Many think that The Doors, took their name from Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception (1954) detailing the author's experiences when taking mescaline. However, Huxley's book-- and the band's name-- is largely inspired by William Blake's poem The Marriage of Heaven in Hell, where the poet laments the spiritual blindness of humans:
If the doors of perception were cleansed,
Everything would appear to man as it is: infinite.
For man has closed himself up,
Till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.
This is especially clear since Morrison quotes Blake in "End of the Night" on their debut, self-titled LP (1967).
Realms of bliss, realms of light
Some are born to sweet delight
Some are born to sweet delight
Some are born to the endless night
End of the night, end of the night
End of the night, end of the night
The final lines are from Blake's poem "Auguries of Innocence." The poem contains a series of paradoxes which speak of innocence juxtaposed with evil and corruption, the most famous being the opening lines:
To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
However, Morrison's lyrics quote of the final lines of Blake's poem:
Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born.
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.
We are led to believe a lie
When we see not through the eye
Which was born in a night to perish in a night,
When the soul slept in beams of light.
God appears, and God is light
To those poor souls who dwell in night,
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.
Like Morrison, Blake's concern in his poetry, largely, revolves around the relation between reality and perception. He sees that, as a result of the Fall, as a result of the imperfections which have become part of human nature, our perception of reality is inaccurate. Can we fix our perceptions? Can we learn to see things as they really are? In addition to being a poet and a painter, Blake is concerned with what is fundamentally a philosophical question: to what extent can humans have clear and unhindered access to reality? To what extent can I escape my own bias and prejudice to see things as they really are?
And, I think, Blake's answer is found in the final lines where, "We are led to believe a lie/ When we see though through the eye..." Or, as the title of one of his short writings exclaims, "There is No Natural Religion."
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