The Doors - "Light My Fire" (Restored Stereo Single)

Paul Rothchild’s classic single edit of “Light My Fire” reconstructed from the album’s original stereo mix running at the correct speed.

As everyone knows, “Light My Fire” appears as a seven-minute track on The Doors’ self-titled debut album. Needing to trim the song down for radio in 1967, producer Paul Rothchild came up with a three-minute single edit that omitted the song’s lengthy solos while maintaining its impact — giving The Doors their first number one hit.

Surprisingly, for the last 55 years, the original single edit of “Light My Fire” has only been available in a low fidelity mono mix intended for single speaker radios in the 1960s. A high fidelity stereo mix of the group’s biggest selling single has never been properly released.

The first time a stereo edit was ever issued was as a CD single in 1992, but it featured an alternate cut (likely also made by Rothchild) with an extended bridge that lacked the strength of the original mono edit. You can hear it here:    • The Doors - Light My Fire  

This 1992 stereo edit also used the off-speed version of the debut album as its source, causing the song to run at the wrong pitch and speed (starting a quarter-tone flat and ending a half-tone flat). The original mono single, on the other hand, doesn’t suffer from these issues and has always run at the correct speed.

Bruce Botnick next attempted to recreate the single edit in stereo for The Doors: R-Evolution DVD/Blu-ray in 2013, but he used the 40th Anniversary Mix of the song rather than the original stereo mix and failed to match the mono single’s exact edits, producing yet another alternate version. You can listen to Botnick’s edit here:    • 4) The Doors - Light my fire (R-Evolution)  

And so, an accurate stereo version of the “Light My Fire” single has remained strangely elusive for decades. This audio project was launched to remedy that.

In order to properly reconstruct the mono single edit in stereo, a version of the original stereo mix of the debut album running at the correct speed was needed. Fortunately, Bruce Botnick, Bernie Grundman, and Jac Holzman created a speed-corrected version of the debut album using the original stereo master tape in 2007, and it was quietly issued as part of The Doors Complete Studio Albums digital audio collection in 2012. Since it presents the most accurate speed/pitch and the best sound quality, it was this corrected version of the debut album that was chosen for this stereo single edit.

The next task was to replicate Paul Rothchild’s original editing work to the note. Close attention was paid to match each of the mono single’s edits precisely. After a bit of trial and error, the completed stereo version was then played alongside the mono single to ensure that both played perfectly in sync.

This process led to the discovery that Rothchild didn’t simply eliminate four minutes from the middle of the track, but used a total of three cuts to seamlessly craft an entirely new bridge for the song. The edit worked so well that The Doors themselves played it the same way live on The Ed Sullivan Show. See that performance here: https://vimeo.com/140987071

The single edit of “Light My Fire,” though protested by the band at the time and still considered sacrilege by some, is nevertheless the version that shot up the charts in the summer of 1967 and launched The Doors’ career. It will never replace the uncut album version, but it played a crucial role in the group’s history. An accurate single edit should be preserved and made available in high quality stereo.

Compare this stereo single of “Light My Fire” to the original mono single:    • Light My Fire (2017 Remaster)  

Edit Reconstruction: [email protected]

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