (Version 1) (Bonus)
12. Whiskey, Mystics And Men (Version 2) (Bonus)
13. Push Push (Bonus)
14. Touch Me (Dialogue) (Bonus)
15. Touch Me (Take 3) (Bonus)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3365 in Music
• Released on: 2007-03-27
• Number of discs: 1

Album Description
THE SOFT PARADE, first released in 1969, climbed to #6 and featured the #3 hit "Touch Me," "Shaman's Blues," "Wild Child," and more. Boasts in-depth liner notes by Rolling Stone writer David Fricke. Six bonus tracks include a previously unissued version of "Touch Me," the previously unheard "Push, Push," and two unreleased takes of "Whiskey, Mystics And Men."

Customer Reviews

Welcome to the 70's
3 1/2

Regarded by some as their worst, TSP is indeed plagued with over-orchestrations and Morrison at his most indulgent, leading to it's share of embarrassing moments. But it still absolutely cannot be dismissed. Some of the gruffer shallowly composed songs may fall flat, but when the group attunes the big-band influences properly they still manage to land a handful of tracks that had that illusive immortal factor so much of their best work inhabited.

Not the best Doors album, but still good
This is the Doors' fourth album released in July 1969. Only a few seconds into the first song you know this is going to be a different kind of album. Ray Manzarek said in a book that the strings and brass were his idea. The big hit single off the album was "Touch Me" initially put out six months earlier and penned by Robbie Kreiger. In fact, Kreiger wrote five of the nine original tracks. There were three other singles: "Wishful Sinful", "Tell All The People" and "Runnin' Blue". The title track runs just under ten minutes. The bonus tracks include alternate versions of "Touch Me" and "Whiskey, Mystics, and Men",the latter appearing on the Doors Box Set. There's also a song called "Push Push". The other track "Who Scared You" also appeared on the Doors Box Set.

This was arguably the band's weakest album not so much because of the strings and brass but more because of inferior songwriting. But the album as a whole along with the bonus tracks is still enjoyable. I'll recommend only die-hard fans to get this album. For the casual fan, it won't be a bad addition but you're not missing too much if you skip it.

TT 54:51

out here, we is flambéed, ironic
I was introduced to this record by Lester Bangs, who brushed it off as drek camouflaged by "horns, strings, and anything else they could bring in." But this is probably as good as the Doors ever are, frankly. Take it or leave it: this is a real Doors album, and so it is no ordinary rock'n'roll record; in fact, sometimes it sounds like Frank Zappa parodying this period of the Doors. I have never presumed to know what the Doors' intentions were in the fields of irony or earnestness (note the "stronger than dirt" ending of "Touch Me" for obvious self-parody), and ambiguity is really afoot here. But compared to most rock made in 1969, this is a not only a solid record, with tight performances, but one with a compelling variety of textures and signatures, from the straight raunch of "Wild Child" to the odd-timed, poignant "Shaman's Blues" (one of their ten-best songs), to "Wishful Sinful," a forgotten single, all bestringed and as weirdly compelling as anything R.E.M. has tried to do with similar charts (oops, is that good thing? Irony! I say thee, Irony!, then), to the 9-minute "Soft Parade," which shows the Doors at full tilt in collage-mode. Tight as Booker-T and the MG's, with lusty and liturgical lyrics, like Updike through a kaleidoscope, it is introduced with one of Morrison's oddest rants: "when I was back in seminary school. . .". Not "seminary," but "seminary school." That inspired f-head! Here he is sublimely alone in the Western night . . . Stronger than dirt.