On This Day, Sept. 17, 1967: The Doors’ appearance on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ ends in controversy

On This Day, Sept. 17, 1967…

The Doors appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing their #1 single “Light My Fire.”

But the performance wasn’t without controversy. Prior to the show, the band had been asked to change the line of “girl, we couldn’t get much higher” to take out the reference to drugs. While they originally agreed to do it, and sang the altered version during rehearsals, frontman Jim Morrison wound up disregarding the request and sang the original lyrics live on the air.

Morrison’s defiance resulted in The Doors getting banned from The Ed Sullivan Show, with Ray Manzarek later saying they were told that Sullivan had initially planned to have them back six more times.