Joan Didion - "Waiting For Morrison" in The Age Of Rock (Sounds Of The American Cultural Revolution) & her collection of writings The White Album

My copy of this is signed by the former owner (George J. Gill) and dated August 3, 1974. Note: "DOORS" in white and blue on cover. However, considering most of the articles, and photography are copyrighted 1967-1969, this edition is probably from 1969. Cover design by Nicole De Jurenev.

The book is dedicated: "In memory of Richard Farina", who you might remember inspired Been Down So Long, with his novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me. The book also contains an article by Farina, on Joan Baez (whose sister Mimi, Farina was married to) and Bob Dylan.

Photography Copyright  © 1969 by Elliot Landy.

Here's another copy of Didion's article on The Doors from a collection of her writings from the early 1980s - The White Album - just because it's such a good article...

'The Doors were the Norman Mailers of the Top Forty, missionaries of apocalyptic sex.'

'There was a base player borrowed from a band called Clear Light.'... Doug Lubahn

'It was Morrison who had described The Doors as "erotic politicians."'

Tennyson: 'The word that is the symbol of myself' and 'Repeating my own name to myself silently'.

Hello, I Love You and Baudelaire's "Á une passante"

1980s copy of Baudelaire's poetry

As well as the oft-cited musical resemblance of Hello, I Love You to The Kinks All Day And All Of The Night (and the never cited - up until now! - resemblance of My Eyes Have Seen You to The Kinks You Really Got Me, both of these tracks making the top ten in the US in 1964 - remember... Morrison's original Elektra bio had The Kinks as one of his favourite rock/pop groups), the resemblance also between the lyrics of HILY and French poet Charles Baudelaire's Á une passante from his collection of poems Tableaux Parisiens is quite striking...

Compare for instance the lines (badly translated here by Joanna Richardson in 1975) to the lyrics of HILY:

Tall, slender... Noble and lithe, her leg was sculptural... She holds her head so high, like a statue in the sky... her arms are wicked and her legs are long...

Early 1960s copy of Baudelaire's poetry, in French only

Of further note... as memory serves me (well or badly), HILY was used on the soundtrack of Oliver Stone's movie Platoon, The Cure have also covered HILY, as well as Nigel Kennedy on his Doors Concerto and there has also been a hit parody of the song by R.E.M. (although perhaps not evident as a parody at the time) with their track Pop Song '89 from their album Green. Here's the uncensored version of the latter:

Iggy Pop - The Passenger (And Morrison's "The Lords")

As Iggy (Jim Osterberg) Pop has freely admitted on several occasions, certain phrases from Morrison's poetry (The Lords) were lifted for the lyrics of the track The Passenger from Pop's album Lust For Life from 1977 (featuring David Bowie - Doors/Morrison connection #4 - on keyboards and vocals, and the rest of what was to make up the bowie-led band Tin Machine):

Modern life is a journey by car. The Passengers [my emphasis]
change terribly in their reeking seats, or roam
from car to car, subject to unceasing transformation.
Inevitable progress is made toward the beginning
(there is no difference in terminals), as we
slice through cities, whose ripped backsides [my emphasis] present
a moving picture of windows, signs, streets,
buildings. Sometimes other vessels, closed
worlds, vacuums, travel along beside to move
ahead or fall utterly behind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4hPnZUMBwA

Interestingly, other than having Danny Sugerman as his manager* during one period of his life, Pop also sang vocals on a version of L.A. Woman on July 3rd 1974 in the Whisky, backed by Ray Manzarek on keyboards and other musicians... Also, Iggy was to be involved in fronting Manzarek's band Nite City in the late 1970s but had a falling out with Manzarek.

*Read Sugerman's Wonderland Avenue

The Hitcher

I always think of the 1980s movie The Hitcher as a homage to HWY/Riders On The Storm (hence the younger main character is "Jim", and the older main character - the hitchhiker (actually the original name for HWY) - Rutger Hauer - is called John "Ryder"). Essentially, a hitchhiker is picked up in a "storm" and informs the driver that he has killed an entire family (calling to mind if you give this man a ride/sweet family will die and Morrison's phone call about killing someone in the desert in HWY) that had previously picked him up.

The chap who wrote the "original" story claimed it was from his own experience as a taxi driver (after he picked up someone on the road)... 

Also of note: soundtrack for movie by Mark Isham... Isham also worked with (both in the 1980s also) David Sylvian and in a Doors/Morrison related coincidence... Marianne Faithfull... Faithfull has never revealed her side of the story of Morrison's death, her silence speaking volumes...

These comments about the movie were originally posted a while back on Alice Cooper's music/radio show website, when he had L.A. Woman as album of the month (or something to that effect)...

Bertolt Brecht - Bad Time For Poetry

Worthy of note, is not only did The Doors include a Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill composition in the form of Alabama Song (Whisk[e]y Bar) as part of their repertoire, but also occasionally included as part of a live concert medley, the track: Ballad Of Mac The Knife.

In the Live At The Matrix shows from March 1967, unlike the studio version of Alabama Song, where Morrison sings 'Oh show me, the way, to the next little girl', the word 'boy' is substituted for 'girl'. In the Bad Time For Poetry translation, the adjective used to describe the girl is 'pretty' rather than 'little'. 'little boy/girl' hints more at the darker paedophile/child abusing attributes of the song's protagonist/character (not the singer, it is but merely a persona/mask for the few minutes the song lasts), and since Brecht's work describes and exposes the dark underbelly of city life, where everything is for sale, including sex with young children, whether boy or girl, this adjective is more appropriate and accurate. 'Pretty' is a softer adjective possibly implying the girl/s in question are not what we may think they are, or are being used for, but "the next..." pretty/little girl, indicates that there have been many more beforehand, used and discarded like the city of Mahagonny's trash. A simple drinking song, this isn't.

Hence also, lines such as these from Ballad Of Mac The Knife:

And the ghastly fire in Soho - 
Seven children at a go - 
In the crowd stands Mac the Knife, but he
Isn't asked and doesn't know. 

And the child-bride in her nightie
Whose assailant's still at large
Violated in her slumbers - 
Mackie, how much did you charge?


Curiously and coincidentally,  the phrase 'blue sunday' (the name of a Doors song of course) appears in an earlier verse:

On a beautiful blue Sunday
See a corpse stretched in the Strand.
See a man dodge round the corner...
Mackie's friends will understand.

I'm sure The Doors/Morrison did not realise the full implication of the "Little Girl" phrase and its context, but it cannot be anything other than a extremely dark commentary on early modern living (from the male perspective of course - most of the first album is "cock rock" at its best after all) no matter who sings it... And then there's You're lost, LITTLE girl, from Strange Days, which of course, has a completely different context... and then there's The men don't know, but the little girls understand from Back Door Man from the same first album. And for such a supposedly apolitical group (the throwaway "erotic politicians" phrase springs to mind here), why did they pick a song that was penned by such an ardent socialst and politically-minded man as Brecht??? possibly they perceived how the song could be take completely out of its original context and used as a paean to total debauchery rather than as an indictment of all that is wrong with modern society??? 

wine, women, (and song) and money... motel money murder madness... the idea that money had nothing to do with the Alabama Song for instance, just because it didn't suit Morrison's/The Doors' perception of their own society is an insult to the original... by excising that verse, Morrison contradicts his later poetic statement, that "Money Beats Soul... everytime." You're entitled to change your mind, but make up your mind eventually.

Apologies for the rant...

Bowie connection #3: David Bowie did a cover of Alabama Song in the late 1970s/early 1980s, which included all three verses. In 1982, Bowie also starred in a BBC production of and sang songs from Brecht's play Baal.

Annabel Lamb - Riders On The Storm - 1983

Typical-sounding (for the period) 1983 version of Riders On The Storm by Annabel Lamb, from the A&M album "Once Bitten". Produced by Wally Brill and David Anderle. Sleeve photography (some of which I vaguely remember being from the music video of the same name) by Fin Costello. I do also remember the track being used for a car advertisement at one stage. The uncensored version of the video showed "the knife".

Cleansing the Doors of Perception

It is an interesting debate to consider whether the inclusion or exclusion of one word, that of "High" in Break on Through (to the Other Side) makes much difference. In fact it sounds as if Morrison is slurring the word "higher" at the end of this section.

I agree with both the usual opinions: a) that with its exclusion/excision, it allows for tension and a sort-of orgasmic build-up to climax and release - like a lot of Doors songs - much in the vein of classical music generally... the release is short lived however, as the song builds to another climax quite quickly, that culminates in the songs end, and b) with its inclusion, and extension, played out as a free-floating release from the tension of a building climax, it gives the listener time to recuperate, to build up yet again... 

It would be interesting to also mention whether any radio stations had censored the word "higher" from Light My Fire, when it was originally released... and also of note is whether or not one of the original lyrics in The Crystal Ship (the title in itself a reference to methamphetamine?) was "a thousand girls, a thousand pills" rather than "a thousand girls, a thousand thrills".

I think that perhaps producer Paul Rothchild had noted the overuse of drug imagery in the lyrics and music of the first album (as suggested in NHGOA*) and maybe suggested the downplay of such, since it was pretty obvious in the first place, and what was the point of ramming it down the listener's throat... No poetic subtlety in that!

*No One Here Gets Out Alive

Ray Manzarek at Róisín Dubh, Galway, Ireland, 1999

Autograph from Ray Manzarek on back of Wierd Scenes Inside The Gold Mine cassette inlay cover/card, obtained at a gig in 1999 in the Roisin Dubh in Galway, Ireland. Dorothy, his good lady wife, was seated beside him at the bar.

The Ballad of Tindersticks, by Tindersticks, 1997

Lyrics from The Ballad of Tindersticks, by Tindersticks, 1997, from the album "Curtains"...

Up to Sunset 
We creep up the drive to the Chateau
The suite Belushi died in ...
Or the one Morrison hung out of the window
Oh, I’ll go for Jim’s
I would fancy a little window-hanging myself, tonight, man

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GVNrn6JPTQ&feature=related 

Films and filming, June, 1970, Costa-Gavras Interviewed

As noted in an earlier post about the film 'Z', this may or may not be (some like Courson herself stated it was Pursued with Robert Mitchum) the last film Jim Morrison (and possibly Courson) saw before his death in July, 1971. It would seem that it may have been a film Morrison would be interested in, since a subject matter concerning political assassination sat well with Morrison's take on contemporary society, when it came to writing his poetry/song lyrics (especially when comments on the topic of assassination by Morrison have oft been quoted, and also where Morrison in either/or or both of The Lords/The New Creatures poetry collections deals specifically but minimally with the subject of political assassinations...). Remember that Morrison during his late teens/early twenties lived through a period of intense political, social, religious and economic upheaval in the USA. Assassination, arrest, and an apocalyptic mood was the main order of the day.

DAVID BOWIE BLACK BOOK by Miles & Chris Charlesworth (Bowie Connection #2)

Bowie connection #2:

According to this Bowie biography from 1988, Bowie had compared the lighting and Brechtian atmosphere of the Station to Station tour set of 1976 to the staging of a Doors concert:

The set was very simply lit with pure white light designed by our tour manager Eric Barrett. 'It's more theatrical than 'Diamond Dogs' ever was. It's by suggestion rather than over-propping. It relies on 20th century theatre concepts of lighting and I think it comes over as being very theatrical. Whether the audiences are aware of it I don't know.'

'I wanted to use a new kind of staging and I think this staging will become one of the most important ever. It will affect every kind of rock and roll act from now on because it's the most stabilised move that I've seen in rock and roll. I've reverted to pure Brechtian theatre and I've never seen Brechtian theatre used like this since Morrison and The Doors and even then Morrison never used white light like I do. [my emphasis]'

WHAT AN UGLY, BEAUTIFUL WORLD Edited by Harold Myra

Young American Christians from 1972 espouse their (religiously inclined) positions on everything from "The Black Crisis" to drugs and war. I was specifically interested on the opinions concerning music of the period. Here are some priceless comments on Jim Morrison/The Doors:

Dean: Do you feel that the singer's personal philosophy shows up in the songs he writes?

Everyone: Oh yes, definitely.

John C.: Jim Morrison of The Doors epitomized this. "The only thing worth doing is  having physical sex." But even that didn't solve anything. It just passed the time.

[...]

Harold: In a Life magazine article several years ago, a reporter followed Jim Morrison for a while, and his story constantly used words like "satanic" and "evil" to describe him. The writer said some audiences responded to this thing and some didn't. The Doors represented a total abandonment to "evil". Perhaps we can't accurately judge what is satanic and what isn't, but I'm sure that many adults would say that all rock music is demon-controlled. What is your reaction?

Vassilis Vassilikos - Z

Morrison apparently saw the film version of the novel 'Z' (1969) - essentially about a political assassination - during his last few days in Paris... As memory serves me, Courson stated that herself and Morrison had seen Pursued starring Robert Mitchum the day before he died... 'Z' is a interesting reference as its screenwriter, Jorge Semprun, had previously written the screenplay for the Alain Resnais (a close friend of Morrison's in Paris, and one of the last people to see him alive) film The War is Over (1966). One can only assume that Resnais had recommended 'Z' to Morrison (as another friend in Paris - Alan Ronay - had apparently recommended Pursued). Officially released in 1968, a song with the same title The War Is Over, originally sung by Phil Ochs at an anti-Vietnam war rally in L.A. in 1967 inspired by a declaration by Allen Ginsberg in 1966 that the Vietnam war was over, brings to mind the mantra (of sorts) of The Doors track The Unknown Soldier (Morrison having at least met Ginsberg (Probably through Beat poet Michael McClure)): And, it's all over... The war is over...

The Doors - Five To One

I recently added a paragraph entry ( 2nd paragraph of the 1st section: Origin) to the Wikipedia entry on The Doors song "Five to One"...

[... when asked, Jim Morrison said the lyrics were not political.]

This would seem quite likely, at least for part of the song ("Your ballroom days are over baby/Night is drawing near/Shadows of the evening/crawl across the years"), which is patently lifted from the c19th hymn/al and bedtime rhyme Now the Day is Over ("Now the day is over,/Night is drawing nigh,/Shadows of the evening/Steal across the sky") for whatever reason of Morrison's. ^[1]

Similarly, Morrison quoted the Christian Child's Prayer ^[2] in a live version of Soul Kitchen sung in 1969 ^[3] and also altered the children's rhyme "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over The candlestick" ^[4] to suit part of his poem An American Prayer ^[5] ("Words dissemble/Words be quick/Words resemble walking sticks"). ^[6] Lastly, Morrison was quite possibly referring to a Dylan Thomas story entitled The Fight in Thomas' Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog ^[7], where the central character reads from a poem called Warp ( " [...] Five into one, the one made of five into one, early/Suns distorted too late."). In this instance, the "five" are described by Thomas as "tears", "suns", and "inscrutable spears in the head".






Also of note, is the inclusion of the Gospel-influenced song People Get Ready (originally sung by The Temptations in 1965 and written by Curtis - Lee - Mayfield) in The Doors live sets at the Aquarius Theatre in 1969:

People get ready
There's a train a-coming
You don't need no baggage
You just get on board
All you need is faith
To hear diesels humming
You don't need no ticket
You just thank the Lord
Yeah yeah yeah

Although the film They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969) was not released until at least a year after Five To One, the line "Your ballroom days are over, baby" could also refer to the depression-era novel of the same name by Horace McCoy from the 1930s, which is essentially about the assisted suicide of a female dance marathon contestant named Gloria, by her male dance partner, both of whom are taking part in a competition in La Monica Ballroom (a real ballroom) right next to the Pacific Ocean on the Santa Monica Pier, near L.A. (The Doors office was of course situated on Santa Monica Boulevard) The novel was a favourite amongst French existentialists in post WWII France. The soundtrack of the movie featured Brother, Can you spare a dime? a typical song of the actual period, recalling another line from Five To One: "Trade in your hours for a handful of dimes".

Guy Peellaert / Nik Cohn - Rock Dreams (Bowie Connection #1)

"Jim Morrison. At first Jim Morrison seemed no more than a marvellous boy in black leathers, made up by two queers on the phone. Later on, however, he emerged as something altogether more solemn. Not just a truck-stop rocker, nor even a golden stud, but a poet and a thinker, stuff full of profundities. Forthwith he embarked, like a Rock 'n' Roll Bix Beiderbecke, full speed ahead on the American route to romantic martyrdom." - Nik Cohn

 

 Bowie Connection #1: Guy Peellaert, who did the artwork for Rock Dreams, also did the Diamond Dogs album artwork for Bowie... In fact, Peelleart uses a motif similar to the above painting for the back cover.

les Inrocks 2 50 ANS DE ROCK VOL.4 LES ANNÉES 60 - Interview - February 1989