Horse Latitudes

"Horse Latitudes" is the fifth song from The Doors second album, Strange Days. The song is a spoken word piece by Jim Morrison with the band providing frightening noises as a backdrop. Morrison screams the lyrics, telling of a ship at sea forced to jettison the onboard horses to lighten their load. The words are taken from one of the first poems Jim Morrison ever wrote, inspired by a book cover he saw at a local bookstore as a child.

Keyboardist Ray Manzarek mentions in his book Light My Fire he never believed Morrison wrote "Horse Latitudes" at such a young age, claiming the words were "too mature".

This song often segued into "Moonlight Drive", or vice versa, which follows it on the album.

The lyric is a synthesis of Morrison's interests in maritime life thus the title Horse Latitudes and is also an obvious allusion to his naval upbringing.