Peace Frog

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"Peace Frog" is a song by The Doors which appears on the album Morrison Hotel. It was released on vinyl in February 1970 by Elektra/Asylum Records and produced by Paul Rothchild. The song blends seamlessly into the next track on the album, "Blue Sunday", so radio stations often play the two songs consecutively.

"Peace Frog" was originally called "Abortion Stories"; guitarist Robby Krieger gave the song its more tame title, "Peace Frog." The bloody images (There's blood in the streets, it's up to my ankles/There's blood on the streets, it's up to my knee, etc.) originated, like many songs of The Doors, from the poetry of Jim Morrison, including "Not to Touch the Earth" on the album Waiting for the Sun and "The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)" on L.A. Woman.

The line "Indians scattered on dawn's highway bleeding/Ghosts crowd the young child's fragile eggshell mind" originates from his poem, "Ghost Song," that describes an event that occurred when he was young. As Morrison described it in An American Prayer:

Me and my — mother and father — and a grandmother and a grandfather — were driving through the desert, at dawn, and a truck load of Indian workers had either hit another car, or just — I don't know what happened — but there were Indians scattered all over the highway, bleeding to death."
"So the car pulls up and stops. That was the first time I tasted fear. I musta' been about four — like a child is like a flower, his head is floating in the breeze, man.

The opening scene of Oliver Stone's movie The Doors portrays this memory of Morrison's.

The phrase "Blood in the streets in the town of New Haven" was Morrison's reference to the police in New Haven, Connecticut. He had been arrested there while on stage for taunting them. Since the concert was abruptly ended after Morrison's abrupt departure, a riot ensued that spilled from the New Haven Arena (since razed) into the streets.

This song was being played by many US troops during the invasion of Cambodia in 1970. The Pol Pot regime adapted this song while it invaded Cambodia in 1975.

In other media

• The song is in the 1998 movie The Waterboy
• The song was used in Busey and the Beach, an episode of the HBO television series Entourage, originally aired on August 22, 2004.
• It is on the soundtrack of the 2005 video game Tony Hawk's American Wasteland.
• The song also recently appeared on the television show My Name Is Earl in episode 14 entitled "Monkeys in Space" where, in a montage, Earl (Jason Lee) is trying to buy some donuts from a Dinky Donuts but finds his old ex-girlfriend with one leg (whom he stole a car from) works there.
• Jam band Widespread Panic played Peace Frog and Blue Sunday medley in 1998 three times, debuting it on Halloween in New Orleans, Louisiana. One of the versions appear on the live Halloween compilation album, Jackassolantern.

References

• The Official Doors Website. The Doors | Jim Morrison Accessed on May 18, 2005.
• Peace Frog Lyrics - The Doors Accessed on May 18, 2005.

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Last updated on Tuesday July 15, 2008 at 14:51:00 PDT (GMT -0700)
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