June 30: Like many children of Dylan and the sixties, the Doors championed revolt. Sometimes it was blatantly political, as in The Unknown Soldier or Five to One, but mostly it was about breaking free from the constraints of convention and conformity. Writes Tony Magistrale in “Wild Child: Jim Morrison’s Poetic Journeys,” It is certainly true that Morrison is critical of the wasted energies he saw expended in Vietnam and in the maintenance of rigid middle-class mentality at home. But the thrust of his invective is against our superficial selves, our social and conventional and conforming selves, which he fears will prevent our being true to the deeper self. In ‘Ship of Fools,’ the poet applies the medieval metaphor to contemporary America, mocking this country’s complacent attitude toward its space ‘progress’ by reminding us of some lingering business neglected at home: ‘People walking on the moon/ Smog will get you pretty soon. . . Hangin in and holding fast/ Hope our little world will last.’ Morrison’s elusive ambiguities are fodder for our conflicts and doubts, for the constant complexities of feelings which constitute daily life in the modern world. But his social critique, while often searing in its approach to American institutions and their demand for conformity, did not conclude in pessimism or desperation” (Journal of Popular Culture 142)
June 29: Besides borrowing from Albeniz (see last post), the Doors borrowed from the baroque composer Albinoni for “Feast of Friends,” which was released as part of An American Prayer. An instrumental-only version by the Doors was released as part of The Doors Box Set (1997), and it’s that version that’s included here, along with a classical rendering by Leppard and the English Chamber Orchestra. You can have your own do-it-yourself verrecite the lyrics to
Wow, I’m sick of doubt
Live in the light of certain
South
Cruel bindings.
The servants have the power
dog-men and their mean women
pulling poor blankets over
our sailors
I’m sick of dour faces
Staring at me from the TV
Tower, I want roses in
my garden bower; dig?
Royal babies, rubies
must now replace aborted
Strangers in the mud
These mutants, blood-meal
for the plant that’s plowed.
They are waiting to take us into
the severed garden
Do you know how pale and wanton thrillful
comes death on a strange hour
unannounced, unplanned for
like a scaring over-friendly guest you’ve
brought to bed
Death makes angels of us all
and gives us wings
where we had shoulders
smooth as raven’s
claws
No more money, no more fancy dress
This other kingdom seems by far the best
until it’s other jaw reveals incest
and loose obedience to a vegetable law.
I will not go
Prefer a Feast of Friends
To the Giant Family.
Background an Albinoni http://www.baroquemusic.org/bqxalb.html
Doors: Albinoni’s Adagio In G Minor Albinoni_ Adagio For Organ & Strings In G Minor
June 28: So what’s behind the enduring appeal of some of the Doors’ songs? For one thing, they sometimes are lifted and twisted from the masters. A case in point: Check out Asturias from Albeniz’ Suite Espanola and then the opening of “Spanish Caravan,” from Waiting for the Sun (1968). Robbie Krieger must have practiced Albeniz’s music for some time when he was learning how to play Flemenco guitar. From there, it’s just one small step to an original based on it. For another, in their better songs, the lyrics mesh with the music. Here the exotic lyrics blend with the Spanish flavor of the music like water is wet.
Albeniz_ Asturias (from Suite espanola, Op. 47) Spanish Caravan
June 27: “Peace Frog” doesn’t jump out at me as ranking with the better songs on Morrison Hotel (1970), but there’s an interesting story behind it. In Riders on the Storm, Densmore writes,
‘Peace Frog’ was frustrating. Robby had this great rhythm likce, but Jim wasn’t coming up with something lyrically to complement it. One day, when he was around the corner at the Palms Bar with Frank and Babe, we went ahead and recorded an instrumental based on Robbie’s lick. The track smoked! Jim finally came in to do some vocals, and Rothchild asked him to bring his poetry notebooks the next day. The following afternoon Paul and JIm performed a minor miracle. They superimposed two lyric poems, two lines of thought, on top of each other. One was a metaphor for Jim’s life: the other, a metaphor for Pam.
She came
Blood in the streets, it’s up to my knee
She came
Blood in the streets in the town of Chicago
She came
Blood on the rise, it’s following me
Think about the break of day
She came and then she drove away
Sunlight in her hair
She came
Blood in the streets runs a river of sadness
She came
Blood in the streets it’s up to my thigh
She came
Yeah the river runs red down the legs of a city
She came
The women are crying red rivers of weepin’
She came into town and then she drove away
Sunlight in her hair
Indians scattered on dawn’s highway bleeding
Ghosts crowd the young child’s fragile eggshell mind
Blood in the streets in the town of New Haven
Blood stains the roofs and the palm trees of Venice
Blood in my love in the terrible summer
Bloody red sun of Fantastic L.A.
Blood screams her brain as they chop off her fingers
Blood will be born in the birth of a nation
Blood is the rose of mysterious union
There’s blood in the streets, it’s up to my ankles
Blood in the streets, it’s up to my knee
Blood in the streets in the town of Chicago
Blood on the rise, it’s following me
Densmore later goes on to address Morrison: ”Robby, Ray, and I and our respective mates were enjoying our material success, while you continued to go down in spirit. Or as you wrote in ‘Peace Frog,’ the blood continued to rise. A ’spirit’ was taking over your body, wasn’t it?” (pp. 245-24 6). And here I always thought the blood referred to the blood being spilled in the streets of protest sweeping America at the time. The green section refers to an incident in which the young Morrison witnessed death on the highway and believed the dead indian’s spirit had invaded his. ”When You’re Strange,” the recent documentary on the Doors, also references the incident. Peace Frog (live New York)
June 26: Like its predecessor, Morrison Hotel, the Doors’ final studio album with Morrison, L.A. Woman, had a healthy dose of blues. A case in point: “Been Down So Long,” which took its title and refrain from Richard Farina’s novel, “Been Down So Long, It Looks Like Up to Me,” which itself quotes Furry Lewis’ “Turn Your Money Green.” Richard Farina, a contemporary of Bob Dylan, was a counterculture songwriter and folk singer, dulcimer player, and scene-maker in addition to being a novelist. Some believe he might have given Dylan a run for his money had he not died in a motorcycle accident in 1966, unlike Bob, who survived his. His best-known song is “Pack Up Your Sorrows,” which to my ear doesn’t rank anywhere near Dylan’s best folk or rock. ”Been Down So Long” offers blatant male chauvinism patterned after John Lee Hooker. From p. 343 of Sugarman’s and Hopkins’ No One Here Gets Out Alive:
I said baby, baby, baby,
Won’t you get down on your knees
C’mon little darlin’
Won’t you give your love to me
From Hooker:
Crawl. crawl, c’mon crawl
Get on out there on your hands and knees, baby
Crawl all over me.
Been Down So Long [Detroit: Live] http://www.richardandmimi.com/beendown.html
June 25: Jim Morrison was schooled at a time when Edith Hamilton’s book on Greek and Roman mythology was standard across much of the country, if not all of it. Hence, it’s not surprising that he would draw on mythology for a song or two. In Riders on the Storm, Densmore gives the lowdown on the origin of “Hyacinth House” from L.A. Woman (1971).
“Edith Hamilton’s book on Greek mythology illuminated the Hyacinth myth for me. She helped me realize that Jim’s song, ‘Hyacinth House,’ was probably the saddest one he ever wrote. Hamilton wrote: ’Another flower that came into being through the death of a beautiful youth was the hyacinth. The festival of Hyacinths/That lasts throught the tranquil night. In a contest with Apollo/He was slain. Discuss throwing they competed/And the god’s swift cast/Sped beyond the goal he aimed at/and struck Hyacinthus full in the forehead a terrible wound.
He had been Apollo’s dearest companion. There was no rivalry between them when they tried which could throw the discus the farthest; they were only playing a game. The god was horror-struck to see the blood gush forth and the lad, deathly pale, fall to the ground. He turned as pale himself as he caught him in his arms and tried to stanch the wound. But it was too late. When he held him the boy’s head fell back as a flower does when its stem is broken. He was dead and Apollo kneeling beside him wept for him, dying so young, so beautiful He had killed him, although through no fault of his own, and he cried, ‘Oh, if I could give my life for yours or die for you . . .’ Even as he spoke, the bloodstained grass turned green again and there bloomed forth the wondrous flower that would make the lad’s name known forever.”
“This passage is a very synchronistic metaphor for our band. Ray, who had ‘discovered’ Jim, always refers to himself as an Appollonian. There was no rivalry between us when we wrote and arranged our songs; hence, we split the publishing. Jim forgot that life is a game, and self-destructed at a young age, although not so beautiful anymore. The Doors had killed him, through no fault of the band members, and Ray, sacrificing our individuality, never misses an opportunity to promote Jim. Our songs (flowers) have bloomed with wondrous longevity” (pp. 257-257).
Hyacinth House (demo) Hyacinth House
June 24: Regrettably, the Lizard King checked out of the Morrison Hotel before the Doors were able to record a live version of “L.A. Woman,” his melancholic ode to the city of lost angels. I’ve heard cover bands do it, and it never fails to satisfy. A health portion of the album, also titled L.A. Woman (1971), paid subtle tribute to musical predecessors, such as James Brown and Elvis Presley. This song is no different. In Riders on the Storm, Densmore writes,
“Another tip of the hat to Jim’s roots was in the song ‘L.A. Woman.’ We had cut the tempo in half for the “change the mood from glad to sadness” middle section, and Jim came up with this phrase he wanted to repeat over and over. Since it contained the black slang word mojo (for sexual prowess), I got the idea to steadily increase the tempo back up to the original speed, a la orgasm. It was hard to estimate the original tempo after five minutes of slow music, but we got it on the second take. After getting the song down ot tape, Jim called Ray, Robby, and me into the back room. ‘Check this out.’ He wrote: JIM MORRISON ‘Watch this,’ he said with self-satisfaction. He then proceeded to write each letter below in a different order, crossing each out in his name, one at a time. Jim the anagram man. MR MOJO RISIN The phrase we just recorded in ‘L.A.’ Woman’! ’God damn, Jim,’ I said. ’That’s cool!’ ” ‘Very nice,’ Ray added. Robby smiled. (p.259).
Ironically, Morrison was losing his rock mojo. After a promising show in Dallas in December of 1970, the Doors proceeded to New Orleans the next night, where they hit “the lowest note yet.” Ray Manzarek maintains he witnessed Morrison’s spirit leaving him that night. After the show, the three Doors had a secret meeting and decided they were through performing. “Three pallbearers, standing in the rain, had just put our live act in the ground. Finally.” (p. 263). L.A. Woman
June 23: Bob Dylan made songs of epic length possible with classics like “It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding,” “Desolation Row” and “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,” to name a few of the more prominent ones. But all of these were pretty much singular in tone and volume. In other words, the music itself didn’t change from stanza to stanza, just the words. With “The End” and today’s featured song, “When the Music’s Over,” the Doors take Dylan’s approach a step further by adding improvisational elements in the middle, by having a range of tones, and by offering a wide dynamic range with sections as soft as a whisper to sections as loud as a full-throated roar.
With a melody that’s a second cousin to “Soul Kitchen,” this Doors’ masterpiece offers just about every facet of their palette: Existential fatalism in “music is your only friend/until the end”; fear of death: Before I sink
Into the big sleep/ I want to hear I want to hear/ The scream of the butterfly,” here with the organ echoing the sense; a romantic plea, presumably to Pam: “Come back, baby/ Back into my arms”; ecological concern in “what have they done to the earth? What have they done to our fair sister?/ Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her/Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn/And tied her with fences and dragged her down” [ages before BP!); rejection of salvation: "Cancel my subscription to the Resurrection/ Send my credentials to the House of Detention/I got some friends inside," only to be followed later by a climactic and futile plea for it: "Save us/Jesus!", culminating in the lament that music is your only friend. And last but not least, a rebellious political chant all young people at the time understood, one which yours truly and his friends similarly afflicted with the instant-gratification syndrome adopted as their own: "We want the world and we want it now!" This line leading to a shattering crescendo. Throw into the mix a psychedelic guitar solo, percussive bursts, improvisational organ riffs, volume shifts, some cryptic lines, all in a minor key, and you have quintessential Doors before they went soft with The Soft Parade. One of my major concert disappointments occurred when Morrison skipped the climactic "Persian night, babe/See the light, babe /Save us!/Jesus! Save us!", letting the music speak for itself, which it didn't. When The Music's Over (Live: In Concert)
June 22: Though well short of a masterpiece, the bluesy rock of Morrison Hotel was a welcome shift away from the string-drenched, syrupy mush that characterized much of the misguided fourth album, The Soft Parade. One of the better songs on the album and certainly the one with the most airplay is the blues shuffle, "Roadhouse Blues." The song is another Morrison is said to have written for Pam, the lyrics a reference to something he'd often say to her as they headed out for a favorite place.
Yeah, keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel
Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel
Yeah, we're goin' to the Roadhouse
We're gonna have a real
Good time
In Riders on the Storm, Densmore gives some background on the recording. "One day Rothchild [the producer] arrived as excited as we had ever seen him. And he was always excited, but a little extra that day. ’I just saw Lonnie Mack, the guitar player, walking down the hall and asked him if he wanted to play bass on a blues since Ray Neapolitan called and is going to be late.’ We had used bass players on our albums since the second one, to get that punch. Robby perked up and muttered, ‘Sounds good.’ ’What was his hit?’ I asked, half impressed. ’Memphis.’ ’Yeah, that was cool!’ I agreed.”So Mack arrived shortly thereafter, a bit reluctant because he wasn’t a bass player, but after being told it was a shuffle, he assented, saying, ‘Ok, teach me the changes.’
Lonnie sat down in front of the paisley baffles that soaked up the sound. A hefty guy with a pencil-thin beard, he had on a wide-brimmed, floppy leather hat that had become his trademark. Lonnie Mack epitomized the blues–not the rural blues, but city blues; he was bad. ‘I’ll sing the lyrics for you,’ Jim offered meekly. He was unusually shy. We all were, because to us, the guitar player we had asked to sit in with us was a living legend. Three hours later we had gotten the track. ’Goddamn, Lonnie,” I exclaimed. ‘You laid back as far as pssible on the turnarounds, the let-it-roll sections. You’re in the back of the pocket, as far back as you can get.’ ’Is it okay?’ ‘It’s great. Fantastic!’ I countered. One beat is about a mile too long, I thought to myself. Military music is on the front of the beat, black music on the back. This track we’d just laid down is so far back it’s as if we shifted down into second gear” (pp. 234-235). Roadhouse Blues (The Doors In Concert)
June 21: “Alabama Song” (“Whisky Bar”) is Jim Morrison’s signature song even though it wasn’t written by him or his bandmates. Some background on the song from Wikipedia: “The “Alabama Song” (also known as “Whisky Bar” or “Moon over Alabama” or “Moon of Alabama“) was originally published in Bertolt Brecht’s Hauspostille (1927). It was set to music by Kurt Weill for the 1927 “Songspiel” Mahagonny and used again in Weill’s and Brecht’s 1930 opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. In the latter, it is performed by the character Jenny and her fellow prostitutes in the first act. Musically it contains elements of foxtrot, blues and advanced soprano coloraturas, sung by Jenny Corless.”
Though Morrison did all kinds of drugs to excess, hallucinogenic and otherwise, in his effort to go to extremes, at bottom he was a drunk, something that marred or ruined many a performance and contributed mightily to the Doors’ reputation as the bad boys of rock among critics and venue operators. The Weill tune is a good fit for the Doors because of its cabaret-style mix of music and theater. ”Unknown Soldier” would seem to mimic the tune. With the release of the bluesy rock of Morrison Hotel, the Lizard King was hoping to improve his image and consented to a series of PBS interviews with Jerry Hopkins, a correspondent for Rolling Stone, the rock magazine that had done the most damage to the Doors’ reputation. From No One Here Gets Out Alive:
“At the end of the third session Jim stretched amiably and stared at Jerry, who seemed to have run out of questions. ’Don’t you want to talk about my drinking?’ Jim asked. He shifted in the chair, smiling. ’Well, yeah, sure,’ Jerry said. ’You’ve got a reputation for . . .’ ‘getting drunk,’ Jim finished. ’Well, it’s true, all true. Getting drunk is, uh . . . getting drunk, you’re in complete control . . . up to a point. It’s your choice, every time you take a sip. You have a lot of small choices.’ There was a long pause. Jerry waited for more. ’It’s like . . . I guess it’s the difference between suicide and slow capitulation.’
Did Jim really believe he was slowly drinking himself to death and not care becaue it fulfilled the poetic tradition of which he was so enamored? Or did he simply, for dramatic effect, choose to suggest that was his fate? Jerry decided to try to find out.
‘What do you mean by that?’ he asked. Jim laughed easily. ‘I don’t know, man, let’s go next door and get drunk’ (pp. 245-246).
A few years earlier, he had this to say about drink in response to a former girlfriend’s (Tandy Martin) question as to why he drank so much. ’I've been drinking,’ Jim said finally, ‘but I’m getting good at it. I can tell now, I can, uh, gauge everthing so that I stay in one place. Ever sip is another chance, another flashing chance at bliss’ (pp. 113-114). In The Crystal Ship, it’s a kiss that gives that chance. For comparison purpose, here are versions by the Doors and by Marianne Faithfull. Alabama Song (Whisky Bar) [Doors In Concert]Alabama Song (Faithful: live)
June 20: Here’s a case where an excerpt from the movie When You’re Strange gives a better appreciation of a song, in this case, the comparatively lightweight “Touch Me,” the single of which caused many a Doors fan to shudder at the pop pap being served up complete with horns. The song climbed the charts, of course, serving as yet another reminder that the public ear is mostly tin and tinsel. Speaking of which, here’s a live take of the song from tinseltown.
Touch Me [Hollywood: 7/21/69] Touch Scares-(By Jim Morrison)-(w Johnny Depp)
June 19: Mozart’s music has been described as having a shadowed joy about it, especially his later compositions. Much the same could be said about the music of the Doors. Even beneath the most shimmering surface there is a sense of existential dread and sadness. Take “Summer’s Almost Gone” from Waiting for the Sun (1968), for example. The melody is beguiling but with an edgy cast. Then, there are the lines. The first three follow the course of a summer day and suggest an ecstatic appreciation of the sensuous world, but the fourth line signals the dread in the awareness that summer is slipping away. But it’s not just summer. It’s life itself. In the last verse, “winter’s coming on.” This song exemplifies the use of natural symbols to point to more universal meanings–summer as life at its fullest, followed by winter, the season of death. It also exemplifies a technique used sparingly by the Doors–beginning with the chorus instead of the verse. I think it’s one of their more evocative songs, an ideal summer ender, though a touch thin on development.
Morning found us calmly unaware
Noon burn gold into our hair
At night, we swim the laughing sea
When summer’s gone
Where will we be
Where will we be
Where will we be
Summer’s Almost Gone (S.F. Matrix: 3/10/67)
June 18: ”Moonlight Drive” is the song that gave birth to the Doors. In 1965, Morrison had written a number of lyrics that would end up on the first three albums, but there was no music for them, much less a band to play it. In August, he happened upon Ray Manzarek walking along Venice Beach. They had known each other in film school but were merely acquaintances, ships that had passed in the night. According to No One Here Gets Out Alive, here’s the dialogue between Morrison and Manzarek:
“‘Hey, man!,”
“‘Hey, Ray, how ya doin’?'”
“‘Okay. I thought you went to New York.’”
“‘No I stayed here. Living with Dennis on and off. Writin’.'”
“‘Writing? What’cha been writing?”
“‘Oh, not much,’” Jim said. ”‘Just some songs.’”
“‘Songs?’” Ray asked. ”‘Let’s hear em.”
Jim squatted down in the sand. Ray kneeled in front of him. Jim balanced himself with a hand to either side, squeezing the sand through his finders, eyes clamped shut. He chose the first verse of ‘Moonlight Drive.” The words were slow and careful:
Let’s swim to the moon, uh huh
Let’s climb through the tide
Penetrate the evenin’ that the
City sleeps to hide
When he finished, Ray said, “‘Those are the greatest fuckin’ song lyrics I’ve ever heard. [Apparently Ray hadn't heard Dylan yet!] Let’s start a rock ‘n’ roll band and make a million dollars.’
“‘Exactly,” Jim said back. ”‘That’s what I had in mind all along.’” (pp. 60-61).
Soon, the pair was working on songs in Ray’s “small, funky apartment, Jim nervously holding lyrics for security (although he knew them all), standing still and motionless, wishing the moth he was sure was stuck in his mouth would go away” while Ray played the piano (64).
Moonlight Drive (S.F. Matrix: 3/10/67)
June 17: In a 1967 Newsweek interview, Morrison described what the Doors were all about: ”It’s a search, an opening of one dor after another. As yet there’s no consistent philosophy or politics. Sensuousness and evil is an attractive image to us now, but think of it as a snakeskin that will shed sometime. Our work, our performing, is a striving for metamorphosis. Right now I’m more interested in the dark side of life, the evil thing, the dark side of the moon, the nighttime. But in our music it appears to me that we’re seeking, striving, trying to break though to some cleaner, freer realm” (No One Here Gets Out Alive 143). If “evil” describes the Doors’ work, it would have to be evil lite, but the dark side of the moon and nighttime certainly fit. A case in point, the eerie “End of the Night” from their debut album. Here we have a dichotomy set up between those born to sweet delight and those born to the endless night, heirs of Poe and Dracula forever denied “realms of bliss” and “realms of light.” Note the explosion of volume on the final verse so typical of the early Doors. End Of The Night
June 16: Like many performers of the sixties, the Doors were students of the blues, particularly the urban blues of Chicago and Chess Records. And of course they expressed their love by doing covers of blues tunes and occasionally performing with a bluesman. But unlike, say, Cream, Hendrix, Dylan, and Led Zeppelin to name a few, they never quite took the blues to a different place. Their performances are enjoyable, sometimes even smoking, but never truly transcendent. On their first album, they tackle “Back Door Man,” a Willie Dixon tune made famous by Howlin’ Wolf. Here’s what Densmore has to say in Riders on the Storm:
Oh, yeah, ma
Yeah, I’m a back door man
I’m a back door man
The men don’t know
But the little girls understand
“Obviously Jim knew something I didn’t understand. His gutteral grunts in the intro of ‘Back Door Man’ were those of an old black man in the bayou who had been through the wars with women.
You men eat your dinner
Eat your pork and beans
I eat more chicken
Than any man ever seen, yeah, yeah
I’m a back door man, what
The men don’t know
But the little girls understand
“It took me a while to realize that the verse was about the other men only sleeping with their whiles while the singer was sleeping with all of them, but having to steal away in the middle of the night” (p. 118). Back door man is a double-entendre. On the one hand, it’s a lover who comes/leaves through the back door as opposed to the hubby, the front-door man. But it can also mean the style of love-making illegal in many states back then, the kind that would eliminate any chance of pregnancy and detection. For comparison purposes, I’ve posted a live Doors version and the original by Howlin’ Wolf. I like both, but one has a lot more menace to it. Back Door Man [S.F: Matrix: 3/10/67) Back Door Man (Howlin' Wolf)
June 15: Today's theme: All that glitters is not gold. The year is 1969 after the "flasher incident" in Miami and after a four-show gig at a sleazy supper-club place in Mexico in June, where Densmore writes he "could hear the clanking of silverware right in the middle of the Oedipal section" of "The End," Morrison looking strikingly out of place in his leather pants. Back in L.A. Densmore noticed something odd about the gold album he'd just received for Waiting for the Sun--the number of songs on the label didn't match the number of songs on the disc. "Wait a minute," he told his girlfriend Julia, "let me see. 'Love Street' is about three minutes long, and there's no way it could fit into this tiny bandwidth! This song looks like it's under two minutes'" (Riders on the Storm, p. 22).
He continues: "After getting a hammer from the kitchen, I took the gold record outside to the trash cans. I leaned the frame over one of the cans and tapped hard on the glass. It broke and I carefully pulled out the record, making sure there wasn't any broken glass stuck to it. I brought it back inside to the turntable. 'This thing is really flimsy. It isn't a real record . . . some kind of pressing. . . . I wonder if it will play?' I put the needle down on the first cut, and through lots of audio crackling we could hear a lare orchestra with someone reciting poetry. 'It's Rod McKuen! It's fucking Rod McKuen!' 'That's funny,' Julia laughed. "Why do you think they did it?'"
I laughed uproariously, yet at the same time I felt insulted. 'I don't believe it. Theyr'e too cheap to spend five or six bucks on the real thing. So they just get an old $1.98 Thrifty Drug Store discount bin record and schlock it with fake gold, stick a new label on it, and slam it into a frame! God Damn. Another myth shattered" (p.237). Guess as the song goes, the first cut is the deepest. "Love Street"'s a good, light song, though with a catchy melody and piano solo. According to Sugarman's No One Here Gets Out Alive, the song is about Morrison and his soulmate Pamela's "place on Rothdell Trail called 'Love Street" (p.112). I know of no live version, unfortunately. Love Street
June 14:
This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes...again
Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need...of some...stranger's hand
In a...desperate land
The opening portion of the "The End" can be read in at least two ways: 1) as the end of a love relationship 2) the end of existence, which is how Apocalypse, Now frames it. Yet however deserving these lines are of attention, the notoriety of the song stems from the later Oedipal portion where the speaked shouts the desire to kill his father and rape his mother. So what's the point? Shock value? Well, Morrison did like to test boundaries. But according to John Densmore in Riders on the Storm, there was more to it than that. Describing a break after several hours of failing to record the song respectably, he writes,
"We walked out into the blinding light of the neon lobby and bought some junk food out of the machines. Jim began chanting "'FUCK the mother, kill the father. Fuck the mother, KILL the father.' He looked deranged. He caught me staring at him, catching his eyes for a split-second glance, and he responed, 'It's my mantra, man. Fuck the mother, kill the father.' At that moment I thought that anything was possible with this guy. He could murder somebody.
In an interview with Crawdaddy done after the release of the first album, Paul explained Jim's position: 'At one point Jim said to me during the recording session, and he was tearful, and he shouted in the studio: 'Does anybody understand me?' And I said yes I do, and right then and there we got into a long discussion, and Jim kept saying over and over kill the father, fuck the mother, and essentially it boils down to this: kill all those things inside yourself which are instilled in you and are not of yourself; they are alien concepts which are not yours. They must die. The psychedelic revolution. Fuck the mother is very basic, and it means get back to the essence, what is reality, what is, fuck the mother is very basically mother, mother-birth, real, you can touch it, it's nature, it can't lie to you. So what Jim says at the end of the Oedipus section, which is essentially the same thing that the classic says, kill the alien concepts, get back to reality, the end of alien concerpts, the beginning of personal concepts.' I wasn't so sure, but Paul indulged Jim the rest of the afternoon, and the next day we finally got a take" (p. 88).The End (from Doors Live)
June 13: Although "Light My Fire" was their signature hit, "The End" is the one song that will ensure the Doors will remain in the public consciousness until, well, the end. The reason is fairly simple. The song is wedded to Coppola's classic Apocalyse Now, a film that enjoys both popular and critical success, including, most importantly, in academe. Every time a film student is exposed to the movie, there's another potential fan; every time there's a Coppola retrospective or a forum on Vietnam War films or just war films, there's another potential fan.
This classic song deserves a couple posts. Here's an anecdote about it involving the legendary groupie, Pamela Des Barres, who slept (speaking euphemistically, of course) with any number of sixties rockers, including the whipmaster Jimmie Page. Des Barres was living in Laurel Canyon at the time and awakened one day to the sound of the Doors echoing faintly through her window shade at about two in the afternoon.
In I'm with the Band, she writes, "I knew they had recorded an album, but it hadn't been released yet! Who had a copy! Who, who within a hundred yards of my presence had a copy? . . . I was thrilled to realize that the music was coming from the green shack-house to my left and down a few dozen precarious steps. In Laurel Canyon, that meant right next door. I threw on a purple dress and started down the steps to make the acquaintance of the ultrahip neighbor who had a prereleased copy of the Doors' first album.
I decided to peek in a window first so I wouldn't catch this hip person in the middle of an act of intimacy brought on by the sensual moans of Jim Morrison. I tiptoed over the rickety porch, looked into the kitchen, and clapped my hand over my mouth to capture the scream that threatened to shatter the staggering moment. Jim Morrison in the FLESH, wearing nothing but his black leather pants, was digging around in the fridge, humming along with 'The End'; 'Mother, I want to . . .' Oh, my God! I pinched myself, peeked again for the sheer joy of it, and scrambled back up the stairs to decide what to do next. He moves, he breathes, he lives right next door!!!!" [she loves those giggly exclamation points!!!].
Shortly thereafter, after being advised by her roommate Sandy to go introduce herself, she went for it. ”I don’t know how long it took me to get down the steps; the gongs were always bonging away in my brain, so I couldn’t hear the birds twittering or the cars going by, much less the ticking of my cheap Timex. When I came to my extremely sensual senses, I was in the middle of a perfect backbend on Jim Morrison’s tatty Oriental rug, my purple velvet mini-dress completely over my head, his redheaded girlfriend glaring down at me. I expected Rod Serling to appear in the doorway to narrate this ultimate in ‘uh-oh’ moments. Trying to regain my composure, I stood up out of my backbend and offered the redhead a spot of Trimar, avoiding the lizard king who hovered in the corner whispering ‘Get it on’ under his breath. She told me I had better leave, and I didn’t even remember arriving. I backed out the door and ran back up the stairs, berating myself profusely for being such an idiot.”
But soon Morrison was at the door, smiling sheepishly. ”He was very interested in the quart of Trimar, accepted my hankerchief, and inhaled deeply. Social amenities were out the door for the next few hours. We sniffed the stuff, lolling around the floor, laughing at everything, until the bottle was dry . . . By this time it was the middle of the night, and I was unable to obtain a second bottle, so Jim said a pleasant good-night and thanked Sandy and me for the wonderful hospitality. I was disappointed that he made no attempt to lay a hand on me, but I had hopes for the future, the very near future as a matter of fact” (p. 69).
And to make a long story short, she got her man at the Hullaballo Club in L.A., rolling around in a dingy, dark loft while they were stoned until Morrison was drawn down by the echoes of ‘Light My Fire.’ After following him down a ladder, she discovered she was “ONSTAGE with the Doors, [her] mouth hanging wide open, dragging her tatty coat, her half-bottle of Trimar, and her soppy hankies, too shocked to move” (p. 71). Ah, those were the days . . . .The End [S.F: Matrix: 3/10/67)
June 12: So the question is, how was the serene quality of Jim Morrison's vocals on "You're Lost Little Girl" from Strange Days achieved? Herein hangs the tale direct from John Densmore's Riders on the Storm:
"'I think your song, Robby, is perfect for Frank Sinatra,'" Ray suggested with his tongue thoroughly inserted in his cheek. "'Frank should dedicate it to his wife, Mia Farrow.'" We all chuckled. The vocal had a serene quality, which may have been due to Rothchild's idea of having Jim's girlfriend Pam come down and give head to Jim while he sang. On one particular vocal take, Jim stopped singing in the middle of the song and we heard some rustling noises. Rothschild apparently dimmed the light in the vocal booth, and who knows what was going on in there? We went with a later take, but Paul's idea may have affected the vocal we went with. It had a tranquil mood, like the aftermath of a large explosion" [Can't get much more suggestive than that! 'Enclose me in your gentle rain']. When we finished mixing ‘You’re Lost Little Girl,’ we listened to it twice again. It sounded great” (p. 132). The method of recording may explain why there are no official releases of a live “You’re Lost Little Girl.” We can only imagine what the obscenity police in Miami and other places would have done had the Lizard King tried to replicate the studio version by using the same method. You’re Lost Little Girl
June 11: Part of the reason for Morrison’s lackadaisical performances and sometimes outright contempt for his audience was that the concept of the Doors as fusion of poetry, theater, and exploratory music was being lost to sex-god idolatry. Perhaps the finest example, albeit not the most famous, example of the fusion is “The Celebration of the Lizard,” a twenty-three minute piece whose lyrics graced the inside liner of Waiting for the Sun even though only part of it, “Not to Touch the Earth,” actually made the album, the title of which itself came from a song which wouldn’t show up on album until Morrison Hotel. Talk about make-shift albums.
In No One Here Gets Out Alive, Danny Sugarman quotes Morrison on his fascination with reptiles: ”‘We must not forget that the lizard and snake are identified with the unconscious and the forces of evil. There’s something deep in human memory that responds strongly to snakes. Even if you’ve never seen one. I think that a snake just embodies everything we fear.’ His long poem, he said, was ‘kind of invitation to dark forces,’ but the Lizard King image he projected was not. ‘It’s all done tongue-in-cheek,’ he insisted. ’I don’t think people realize that. It’s not to be taken seriously. It’s like if you play a villain in a western it doesn’t mean that it’s you. That’s just an aspect that you keep for show. I don’t really take that seriously. That’s supposed to be ironic’” (p. 191). Surprisingly, while Morrison arguably sees the snake’s role in the Garden of Eden, he misses the Freudian role of snakes as phallic symbols–he of all people. Whatever one’s take on the meaning of “The Celebration of the Lizard,” the live version features a fine example of music that dovetails with the lyrics, as in the organ to “cool air heights” and the lashing of brushes to evoke the flash of lizard’s tongue. ”Not to touch the Earth, not to see the sun” are lines from Jame’s Frazier’s seminal The Golden Bough, a book that traces vegetation myths, beliefs, and practices, including gods like Dionysus. T.S. Eliot drew on the book for The Waste Land. Celebration Of The Lizard (Live in New York)
June 10. So what do “My Favorite Things,” “St. James Infirmary,” and “Summertime” have in common? They’re not only classics but they’re referenced in the live instrumental of “Light My Fire,” the song that launched the Doors to the top of the pop charts and into public consciousness in 1967 even though the instrumental had be cut out so the song could fit the three-minutes-or-less criteria of AM radio. The Doors drew from deep and eclectic wells.
Legend has it that when the group was first formed, all agreed to come back to the next rehearsal with an original song but only Krieger managed to produce one, and it was “Light My Fire.” Obviously songs equating passion with fire have been around as long as the first chant of a caveman around a campfire, so there’s nothing new in the lyrics, but the sensuality and intensity of the last verse–those did stick out even in an era of Jimi Hendrix’s legendary “Fire” and Arthur Brown’s incendiary “Fire.” The organ introduction to the song is based on what musician’s call the “Circle of Fifths.” If you don’t think it makes a difference, compare the two versions present here. Light My Fire (S.F. Matric 3/10/67) Light My Fire (Vancouver 1970)
June 9: In an earlier post, we discussed how the Doors like to alternate between moderate decibels for the verse and double decibels for the chorus, as in “Soul Kitchen” and “Take It As it Comes.” Another technique they use often is to raise the intensity of the last verse, sometimes even altering the melody a bit. If you’ve got a strophic structure–same music repeated over multiple verse–intensifying the verse can give a touch of variation and climax to the song. Morrison was a master at it, but he was also hopelessly moody and inconsistent. Unlike, say, Bruce Springsteen, who will prove it all night every night, Morrison would go for the jugular one night, retreat into lethargy the next. In this particular version of Bo Diddley’s classic, Who Do You Love, the Lizard King lashes out in the last verse, perhaps inspired by Robbie Krieger’s screaming slide guitar or the line about the cobra snake for a neck tie. The song features the patented Bo Diddley beat, which would have made him a millionaire if indeed it could have been patented.
Who Do You Love (Bo Diddley) Who Do You Love? (In Concert CD)
June 8: What does the music of the Doors, Leonard Cohen, and Claude Debussy have in common? Sensuality.
Here’s a standard definition of the term. sen·su·al (snsh-l)adj.1. Relating to or affecting any of the senses or a sense organ; sensory.2.a. Of, relating to, given to, or providing gratification of the physical and especially the sexual appetites. See Synonyms at sensuous.b. Suggesting sexuality; voluptuous.c. Physical rather than spiritual or intellectual.d. Lacking in moral or spiritual interests; worldly.
“The Crystal Ship” defines sensuality, combining languid and ecstatic music with suggestive lyrics. The speaker will leave soon on the crystal ship, which offers “a thousand girls, a thousand thrills” (as in standard rock tour), but now he is with a lover, whom, before she slips into unconsiousness, he’d like to give him another kiss and flashing chance at bliss and whom he like to “enclose” him in “gentle rain,” a poetic way of saying blow job. On the studio version, there’s a piano solo before the last emphatic verse, but on the live version, an organ does the honors. This is a ballad to be listened to a late summer’s day or early eve. To get a feel for the sensual, compare it to the selections by Cohen and Debussy. The Crystal Ship (S.F. The Matrix: 3/10/67) Suzanne (2009) Debussy: Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
June 7: Strange Days, the classic sophomore effort of the Doors, came out in October of 1967, just in time for Halloween with its eerie and evocative mix of blues and psychedelia. The warm organ sound that dominated the first album has been replaced by piano and a more edgy organ and guitar, all of which fits the dark poetry. The cover of the album makes one wish for the return of the album if for no other reason the cover art it makes possible. Here we see the dancing child with his chinese flute from Dylan’s “I Want You,” along with other characters from a circus troupe. The music itself could be the soundtrack for a story by Edgar Allen Poe. ”People Are Strange” is one of the singles from the album. In August of that year, Morrison had been in a funk, so Robbie Krieger, the guitarist, suggested a walk up the Appian Way for a panoramic view of the city. Morrison returned euphoric.
“‘What happened?’” Robbie asked him. ’Look at these lyrics,’” Jim said excitedly.
People are strange, when you’re a stranger/Faces look ugly, when you’re alone Women seem wicked, when you’re unwanted/Streets are uneven–when you’re down.
‘These are great, Jim . Have you got a melody to go with it?’ Jim smiled strangely and hummed a few bars. Robbie’s ears immediately perked up. He knew a hit when heard one . . . . ‘It just came to meall of a sudden . . . in a flash, as I was sitting up there on the ridge looking out over the city’” (Riders on the Storm, pp. 124-125
People Are Strange (Live 1967]
June 6: Like many groups from the sixties, the Doors were big fans of the blues. Indeed one of my first disappointing concerts occurred when they decided to do a blues-inflected show in Minneapolis featuring Tony Glover on the harmonica. No offense to the blues or to Glover, at that time a staple on the West Bank and an underground D.J., but like many Doors fans, at that time I wanted flame out, climatic, orgiastic rock. Blues were a bit too tame. I have since come to appreciate them, both southern front porch and north backroom bar. One of the favorite blues songs of John Densmore was “Crawling King Snake,” by John Lee Hooker. The scene is Ray Manzarek’s Ocean Park garage apartment. Morrison and Densmore talking as the Lizard King, fresh from a show, drops on John Lee Hooker album on the turntable.
“Play ‘Crawling King Snake,’” I demanded. ”I love the groover on it. When we’re on about our second or third album, I think we could record that. After we’ve done a lot of originals. Of course, we have to get a record deal first.” Which they did, but not until their last album, the bluesy LA Woman (1971), did they get around to recording it–in retrospect, just in the nick of time. By then, Morrison’s use of reptilian imagery as phallic symbol was firmly established. Crawling King Snake = Lizard King = Morrison, who believed an Indian had jumped his soul out on the desert. Here we have Hooker’s version and the Doors’. Crawlin’ King Snake (Hooker) Crawling King Snake (Matrix: S.F.: 3/10/67)
June 5: Years before Patti Smith did her incendiary take-off of Van Morrison’s garage classic, “Gloria,” the Doors did, though only in concert. Both versions feature a sexually evocative monologue in the middle of the song, breaking away from the tightly structured pop format. There’s an intriguing backstory to the Doors’ version. In Riders on the Storm, Densmore writes of being surprised when the teenybopper magazine 16 expressed interest in featuring a notorious and radical group like the Doors. He soon found out.
“I thought I was a renegade Catholic until I met Gloria Stavers. A thirty-year-old ex-model and head of 16, she was the first woman I had met who could trade on her power for sex, and it shocked me and shattered my illusions about how liberated I was. The scene at her magazine office was another nail in the coffin of my innocence. Gloria personally selected the teen idols who graced her covers, and Steve [head of promotions] said if she liked us–that is, if she liked Jim–it would be great for our career. She liked. . . . I had heard that if you took a look at the old covers of 16 you could see her conquests” (p. 117). All of this gives the monologue an extra dimension. 
Gloria (Doors Live 1970) Gloria (Smith: Park West: 1978) Gloria (Shadows of Knight)
June 4: The Doors were either the first rock group or one of the first to have songs with a wide dynamic range, with “The End” and “When the Music’s Over” being two of the more prominent examples. Most pop and rock songs stay at about the same volume and intensity level throughout, but not those of the Doors. Today’s song, “Soul Kitchen,” exemplifies one variation of their approach: a volume/intensity increase in the chorus. Later, artists like Bruce Springsteen, an avowed Doors’ fan, would mimic that. Think, “Darkness on the Edge of Town.” And, of course, Nirvana’s “Smells like Teen Spirit” became famous for its intense burst of rage in the chorus.
“Soul Kitchen” refers to “Olivia’s. A small soul food restaurant at the corner of Ocian Park and Main. A roadside diner that belonged in Biloxi, Mississippi (Densmore, Riders on the Storm 40). Packed with UCLA film students, “It looked like an Amtrak dining care that got stranded at the beach (40). Olivia “wore the traditional pring apron over a full skirt and had a slight limp in her right leg. Her vibe was warm, but the big black woman whose name was synonymous with soul never let any patrons in at closing time, and she always tried to hustle out the ones who were there. She didn’t care about a few extra dollars when she could have some peace. You knew she loved to cook for people, though” (41).
Soul Kitchen [The Matrix: S.F.:3/7/67)
June 3: In her book, The White Album, Joan Didion writes, “The Doors are different. They have nothing in common with the gentle Beatles. They lack the contemporary conviction that love is brotherhood and the Kama Sutra. Their music insists that love is sex and sex is death and therein lies salvation. The Doors are the Norman Mailers of the Top 40, missionaries of apolyptic sex . . . . It is Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger and John Densmore who make the Doors sound the way they do . . . but it is Morrison who gets up there in his black vinyl pants with no underwear and projects the idea . . . .” This month we’ll be exploring the many ways the Doors are different from other sixties groups despite sharing similarities. The Doors define sensuousness–the sun, the moon, rain, fire, the wind, the sea, sexual pleasure–all of these make up their palette. But the joy in these is shadowed by an acute awareness of their transient quality. An example of this doomed sensuousness: “Waiting for the Sun,” from Morrison Hotel, the 1970 album that came out two years after the album Waiting for the Sun, the cover of which fits the song. Here the advent of spring is equated with Eden. The speaker longs for a season at the seashore in the scattered sun at freedom’s. But there’s a shadow. His song is falling on resistent ears while he waits for his partner to tell him what went wrong.
June 1 and 2: An understanding of the Doors has to begin with the inspiration for their name, William Blake (1757-1827), the English romantic poet, painter, and engraver who said, “If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” In the mid-twentieth century, Aldous Huxley, author of the dystopian novel Brave New World among other works, took up the idea for a non-fiction book: “In the 1950s Huxley became famous for his interest in psychedelic or mind-expanding drugs like mescaline and LSD, which he apparently took a dozen times over ten years. Sybille Bedford says he was looking for a drug that would allow an escape from the self and that if taken with caution would be physically and socially harmless.
He put his beliefs in such a drug and in sanity into several books. Two, based on his experiences taking mescaline under supervision, were nonfiction: Doors of Perception (1954) and Heaven and Hell (1956). Some readers have read those books as encouragements to experiment freely with drugs, but Huxley warned of the dangers of such experiments in an appendix he wrote to The Devils of Loudun (1952), a psychological study of an episode in French history.http://somaweb.org/w/huxbio.html
Blake and Huxley are joined by other Romantic writers on both sides of the pond from Wordsworth and Coleridge to Emerson and Poe in believing that the rise of science with its emphasis on material fact and reason was reductionist and inadequate to describe the totality of experience. They believed that there are dimensions of existence and experience beyond our perception and that drugs could be a way to access them, drugs like opium and peyote. Poe saw hypnogogic sleep as vision into that world, and much of his work is centered on that concept. Ray Manzarek described the Doors’ first album as existential, and it is, but it also testifies to and continues the Romantic ideal of transcendence. The first song on The Doors (1967) is “Break on Through to the Other Side.” The other side of that window. They were joined in that quest by many other sixties artists who produced psychedelic tunes, such as the Byrds with “Fifth Dimension,” the Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit,” and the Amboy Dukes’ “Journey to the Center of the Mind.” It was a time to “tune in, turn on, and drop out.”
Of “Break on Through,” the drummer, John Densmore writes in Riders on the Storm (1991), that it was “chosen as the single, even though I was worried that the beat was too eccentric for the mass market. It was a fast bossa nova, a beat from Brazilian music I had incorporated into my drumming for the song . . . . When the single came out, we convinced friends and relatives to start calling the stations to request it. Getting the band off the ground was a twenty-four-hour obsession with each of us. If we weren’t practicing, we were sleeping. If we were eating, we were talking about the group.
“One day, I alled the KRLA request line for what was probably the fortieth time. I said I was Fred Schwartz from West Covina and they said. ’We know who you are, and if you don’t stop calling we’ll pull the record!’ I hoped I hadn’t ruined our career before it began. ’Break on Through’ slowly rose to number eleven in LA. It even made it to the bottom of the national charts, but just for a few weeks” (102-103). I guess you could also read the title as break on through to the other side of the charts. 04 Poem_ The Doors Of Perception-(By William Blake)-(w Johnny Depp)