"Unhappy Girl" is a psychedelic rock composition credited to all four members of The Doors -- Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, and John Densmore -- written and recorded in 1967 for their second album Strange Days. The song is distinguished by its entrancing, otherworldly atmosphere, built on a prominent organ intro from Manzarek with sustained vibrato throughout, layered with fading tack piano and reverse-recorded elements that create a disorienting, dreamlike quality. The studio production is notably adventurous, incorporating overdubbed slide guitars, handclaps, tambourine, reverse drum cymbals, Fender Rhodes bass lines, and backwards piano playing the song's chord progression. Morrison's subdued yet passionate vocals deliver poetic lyrics addressing a woman's self-imposed emotional isolation, describing someone trapped in a "prison of your own device" and urged to "swim in mystery." The imagery may draw on William Blake's themes of innocence and experience, echoing the thematic concerns of the companion track "You're Lost Little Girl" on the same album. The song emerged from an intense period of studio experimentation during the Strange Days sessions, where The Doors pushed their psychedelic boundaries through avant-garde production techniques. It remains a deep cut in the band's catalog rather than a widely covered standard, valued primarily as an example of The Doors' willingness to subordinate conventional song structure to atmospheric and psychological effect.
