Light My Fire is a 1967 song by the American rock band The Doors, from their debut album The Doors. Principally written by Robby Krieger, the track’s credits are given to the whole band, and it was recorded in August 1966. It appears on the debut album and was issued as a single on April 24, 1967 with The Crystal Ship as the B-side; the album version runs 7:06 while the single is 2:52. The song is widely regarded as an early psychedelic rock classic - a centerpiece of 1960s counterculture - featuring Ray Manzarek’s distinctive organ line and a bass part added by Larry Knechtel. The Doors edited the track for AM radio, producing a shorter single version, and the band performed it on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1967, where an unaltered lyric caused a famous moment. Light My Fire spent three weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and helped define the Doors’ sound; a José Feliciano cover in 1968 became a bigger international hit and won two Grammy Awards. The song has been honored by Rolling Stone as one of the greatest songs and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998, with a later 40th anniversary remix correcting a speed discrepancy between the original versions.
