‘Light My Fire’: When the Night is Set on Fire

“Light My Fire” is one of The Doors’ most iconic songs.

There’s a certain sort of irony when the place where the song was born, written rather, is consumed entirely by flames.

1966, Pacific Palisades, L.A., Robby Krieger, guitarist for The Doors sitting in his parents’ house, wrote what would go on to become one of the band’s signature songs. In 2025, nearly six decades later, the home where he wrote it, burned to the ground in the Palisades Fire.

So, in fond remembrance, here’s a brief history of how the flames of “Light My Fire” were lit.

It’s hard to categorize which genre The Doors fall into; psychedelic rock, blues rock, gothic rock… The Doors were one of the icons of that era’s (1960s) counterculture movement. And “Light My Fire” was their breakout hit on their debut eponymous album released in 1967.

This was the first song Krieger wrote for the band. Up till that point, the songs were primarily written by vocalist and frontman Jim Morrison. When the band realized that they needed more originals Morrison suggested that each of them try writing “something universal, something that won’t go out of style in a year or six months.”

And Kreiger delivered. “Light My Fire” is the first song that comes to mind when one thinks of The Doors’ discography. The intrinsic, fundamental, basic appeal of this fire has never wavered. “Light My Fire” continues to burn brightly 58 years later.

Krieger mulled over writing about the four elements; however, he settled on fire after being inspired by the lyrics of the Rolling Stones song “Play With Fire.”

“I wrote it at my parent’s house, in the room where the piano was, although I wrote it on the guitar. My first idea was that I wanted it to be something like ‘Hey Joe.’ I really liked that song by The Leaves, before Hendrix had done it, but when I brought it to the guys they said, ‘Folk rock is going out.’ John had the idea to do a Latin beat on it and then Ray went crazy on that middle part, which eventually became the beginning.”

It is surreal to think now that that room with the piano only exists as a memory.

Krieger originally wanted to become a jazz guitarist; he didn’t really plan on getting into rock ‘n roll. He soon found however, that rock ‘n’ roll had no limitation other than the beat. And aside from jazz, it was the only other musical genre that gave enough room for freedom and experimentation. And this comes through in the polyrhythmic structure of “Light My Fire.”

Krieger decided that for this song to be good he should employ every chord in his arsenal. At that time, primarily only three chords would be used in rock ‘n roll and he set out to beat that number. “Light My Fire” sounds like it has a deceptively simple melody, but on closer inspection there are a lot of chord changes.    

While writing “Light My Fire,” Krieger felt that a lot of the chords aren’t used as much in rock ‘n roll as they are in jazz, so he set about changing that. The intro of the song itself features an interesting chord progression, done by keyboardist Ray Manzarek in the style of Bach’s Inventions and Sinfonias, because of his classical training. Starting with G, D, F, B flat, E flat, A flat and then finally A. Then it moves right down to A minor, the key the song is written in.

The crazy chord progression wasn’t at the intro at first. Initially, the song was supposed to start off in A Minor and F Sharp. It was producer Paul Rothchild’s idea to put in the Bach twist at both the beginning and the end. Originally it was meant to be only in the middle as a transition to get back to the verse from the solo. 

As a John Coltrane fan, Krieger pays his homage in the extended solo sections which feature the same chord progression as Coltrane’s cover of “My Favorite Things”; A minor and B minor.

It was only when they started performing it live that the song transformed into what we know today. The more they played, the more changes they incorporated and the more they stretched out the middle of the song where the solo was, until it finally clocked seven minutes. When “Light My Fire” became a widely requested radio play, The Doors were asked to cut the length by more than half and to release the shorter version as a single. Though they were reluctant to do so, Paul Rothchild finally decided to edit the song down to just under three minutes, by removing the majority of the instrumental breaks.

“Light My Fire” came to be the poster song for the era’s counterculture and psychedelic movement due to the nature of its lyrics. The band had no problem performing the song live or miming the playback of the single edition on television. It was only when they were performing live on The Ed Sullivan Show that they faced a slight issue. Producer of the show and Ed Sullivan’s son-in-law Bob Precht requested that The Doors change the lyrics from “Girl, we couldn’t get much higher” to “Girl, we couldn’t get much better.”

The sponsors were uneasy about a live performance of a song whose lyrics could be taken as a reference to drugs. The band agreed and during rehearsal changed the lyrics to be tamer than the norm. However, when they finally performed live on the show, Morrison reverted to the original lyrics. They never performed on The Ed Sullivan Show again despite nearly securing a multi-episode deal because they breached the agreement.

Kreiger recalled; “Jim also told me to write something that people can interpret in their own minds, so ‘Light My Fire’ could be taken as a drug reference or a love interest. One guy even came up to me and said he knew it was about the fire in the third eye!”

The nature of the lyrics is still up to interpretation.

Except for the second verse, Krieger had all the lyrics. At that time Morrison suggested that he add in the line about the funeral pyre.  

“I said, ‘Jim, do you always have to talk about death?’! But he wanted that funeral pyre in there and it worked out pretty well.”

As a measure of its popularity and universal appeal, there are over 330 covers of “Light My Fire” in various genres including bossa nova, Latin jazz, pop, disco, soul and even Krieger’s preferred jazz. Some notable covers include Chet Atkins, The Ventures, Stanley Turrentine and even Mae West. The song continues to be covered even today with the latest iteration by Robyn Adele Anderson in 2024.

“Light My Fire” was destined to be one of The Doors’ signature songs even before they set foot in the recording studio. While it is sad to think its birthplace has been reduced to ashes, the song still continues to burn higher and brighter.