What are the 5 Biggest U.S. Hits by The Doors?

In a lot of ways, The Doors acted as a prototype for what would become known many years later as alternative music. They could be uncompromising and challenging, and the mainstream wasn’t always ready for their more out-there efforts.

But when you look at their catalog, you’ll see they did as well as, if not better than, many of their peers when it came to chart success. Here are the five songs that were the biggest smashes by The Doors on the U.S. charts.

5. “People are Strange” (No. 12 in 1967)

Sometimes a song will piggyback off the success of one that precedes it, and there’s probably some of that in explaining how well this one did on the charts in ’67. (It followed a No. 1 hit still to come on this list.) That’s not to say it’s somehow unworthy. It’s actually quite compelling, a cool mid-tempo recording featuring Ray Manzarek’s saloon-style piano and Robby Krieger’s bluesy slide guitar. It’s just the sentiment doesn’t deliver your typical pop-song uplift. Maybe, even in the Summer of Love, more people were on Jim Morrison’s outsider wavelength than anybody expected.

4. “Love Her Madly” (No. 11 in 1971)

The Doors returned to the pop charts after a few years away with their 1971 album L.A. Woman, which would turn out to be their last before the death of Jim Morrison a few months after its release. At that point, Morrison couldn’t be relied upon to carry much of the load, but other members of the group stepped up nicely. Guitarist Robby Krieger was mostly responsible for writing this bouncy number, which is carried aloft by some exciting organ work from Ray Manzarek. Morrison gives a blustery vocal performance, hitting the punch line hard on the lyric, Don’t you love her as she’s walkin’ out the door?

3. “Touch Me” (No. 3 in 1968)

The Doors could certainly be as menacing or as weird as any band of that era. But their versatility was impressive, because when they reined it in with a concentrated effort to court pop audiences, they did it very well. Robbie Krieger wrote this one, building it around an insistent riff that, by the end of the song, seems like it’s being played by every instrument in the world. The strings and horns were a tactic that just about every rock band in the world were adding around that time, and The Doors bring that cacophony pretty effectively on “Touch Me.”

2. “Hello I Love You” (No. 1 in 1968)

The second of the band’s two chart-toppers, the melody of this track borrows pretty heavily from The Kinks’ classic “All Day and All of the Night,” so much so that Ray Davies of The Kinks later claimed a royalties arrangement was worked out to recognize this. The lyrics combine Morrison’s infatuation with a girl who walked by him on the beach with his surreal poetic leanings. This certainly captures The Doors leaning into their psychedelic reputation, with some cool instrumental effects playing into the colorful vibe.

1. “Light My Fire” (No. 1 in 1967)

Jim Morrison looms so large over the legend of The Doors that we can sometimes overlook how tight these guys were as a unit and how much the others contributed to the proceedings. This list proves just how integral Robbie Krieger was as a songwriter on the radio-friendly tracks. He was the main impetus for the writing of “Light My Fire,” although the improvisational instrumental sections, featuring Ray Manzarek’s flammable organ, Krieger’s stinging licks, and John Densmore’s unflappable beat, suggest a true group effort. Morrison’s insinuating intonations are the icing on the cake.

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