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The Doors: America’s Star-Spangled Band (Revisited)

July 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

the_doors

The 4th of July presents an at least two irresistible reasons to talk about The Doors.

One: Jim Morrison took his last bath on July 3, 1971 in Paris. R.I.P. Lizard King.

Two: 4th of July being the most American of holidays, what more appropriate occasion to celebrate the most American band?

(Actually, I would be content to simply consider The Doors as one of a handful of most American bands. There are a handful of others who could fairly lay claim to that title, including Creedence Clearwater Revival, Lynyrd Skynyrd, R.E.M., and, of course, the Jonas Brothers.)

What is not debatable, however, is the fact that “Light My Fire” is the seminal American rock anthem. That is the star spangled banner of psychedelia, and it endures.

I wrote, in what most normal people would consider painful detail, about The Doors in late 2006 and early 2007 for PopMatters. The first occasion was to take a stab at the Jim Morrison mythology, from a 21st century perspective; the second occasion was the release of the group’s thrice-remastered back catalog. I’m not sure I have anything else to add to those two detailed, if exhausting analyses, but I’ll cherry pick some of the more salient observations for those who understandably don’t wish to suffer through the original efforts.

Ten days, ten thousand dollars. That is the time and money required to craft one of rock music’s significant debut albums. If the Doors had simply disbanded after their eponymous first effort, they would unquestionably hold a sacrosanct space in the ‘60s canon. Recorded around the same time as Sgt. Pepper (not after, which is noteworthy), The Doors helped establish the possibility that a rock and roll album could—and should—be a complete, fully-formed statement. If, inevitably, this raising of the artistic bar inexorably led to unwelcome excesses, such as the progressive rock “concept album” in the early-to-mid ‘70s, it also elevated the music from the short, fluff-filled releases of the early-to-mid ‘60s.

A propitious way to create a near perfect album is to begin with an indelible opening salvo, and “Break on Through”, the first song and first single, still sounds fresh and essential 40 years later. This song delivers in every way: a signature sound (nothing else, then or now, sounds anything like this) and an urgency that balances aggression and acumen, in under three minutes. In terms of influence, it should suffice to say that the testimonials from bands in subsequent generations are numerous, and from a historical perspective, this dark but dynamic concision anticipates punk rock every bit as much as, say, The Velvet Underground.

Let’s face it, one reason it is so easy, even imperative, to poke fun at the Doors is because Manzarek himself, who has been anything but tongue-tied in interviews over the years, seems entirely too eager to elucidate the ways in which the band consciously emulated John Coltrane while composing their most important song. It might have behooved him a bit to understand that the considerable majority of even the most proficient jazz musicians are wary of drawing any sort of overt comparisons to Coltrane (mostly because the first thing it does is amplify the rather extreme divergence between the very good and the Great). And yet. Robby Krieger, through lessons and discipline, had developed a facility on the flamenco guitar before moving on to amplified blues, then rock; John Densmore received classical training and played in jazz bands for years; Manzarek too had classical training. Nevertheless, there is no shortage of musicians (in rock and even in jazz) who have all the technique and ambition in the world, but cannot craft truly original, irrevocable melodies. Only the most obstreperous haters will deny that, as a tune, “Light My Fire” is irresistible … at least the first million times.

Only the authority and influence of the first album keeps its follow-up somewhat in its shadow. More than a few fans, however, might insist that Strange Days is actually superior. Overall, the sophomore effort (also released in 1967) sounds more tied to its time, but as an artifact of that era, it holds its own all these years later. Not unlike the first album, Strange Days features an extended closing statement, the more straightforward but also more calculated (and less arresting) anthem “When The Music’s Over”. To its credit, the band did not ardently attempt to duplicate the formula that worked so well the first time around (not that this would have been possible anyway), and were willing, even eager, to take some risks. The results are mixed, but mostly very good and occasionally exceptional. For starters, the somewhat overproduced title track (with its dated echo effects on the vocal) might not catch LSD in a bottle like “Break On Through”, but it more than adequately conveys, lyrically and musically, a foreboding menace that anticipates the not-so-loving summer of ’68:

Strange eyes fill strange rooms
Voices will signal their tired end
The hostess is grinning
Her guests sleep from sinning
Hear me talk of sin and you know this is it.

Love (or even tolerance) of the group’s next two albums is what separates the cautious Doors fans from the true believers: each is extremely brief with several throwaways and a handful of the band’s better moments. Waiting For the Sun is the one that almost never got made, discourtesy of Morrison’s now chronic capriciousness; the antics that bolstered his myth, but more often than not derailed the delicate act of making good music. The obvious example of this dynamic is epitomized by the song that is not on the album. An ambitious composition, “The Celebration of the Lizard”, based on a poem by Morrison, was intended to fill up an entire side of the album. For myriad reasons (Morrison’s histrionics in the studio, the inability to record songs when the singer didn’t bother making it to the studio, general lethargy and uninspired musical ideas), the band never came close to a worthwhile take, and fans would have to wait a couple of years to hear a version on Absolutely Live!. A section of the song survived, and based on the quality of “Not To Touch The Earth”, it might have been the group’s masterpiece.

The title track of The Soft Parade, a cut and paste job of previously uncompleted shreds and fragments, manages to be messy, embarrassing and brilliant, sometimes all at once. Take it or leave it, no other band would ever conclude a song with the words, “When all fails we can whip the horse’s eyes / And make them sleep, and cry”. In between accelerated turns in his coffin, Dostoyevsky had to grin at least a little bit. To be certain, this is a trillion light years from “Soul Kitchen” or “People Are Strange”, but the horns and strings and somewhat indulgent envelope-pushing prove that the Doors were anything but a self imitating machine. Like any other group that endures through successive generations, their songs have an authentic, instantly identifiable sound; even when—as is often the case—the actual songs sound nothing alike. Untalented opportunists have sold their souls for much less, and in fact are doing so right now on prime time TV.

Morrison Hotel was, rightly, lauded as a stunning return to form, although that appraisal is only halfway accurate. It was a return to the days when the Doors put out unreservedly great records, but Morrison Hotel is nothing at all like its predecessors. A stripped down, blues-flavored affair, the entire band is on fire, with Krieger continuing to make a case for being perhaps the most under appreciated guitarist in a major rock group. From the moment this sucker hit the streets, one needed only a cursory glance at the revealing band photo spread out across the inside foldout cover (for those who can recall that album covers were minor works of art in their own right; for those who can recall albums): in a bar, sporting casual threads, surrounded by cigarette smoking, unpretentious patrons, this is a group that had lived a little but was still alive.

If the first two Doors albums are drugs, they’d be of the decidedly psychedelic variety; the next couple are a dangerous cocktail of amphetamines and Quaaludes—highs and lows surging in an uneasy rush. Morrison Hotel is beer: authentic, unfiltered, as American as it gets. Plain and simple, some of the band’s most indispensable material appears on this one, and the tone is set with ballsy assurance on the familiar opener, “Roadhouse Blues”. It is the next song, however, that showcases what this new and improved model sounded like. “Waiting for the Sun” is ominous, yet inviting; there are traces of the psychedelic fog, mostly thanks to Manzarek, but it’s Krieger and Densmore (along with raw and refreshingly live-sounding vocals from Morrison) that propel this song into a new decade. Significantly, the band finally had the wherewithal to complete a track intended to appear on the earlier album that bore its name.

If Morrison Hotel served as an unequivocal acknowledgment that the ‘60s were over (on multiple levels, not least of which the literal one), then L.A. Woman is another stride toward the future. It remains more than a little tantalizing to conjecture what, and how much, ammunition the band had up their collective sleeves, but judging solely on the increasing quality of their final two recordings, it is reasonable to lament some spectacular music that never had the opportunity to get made. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Doors album without some drama. This time, producer Paul Rothchild decided the band was a spent force, or, he had done all he could do to wrangle what he felt were acceptable versions of the assembled works in progress. Based solely on the strength of the eventual results, one wonders what he was thinking. In an inspired move based mostly on necessity, the band rallied around longtime engineer Bruce Botnick and decided to record the album pretty much live in the studio. What happened next could be a combination of luck, skill and the innate advantages of a band operating like a family, but whatever it was, the songs recall what worked so well on Morrison Hotel but also go places the band had not come close to approaching thus far. One obvious difference was the group’s employment of an actual bassist (Jerry Scheff) as well as a rhythm guitarist (Marc Benno); where the band had utilized session bassists on and off, it’s no coincidence that the meatier, bluesier sound is directly attributable to these welcome additions.

One of the great one-two punches in the Doors’ catalog concludes side one: “Cars Hiss By My Window” is arguably the band’s best song that no one has heard:

Headlights through my window, shinin’ on the wall
Can’t hear my baby, though I call and call …
Windows started trembling with a sonic boom
A cold girl will kill you, in a darkened room.

If you gave Lightnin’ Hopkins a lot of acid, he might have sounded something like this: lower than mellow, aged way beyond his years, but still seeing the sweetness and the humor and mostly telling it like it is. As straightforward as this song is, it is deceptively deep and reveals the considerable dividends of Scheff and Benno’s presence. Morrison’s human guitar howl at the end of the song sets up a sublime segue into what might be the band’s ultimate song. The title track is not as long or loquacious as the epics that closed out the first two albums, and while it is every bit as dark, it is also accessible and direct, a love letter and farewell note to the city the singer embodied:

I see your hair is burning
Hills are filled with fire
If they say I never loved you
You know they are a liar …
Are you a lucky little lady in the City of Light
Or just another lost angel … City of Night.

Morrison captured L.A. for the ages, and notably, he did not need to status-check at the Chateau Marmont to conjure it up. The city was in his blood: it was the back-alley bars, rat-trap hotels and squalid side streets that he prowled, equal parts inspiration and escape. So much dissipated potential, to be certain, but it’s also reasonable to suggest that his accelerated stretch in the spotlight enabled him to write the songs on L. A. Woman, not unlike Malcolm Lowry’s extended period of self destruction instigated Under the Volcano.

There will always be plenty of speculation about how much more Morrison could have done, what he might have achieved, what other things he had to say. On the other hand, looking back on the way he left things, what more needed to be said?

When it comes to the Doors, the world generally breaks into two camps: those who hate them and those who do not. Amongst those who do not, there are those who like them, and those who really like them. And then there are the real fans. This is not an uncommon spectrum for any well-known band, but considering the Doors released their last official album in 1971, their continued relevance—and the cult of personality disorder Morrison still enjoys—is impressive and more than a little inscrutable (and, for the haters, more annoying than anything else). Amongst the critics, the so-called experts, there tends to be an increasing dichotomy: those who regard Morrison as a poetic genius (or better still, a poet), a Lord Byron of the late 20th century; and those who actually read some poetry after high school and consider him a clown, a poseur whose laughable lyrics don’t merit a second thought.

The reality, as it often insists on being, remains pretty squarely in the middle. Compared to the Romantic poets, like Shelley or Keats, Morrison ain’t much (then again, who is?); although, compared to the Beats—as he often is—he comes off okay. And if that assessment tends to underscore the observation that the Beats weren’t all that, so be it. The only pertinent criteria should be: when measured against rock musicians who came before and after him, Morrison more than holds his own. The list of articulate wordsmiths who tower above the Lizard King is substantial, but the number of those who cower beneath him is incalculable.

And so, in spite of Oliver Stone’s best efforts to immortalize a few of his favorite things (About Jim Morrison? About the ‘60s? About himself? All of the above?), he mostly achieved—in his inimitably over-the-top way—the opposite of what he ostensibly intended: a hysterically sophomoric parody that celebrated virtually every irritating trait that made Morrison an insufferable man-child much of the time. Suffice it to say, his tantrums as well as the evidence of his untapped potential have been abundantly documented by a variety of individuals who, unlike Stone, had the advantage of actually being there, and being sane.

Morrison, like Hemingway, or (insert-name-of-notoriously-tortured-artist), had periods of productivity that preceded or followed, or happened alongside the drugging, drinking, and debauchery. Not focusing on (or even acknowledging) his more mundane—if lucid—moments is somewhat understandable given the constraints of a two hour movie, but it does any artist a considerable disservice to trivialize the efforts and industry that commonly accompany even the slightest of achievements. To be certain, Morrison was seldom sober in the recording studio, but that’s one reason he wasn’t a novelist. It is also why he is no longer alive. Oliver Stone’s ass-backwards hagiography is a quintessential slab of outsider’s groupie-envy, and despite what he may actually have intended, he turned his hero into a rather uninteresting cartoon character. In the final analysis, Morrison may have cared too little about his life, but he cared a great deal about his work.

Did you know freedom exists in a schoolbook?
Did you know madmen are running our prisons
Within a jail, within a gaol
Within a white free protestant maelstrom?
We’re perched headlong on the edge of boredom.

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Morrison, not to praise him…

Well, at least the carefully manufactured, sacrilegious icon, fashioned from that most contemptible of forces: the artless imitators who seek to project their own half baked and unrealized rock star fantasies and, of course, the soulless record execs, whose gluttony launched a thousand greatest hits collections. And it hasn’t exactly helped that the people who claim to love him best have done the most to consummate and capitalize on the pseudo-mythology of a man who somehow gets younger every year. Death has been very good to Morrison, but it’s been even better for those who continue to profit from his fleeting but fruitful body of work. Not to mention his body.

This is not the end, my friends: despite misguided movies and the money-driven marketing machine, the music does endure simply because it continues to resonate with an always expanding audience. Forty years after “Light My Fire” Jim Morrison, to borrow an infamous headline, is still hot, he is still sexy, and he is still dead. But mostly, the Doors are very much alive.

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Filed Under: Music Tagged With: , , , ,

The Doors: America’s Star-Spangled Band (Revisited)

July 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment

the_doors

The 4th of July presents an at least two irresistible reasons to talk about The Doors.

One: Jim Morrison took his last bath on July 3, 1971 in Paris. R.I.P. Lizard King.

Two: 4th of July being the most American of holidays, what more appropriate occasion to celebrate the most American band?

(Actually, I would be content to simply consider The Doors as one of a handful of most American bands. There are a handful of others who could fairly lay claim to that title, including Creedence Clearwater Revival, Lynyrd Skynyrd, R.E.M., and, of course, the Jonas Brothers.)

What is not debatable, however, is the fact that “Light My Fire” is the seminal American rock anthem. That is the star spangled banner of psychedelia, and it endures.

 

I wrote, in what most normal people would consider painful detail, about The Doors in late 2006 and early 2007 for PopMatters. The first occasion was to take a stab at the Jim Morrison mythology, from a 21st century perspective; the second occasion was the release of the group’s thrice-remastered back catalog. I’m not sure I have anything else to add to those two detailed, if exhausting analyses, but I’ll cherry pick some of the more salient observations for those who understandably don’t wish to suffer through the original efforts.

Ten days, ten thousand dollars. That is the time and money required to craft one of rock music’s significant debut albums. If the Doors had simply disbanded after their eponymous first effort, they would unquestionably hold a sacrosanct space in the ‘60s canon. Recorded around the same time as Sgt. Pepper (not after, which is noteworthy), The Doors helped establish the possibility that a rock and roll album could—and should—be a complete, fully-formed statement. If, inevitably, this raising of the artistic bar inexorably led to unwelcome excesses, such as the progressive rock “concept album” in the early-to-mid ‘70s, it also elevated the music from the short, fluff-filled releases of the early-to-mid ‘60s.

A propitious way to create a near perfect album is to begin with an indelible opening salvo, and “Break on Through”, the first song and first single, still sounds fresh and essential 40 years later. This song delivers in every way: a signature sound (nothing else, then or now, sounds anything like this) and an urgency that balances aggression and acumen, in under three minutes. In terms of influence, it should suffice to say that the testimonials from bands in subsequent generations are numerous, and from a historical perspective, this dark but dynamic concision anticipates punk rock every bit as much as, say, The Velvet Underground.

Let’s face it, one reason it is so easy, even imperative, to poke fun at the Doors is because Manzarek himself, who has been anything but tongue-tied in interviews over the years, seems entirely too eager to elucidate the ways in which the band consciously emulated John Coltrane while composing their most important song. It might have behooved him a bit to understand that the considerable majority of even the most proficient jazz musicians are wary of drawing any sort of overt comparisons to Coltrane (mostly because the first thing it does is amplify the rather extreme divergence between the very good and the Great). And yet. Robby Krieger, through lessons and discipline, had developed a facility on the flamenco guitar before moving on to amplified blues, then rock; John Densmore received classical training and played in jazz bands for years; Manzarek too had classical training. Nevertheless, there is no shortage of musicians (in rock and even in jazz) who have all the technique and ambition in the world, but cannot craft truly original, irrevocable melodies. Only the most obstreperous haters will deny that, as a tune, “Light My Fire” is irresistible … at least the first million times.

Only the authority and influence of the first album keeps its follow-up somewhat in its shadow. More than a few fans, however, might insist that Strange Days is actually superior. Overall, the sophomore effort (also released in 1967) sounds more tied to its time, but as an artifact of that era, it holds its own all these years later. Not unlike the first album, Strange Days features an extended closing statement, the more straightforward but also more calculated (and less arresting) anthem “When The Music’s Over”. To its credit, the band did not ardently attempt to duplicate the formula that worked so well the first time around (not that this would have been possible anyway), and were willing, even eager, to take some risks. The results are mixed, but mostly very good and occasionally exceptional. For starters, the somewhat overproduced title track (with its dated echo effects on the vocal) might not catch LSD in a bottle like “Break On Through”, but it more than adequately conveys, lyrically and musically, a foreboding menace that anticipates the not-so-loving summer of ’68:

Strange eyes fill strange rooms
Voices will signal their tired end
The hostess is grinning
Her guests sleep from sinning
Hear me talk of sin and you know this is it.

Love (or even tolerance) of the group’s next two albums is what separates the cautious Doors fans from the true believers: each is extremely brief with several throwaways and a handful of the band’s better moments. Waiting For the Sun is the one that almost never got made, discourtesy of Morrison’s now chronic capriciousness; the antics that bolstered his myth, but more often than not derailed the delicate act of making good music. The obvious example of this dynamic is epitomized by the song that is not on the album. An ambitious composition, “The Celebration of the Lizard”, based on a poem by Morrison, was intended to fill up an entire side of the album. For myriad reasons (Morrison’s histrionics in the studio, the inability to record songs when the singer didn’t bother making it to the studio, general lethargy and uninspired musical ideas), the band never came close to a worthwhile take, and fans would have to wait a couple of years to hear a version on Absolutely Live!. A section of the song survived, and based on the quality of “Not To Touch The Earth”, it might have been the group’s masterpiece.

The title track of The Soft Parade, a cut and paste job of previously uncompleted shreds and fragments, manages to be messy, embarrassing and brilliant, sometimes all at once. Take it or leave it, no other band would ever conclude a song with the words, “When all fails we can whip the horse’s eyes / And make them sleep, and cry”. In between accelerated turns in his coffin, Dostoyevsky had to grin at least a little bit. To be certain, this is a trillion light years from “Soul Kitchen” or “People Are Strange”, but the horns and strings and somewhat indulgent envelope-pushing prove that the Doors were anything but a self imitating machine. Like any other group that endures through successive generations, their songs have an authentic, instantly identifiable sound; even when—as is often the case—the actual songs sound nothing alike. Untalented opportunists have sold their souls for much less, and in fact are doing so right now on prime time TV.

Morrison Hotel was, rightly, lauded as a stunning return to form, although that appraisal is only halfway accurate. It was a return to the days when the Doors put out unreservedly great records, but Morrison Hotel is nothing at all like its predecessors. A stripped down, blues-flavored affair, the entire band is on fire, with Krieger continuing to make a case for being perhaps the most under appreciated guitarist in a major rock group. From the moment this sucker hit the streets, one needed only a cursory glance at the revealing band photo spread out across the inside foldout cover (for those who can recall that album covers were minor works of art in their own right; for those who can recall albums): in a bar, sporting casual threads, surrounded by cigarette smoking, unpretentious patrons, this is a group that had lived a little but was still alive.

If the first two Doors albums are drugs, they’d be of the decidedly psychedelic variety; the next couple are a dangerous cocktail of amphetamines and Quaaludes—highs and lows surging in an uneasy rush. Morrison Hotel is beer: authentic, unfiltered, as American as it gets. Plain and simple, some of the band’s most indispensable material appears on this one, and the tone is set with ballsy assurance on the familiar opener, “Roadhouse Blues”. It is the next song, however, that showcases what this new and improved model sounded like. “Waiting for the Sun” is ominous, yet inviting; there are traces of the psychedelic fog, mostly thanks to Manzarek, but it’s Krieger and Densmore (along with raw and refreshingly live-sounding vocals from Morrison) that propel this song into a new decade. Significantly, the band finally had the wherewithal to complete a track intended to appear on the earlier album that bore its name.

If Morrison Hotel served as an unequivocal acknowledgment that the ‘60s were over (on multiple levels, not least of which the literal one), then L.A. Woman is another stride toward the future. It remains more than a little tantalizing to conjecture what, and how much, ammunition the band had up their collective sleeves, but judging solely on the increasing quality of their final two recordings, it is reasonable to lament some spectacular music that never had the opportunity to get made. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Doors album without some drama. This time, producer Paul Rothchild decided the band was a spent force, or, he had done all he could do to wrangle what he felt were acceptable versions of the assembled works in progress. Based solely on the strength of the eventual results, one wonders what he was thinking. In an inspired move based mostly on necessity, the band rallied around longtime engineer Bruce Botnick and decided to record the album pretty much live in the studio. What happened next could be a combination of luck, skill and the innate advantages of a band operating like a family, but whatever it was, the songs recall what worked so well on Morrison Hotel but also go places the band had not come close to approaching thus far. One obvious difference was the group’s employment of an actual bassist (Jerry Scheff) as well as a rhythm guitarist (Marc Benno); where the band had utilized session bassists on and off, it’s no coincidence that the meatier, bluesier sound is directly attributable to these welcome additions.

One of the great one-two punches in the Doors’ catalog concludes side one: “Cars Hiss By My Window” is arguably the band’s best song that no one has heard:

Headlights through my window, shinin’ on the wall
Can’t hear my baby, though I call and call …
Windows started trembling with a sonic boom
A cold girl will kill you, in a darkened room.

If you gave Lightnin’ Hopkins a lot of acid, he might have sounded something like this: lower than mellow, aged way beyond his years, but still seeing the sweetness and the humor and mostly telling it like it is. As straightforward as this song is, it is deceptively deep and reveals the considerable dividends of Scheff and Benno’s presence. Morrison’s human guitar howl at the end of the song sets up a sublime segue into what might be the band’s ultimate song. The title track is not as long or loquacious as the epics that closed out the first two albums, and while it is every bit as dark, it is also accessible and direct, a love letter and farewell note to the city the singer embodied:

I see your hair is burning
Hills are filled with fire
If they say I never loved you
You know they are a liar …
Are you a lucky little lady in the City of Light
Or just another lost angel … City of Night.

Morrison captured L.A. for the ages, and notably, he did not need to status-check at the Chateau Marmont to conjure it up. The city was in his blood: it was the back-alley bars, rat-trap hotels and squalid side streets that he prowled, equal parts inspiration and escape. So much dissipated potential, to be certain, but it’s also reasonable to suggest that his accelerated stretch in the spotlight enabled him to write the songs on L. A. Woman, not unlike Malcolm Lowry’s extended period of self destruction instigated Under the Volcano.

There will always be plenty of speculation about how much more Morrison could have done, what he might have achieved, what other things he had to say. On the other hand, looking back on the way he left things, what more needed to be said?

When it comes to the Doors, the world generally breaks into two camps: those who hate them and those who do not. Amongst those who do not, there are those who like them, and those who really like them. And then there are the real fans. This is not an uncommon spectrum for any well-known band, but considering the Doors released their last official album in 1971, their continued relevance—and the cult of personality disorder Morrison still enjoys—is impressive and more than a little inscrutable (and, for the haters, more annoying than anything else). Amongst the critics, the so-called experts, there tends to be an increasing dichotomy: those who regard Morrison as a poetic genius (or better still, a poet), a Lord Byron of the late 20th century; and those who actually read some poetry after high school and consider him a clown, a poseur whose laughable lyrics don’t merit a second thought.

The reality, as it often insists on being, remains pretty squarely in the middle. Compared to the Romantic poets, like Shelley or Keats, Morrison ain’t much (then again, who is?); although, compared to the Beats—as he often is—he comes off okay. And if that assessment tends to underscore the observation that the Beats weren’t all that, so be it. The only pertinent criteria should be: when measured against rock musicians who came before and after him, Morrison more than holds his own. The list of articulate wordsmiths who tower above the Lizard King is substantial, but the number of those who cower beneath him is incalculable.

And so, in spite of Oliver Stone’s best efforts to immortalize a few of his favorite things (About Jim Morrison? About the ‘60s? About himself? All of the above?), he mostly achieved—in his inimitably over-the-top way—the opposite of what he ostensibly intended: a hysterically sophomoric parody that celebrated virtually every irritating trait that made Morrison an insufferable man-child much of the time. Suffice it to say, his tantrums as well as the evidence of his untapped potential have been abundantly documented by a variety of individuals who, unlike Stone, had the advantage of actually being there, and being sane.

Morrison, like Hemingway, or (insert-name-of-notoriously-tortured-artist), had periods of productivity that preceded or followed, or happened alongside the drugging, drinking, and debauchery. Not focusing on (or even acknowledging) his more mundane—if lucid—moments is somewhat understandable given the constraints of a two hour movie, but it does any artist a considerable disservice to trivialize the efforts and industry that commonly accompany even the slightest of achievements. To be certain, Morrison was seldom sober in the recording studio, but that’s one reason he wasn’t a novelist. It is also why he is no longer alive. Oliver Stone’s ass-backwards hagiography is a quintessential slab of outsider’s groupie-envy, and despite what he may actually have intended, he turned his hero into a rather uninteresting cartoon character. In the final analysis, Morrison may have cared too little about his life, but he cared a great deal about his work.

Did you know freedom exists in a schoolbook?
Did you know madmen are running our prisons
Within a jail, within a gaol
Within a white free protestant maelstrom?
We’re perched headlong on the edge of boredom.

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Morrison, not to praise him…

Well, at least the carefully manufactured, sacrilegious icon, fashioned from that most contemptible of forces: the artless imitators who seek to project their own half baked and unrealized rock star fantasies and, of course, the soulless record execs, whose gluttony launched a thousand greatest hits collections. And it hasn’t exactly helped that the people who claim to love him best have done the most to consummate and capitalize on the pseudo-mythology of a man who somehow gets younger every year. Death has been very good to Morrison, but it’s been even better for those who continue to profit from his fleeting but fruitful body of work. Not to mention his body.

This is not the end, my friends: despite misguided movies and the money-driven marketing machine, the music does endure simply because it continues to resonate with an always expanding audience. Forty years after “Light My Fire” Jim Morrison, to borrow an infamous headline, is still hot, he is still sexy, and he is still dead. But mostly, the Doors are very much alive.

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Filed Under: Music Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Four Poems For Four Decades

May 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment

You’ve Seen Me Before (1989)

I am the nimble sparrow who is surprised
By eager claws that approach without a sound.
Security lies in lofty branches, overhead
But I feel safe with my feet on the ground.

I am the clever trout that is landed
By the barbed hook of the child on shore:
Each time instinct warns me of the trap
Compulsion makes caution easy to ignore.

I am the hurried fox that goes to ground,
Tracked by hounds that are flanked by men.
I escape only to renew the game:
I stop and the cycle begins, again.

I am the solemn man who cannot smile
When the sun sharpens a cloudless sky.
Since I know that in another place
The rain has caused someone else to cry.

October 20, 199_ (1991-2009)

Jim Morrison, I saw you today at a Chinese Buffet
($6.95 all you can eat).

And I could not help but notice:
The dull complacency, even exhaustion
That I saw in your eyes;
Obese stumbling gait imitating
Your svelte Lizard King Prowl;
A resigned beard,
An indifferent slouch,
A (scarcely audible) southern drawl
Has replaced your butterfly scream.

What’s your story?
The tyranny of boredom,
Or a dream deferred:
For the safety of TV dinners
And insipid comfort of re-runs
Before bedtime?

How was it?

To grow old and die at 27
Then: To start over again.
A play-thing of the gods.
The frenzied productivity
Of acid-fueled creativity;
A papier-mache soul,
A black and blue ego.
Everyday was Saturday,
A lifetime of summers
In only six years.

(What was it like?
To die nightly
And live only to die.
Survival wasn’t part of the script,

You know.)

How is it?

Now: Mysterious no more.
Burned inside-out
From your aimless wandering.
Now it’s Church on Sunday:
A banana peel reality.
Once you told us to wake up but have you
Yourself awoken?
Trapped in this new-fangled slumber.
Remember the message?
Even now it echoes, falling fast

Asleep in the ears of idle downloaders.

Recess (1992)

His eyes shifting, never still
Following the frenzy
Of random feet.
Dust flies around the heels
Of the schoolboys.

Thoughts roll by aimlessly
Like unhurried clouds,
Frozen in time:
This eager moment
Of envy and desire.

(in his mind he is free:
floating over the playground
and running, feeling
every blade of grass underneath)

Peaceful vision in his quiet solitude.

And then there is nothing
But the same fearful tears,
As the spiteful sun glares
Off the silver spokes and steel:
This spiral prison that is a part of him.

Old School (2002)

This is old school, I say
To my niece who, at five years old, is now
The same age her uncle was when his parents
Transported him to this place—new then, old now.
Old school, she repeats, repeating things
I say because I am older, because I am
Still interesting, because I am…old school.
Even I can see that.

You Can’t Go Home Again, someone once wrote
And he was wrong.
Of course you can—all you have to do is never leave—
Leaving it behind does not mean it leaves you.
(And certainly I can’t be the only grown child
who returns often—in dreams, in memories and yes,
in my mind, I must confess: earnestly, ardently, often—
to the old streets that I came to outgrow
the way we outgrow games and bikes and friends
and exchange them for jobs and cars and co-workers).

You can always go home, and you need to go home,
It is only when you want to go home that you should
Start asking yourself some serious questions.

“Did you play kick the can?” my niece does not ask.
Nor does she ask if I ever played
Red Rover Come Over or Smear the Queer.
Those games got outgrown, or else we learned
To play them in ways not measured in bravado & bruises.
And I wonder if we are better off:
Growth granting us the eventual awareness that everyone is
Queer and no enjoys being…

I put away childish things each time I think
About them, storing them safely inside my heart
Where grown-up games can’t make them say Uncle.

“Uncle, did you play?” she does not say.
(She does not know everything but she knows
enough to understand that her uncle was never young
the way she is and the way she’ll always be and
far be it from me to tell her any differently).
Question: Can you play?
Remember when that’s all we used to say—
Summers summarized in a phrase we learned
Eventually to outgrow.

This uneven field (Field of Dreams, I’ll never say)
Was our Fenway and with tennis ball and wooden bat
We righted the wrongs of an evil world, where
Yaz never struck out, Bucky Dent was a blip
And the Curse of the Bambino played off-Broadway
Those days, that ceaseless, sweltering summer in 1978.
(Summer, seventies, Schlitz—not malt liquor, my friend,
this was strictly old school—no bull. I remember
block parties, warm beer, burnt marshmallows, mosquitoes
and putrid bug repellent that didn’t kill anything
but made us stronger (Don’t let the bed bugs bite, I’ll never say).
I had no idea how much I did not know but
I knew this much: if there was a beer besides Schlitz or
Bud I was unaware of it—that’s all
The adults drank back in the bad old days.

Play ball! no one needed to say because we played ball
Anyway—ball was our business and business was good,
Get it: the ball would invariably make a break for it
Ending up in the gutter (we called it sewer but, of course,
We were old school). Without a second thought
We pried off the manhole cover and dashed down into semi-darkness.
We never thought twice about it—we were young.
The game must go on! no one needed to say, we knew.
(I look now, and think: I would not go
into that hole for all the allowance money I never earned—
I know there are rats and who knows what else
Down there: the things our parents never realized
They should warn us about).
We never worried about the things that were not
Waiting for us, down there in the darkness.

“What are they doing?” I do not ask aloud,
Noticing—just in time, before I can call attention to it—
Two cats in coitus, doing what they do when they are young & free.
That’s something I’ve never seen and as I worry about
My niece asking me about it I understand: I’m old now.
Old school, I cannot say (to myself I say this).
That’s how it happens.
This would never have happened, then—
(I did not know much, but I knew this:
cats did not fornicate and kids fought only with fists).
But this is what happens when you go away.
Back then, in our close and cloistered community
Even the cats had discretion (they were old school)
Or maybe they were mortified, because
Bent over with booze or barbiturates they were
Silently screeching behind closed doors—
All of us, unknowingly, out in the light
Winning the World Series, while wicked women
Garrisoned themselves in dark alleys, behind
The anodyne of automatic garage doors.
It is quiet, now. Our mothers were so quiet, then.
Please allow them to have been happy,
In our memories if not in their actual lives.

I don’t remember but I have a feeling
That if I think hard enough I will recall
The things that were never said and therefore never forgotten.

I drink in the past and am reminded of youth,
Which tastes unlike anything other than what it is: freedom.

Cold, sour Schlitz (of course I took a taste)
With those incredibly awkward silver ring-tabs
We pulled off for the privilege of first sip.
That is old school, I do not tell my niece.
It’s only when you’re older that beer tastes
Like freedom, but it’s a borrowed brilliance,
A manufactured feeling, just like in school
How it’s cheating if the answer is already in your lap.
It’s the things they can’t package or make you pay for:
Those things that they never tell you about until you are old enough
To know better: that is what freedom is.

Curiosity killed the cat, someone once said and
Maybe they were right.
But something is going to get all of us
Eventually, whether we ask for it or understand it.

The cats are gone, maybe they have gone home
(they can always go home), back to their families—
The heavy silences and signified banality of routine
(do they still have strict rules about no TV
and everyone present around the table when
dinner is served at six-thirty sharp?
I certainly hope so, for their sakes).
Or maybe they are getting down to business—
Dirty deeds and dirty work go hand in hand—
Down in the darkness, doing their thankless task,
Keeping the sewers safe from rats and reality.
Curious or content, we know enough to take
Whatever it is that life decrees.

We went into the sewers the way we went into the world:
Unafraid, unwavering, unencumbered and
Above all: unconcerned about all those things
Older people were kind enough to never…

“Old school!” my niece repeats, curious
because she does not comprehend at all.
Old school, I do not say, reticent
Because I do remember it (all).
If curiosity doesn’t kill us, contentment gets there quicker.

How did we go down there, then?
How do we go out there, now?

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The Doors: America’s Star-Spangled Band

July 4, 2009 By 2 Comments

the_doors

The 4th of July presents an at least two irresistible reasons to talk about The Doors.

One: Jim Morrison took his last bath on July 3, 1971 in Paris. R.I.P. Lizard King.

Two: 4th of July being the most American of holidays, what more appropriate occasion to celebrate the most American band?

(Actually, I would be content to simply consider The Doors as one of a handful of most American bands. There are a handful of others who could fairly lay claim to that title, including Creedence Clearwater Revival, Lynyrd Skynyrd, R.E.M., and, of course, the Jonas Brothers.)

What is not debatable, however, is the fact that “Light My Fire” is the seminal American rock anthem. That is the star spangled banner of psychedelia, and it endures.

 

I wrote, in what most normal people would consider painful detail, about The Doors in late 2006 and early 2007 for PopMatters. The first occasion was to take a stab at the Jim Morrison mythology, from a 21st century perspective; the second occasion was the release of the group’s thrice-remastered back catalog. I’m not sure I have anything else to add to those two detailed, if exhausting analyses, but I’ll cherry pick some of the more salient observations for those who understandably don’t wish to suffer through the original efforts.

Ten days, ten thousand dollars. That is the time and money required to craft one of rock music’s significant debut albums. If the Doors had simply disbanded after their eponymous first effort, they would unquestionably hold a sacrosanct space in the ‘60s canon. Recorded around the same time as Sgt. Pepper (not after, which is noteworthy), The Doors helped establish the possibility that a rock and roll album could—and should—be a complete, fully-formed statement. If, inevitably, this raising of the artistic bar inexorably led to unwelcome excesses, such as the progressive rock “concept album” in the early-to-mid ‘70s, it also elevated the music from the short, fluff-filled releases of the early-to-mid ‘60s.

A propitious way to create a near perfect album is to begin with an indelible opening salvo, and “Break on Through”, the first song and first single, still sounds fresh and essential 40 years later. This song delivers in every way: a signature sound (nothing else, then or now, sounds anything like this) and an urgency that balances aggression and acumen, in under three minutes. In terms of influence, it should suffice to say that the testimonials from bands in subsequent generations are numerous, and from a historical perspective, this dark but dynamic concision anticipates punk rock every bit as much as, say, The Velvet Underground.

Let’s face it, one reason it is so easy, even imperative, to poke fun at the Doors is because Manzarek himself, who has been anything but tongue-tied in interviews over the years, seems entirely too eager to elucidate the ways in which the band consciously emulated John Coltrane while composing their most important song. It might have behooved him a bit to understand that the considerable majority of even the most proficient jazz musicians are wary of drawing any sort of overt comparisons to Coltrane (mostly because the first thing it does is amplify the rather extreme divergence between the very good and the Great). And yet. Robby Krieger, through lessons and discipline, had developed a facility on the flamenco guitar before moving on to amplified blues, then rock; John Densmore received classical training and played in jazz bands for years; Manzarek too had classical training. Nevertheless, there is no shortage of musicians (in rock and even in jazz) who have all the technique and ambition in the world, but cannot craft truly original, irrevocable melodies. Only the most obstreperous haters will deny that, as a tune, “Light My Fire” is irresistible … at least the first million times.

Only the authority and influence of the first album keeps its follow-up somewhat in its shadow. More than a few fans, however, might insist that Strange Days is actually superior. Overall, the sophomore effort (also released in 1967) sounds more tied to its time, but as an artifact of that era, it holds its own all these years later. Not unlike the first album, Strange Days features an extended closing statement, the more straightforward but also more calculated (and less arresting) anthem “When The Music’s Over”. To its credit, the band did not ardently attempt to duplicate the formula that worked so well the first time around (not that this would have been possible anyway), and were willing, even eager, to take some risks. The results are mixed, but mostly very good and occasionally exceptional. For starters, the somewhat overproduced title track (with its dated echo effects on the vocal) might not catch LSD in a bottle like “Break On Through”, but it more than adequately conveys, lyrically and musically, a foreboding menace that anticipates the not-so-loving summer of ’68:

Strange eyes fill strange rooms
Voices will signal their tired end
The hostess is grinning
Her guests sleep from sinning
Hear me talk of sin and you know this is it.

Love (or even tolerance) of the group’s next two albums is what separates the cautious Doors fans from the true believers: each is extremely brief with several throwaways and a handful of the band’s better moments. Waiting For the Sun is the one that almost never got made, discourtesy of Morrison’s now chronic capriciousness; the antics that bolstered his myth, but more often than not derailed the delicate act of making good music. The obvious example of this dynamic is epitomized by the song that is not on the album. An ambitious composition, “The Celebration of the Lizard”, based on a poem by Morrison, was intended to fill up an entire side of the album. For myriad reasons (Morrison’s histrionics in the studio, the inability to record songs when the singer didn’t bother making it to the studio, general lethargy and uninspired musical ideas), the band never came close to a worthwhile take, and fans would have to wait a couple of years to hear a version on Absolutely Live!. A section of the song survived, and based on the quality of “Not To Touch The Earth”, it might have been the group’s masterpiece.

The title track of The Soft Parade, a cut and paste job of previously uncompleted shreds and fragments, manages to be messy, embarrassing and brilliant, sometimes all at once. Take it or leave it, no other band would ever conclude a song with the words, “When all fails we can whip the horse’s eyes / And make them sleep, and cry”. In between accelerated turns in his coffin, Dostoyevsky had to grin at least a little bit. To be certain, this is a trillion light years from “Soul Kitchen” or “People Are Strange”, but the horns and strings and somewhat indulgent envelope-pushing prove that the Doors were anything but a self imitating machine. Like any other group that endures through successive generations, their songs have an authentic, instantly identifiable sound; even when—as is often the case—the actual songs sound nothing alike. Untalented opportunists have sold their souls for much less, and in fact are doing so right now on prime time TV.

Morrison Hotel was, rightly, lauded as a stunning return to form, although that appraisal is only halfway accurate. It was a return to the days when the Doors put out unreservedly great records, but Morrison Hotel is nothing at all like its predecessors. A stripped down, blues-flavored affair, the entire band is on fire, with Krieger continuing to make a case for being perhaps the most under appreciated guitarist in a major rock group. From the moment this sucker hit the streets, one needed only a cursory glance at the revealing band photo spread out across the inside foldout cover (for those who can recall that album covers were minor works of art in their own right; for those who can recall albums): in a bar, sporting casual threads, surrounded by cigarette smoking, unpretentious patrons, this is a group that had lived a little but was still alive.

If the first two Doors albums are drugs, they’d be of the decidedly psychedelic variety; the next couple are a dangerous cocktail of amphetamines and Quaaludes—highs and lows surging in an uneasy rush. Morrison Hotel is beer: authentic, unfiltered, as American as it gets. Plain and simple, some of the band’s most indispensable material appears on this one, and the tone is set with ballsy assurance on the familiar opener, “Roadhouse Blues”. It is the next song, however, that showcases what this new and improved model sounded like. “Waiting for the Sun” is ominous, yet inviting; there are traces of the psychedelic fog, mostly thanks to Manzarek, but it’s Krieger and Densmore (along with raw and refreshingly live-sounding vocals from Morrison) that propel this song into a new decade. Significantly, the band finally had the wherewithal to complete a track intended to appear on the earlier album that bore its name.

If Morrison Hotel served as an unequivocal acknowledgment that the ‘60s were over (on multiple levels, not least of which the literal one), then L.A. Woman is another stride toward the future. It remains more than a little tantalizing to conjecture what, and how much, ammunition the band had up their collective sleeves, but judging solely on the increasing quality of their final two recordings, it is reasonable to lament some spectacular music that never had the opportunity to get made. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Doors album without some drama. This time, producer Paul Rothchild decided the band was a spent force, or, he had done all he could do to wrangle what he felt were acceptable versions of the assembled works in progress. Based solely on the strength of the eventual results, one wonders what he was thinking. In an inspired move based mostly on necessity, the band rallied around longtime engineer Bruce Botnick and decided to record the album pretty much live in the studio. What happened next could be a combination of luck, skill and the innate advantages of a band operating like a family, but whatever it was, the songs recall what worked so well on Morrison Hotel but also go places the band had not come close to approaching thus far. One obvious difference was the group’s employment of an actual bassist (Jerry Scheff) as well as a rhythm guitarist (Marc Benno); where the band had utilized session bassists on and off, it’s no coincidence that the meatier, bluesier sound is directly attributable to these welcome additions.

One of the great one-two punches in the Doors’ catalog concludes side one: “Cars Hiss By My Window” is arguably the band’s best song that no one has heard:

Headlights through my window, shinin’ on the wall
Can’t hear my baby, though I call and call …
Windows started trembling with a sonic boom
A cold girl will kill you, in a darkened room.

If you gave Lightnin’ Hopkins a lot of acid, he might have sounded something like this: lower than mellow, aged way beyond his years, but still seeing the sweetness and the humor and mostly telling it like it is. As straightforward as this song is, it is deceptively deep and reveals the considerable dividends of Scheff and Benno’s presence. Morrison’s human guitar howl at the end of the song sets up a sublime segue into what might be the band’s ultimate song. The title track is not as long or loquacious as the epics that closed out the first two albums, and while it is every bit as dark, it is also accessible and direct, a love letter and farewell note to the city the singer embodied:

I see your hair is burning
Hills are filled with fire
If they say I never loved you
You know they are a liar …
Are you a lucky little lady in the City of Light
Or just another lost angel … City of Night.

Morrison captured L.A. for the ages, and notably, he did not need to status-check at the Chateau Marmont to conjure it up. The city was in his blood: it was the back-alley bars, rat-trap hotels and squalid side streets that he prowled, equal parts inspiration and escape. So much dissipated potential, to be certain, but it’s also reasonable to suggest that his accelerated stretch in the spotlight enabled him to write the songs on L. A. Woman, not unlike Malcolm Lowry’s extended period of self destruction instigated Under the Volcano.

There will always be plenty of speculation about how much more Morrison could have done, what he might have achieved, what other things he had to say. On the other hand, looking back on the way he left things, what more needed to be said?

When it comes to the Doors, the world generally breaks into two camps: those who hate them and those who do not. Amongst those who do not, there are those who like them, and those who really like them. And then there are the real fans. This is not an uncommon spectrum for any well-known band, but considering the Doors released their last official album in 1971, their continued relevance—and the cult of personality disorder Morrison still enjoys—is impressive and more than a little inscrutable (and, for the haters, more annoying than anything else). Amongst the critics, the so-called experts, there tends to be an increasing dichotomy: those who regard Morrison as a poetic genius (or better still, a poet), a Lord Byron of the late 20th century; and those who actually read some poetry after high school and consider him a clown, a poseur whose laughable lyrics don’t merit a second thought.

The reality, as it often insists on being, remains pretty squarely in the middle. Compared to the Romantic poets, like Shelley or Keats, Morrison ain’t much (then again, who is?); although, compared to the Beats—as he often is—he comes off okay. And if that assessment tends to underscore the observation that the Beats weren’t all that, so be it. The only pertinent criteria should be: when measured against rock musicians who came before and after him, Morrison more than holds his own. The list of articulate wordsmiths who tower above the Lizard King is substantial, but the number of those who cower beneath him is incalculable.

And so, in spite of Oliver Stone’s best efforts to immortalize a few of his favorite things (About Jim Morrison? About the ‘60s? About himself? All of the above?), he mostly achieved—in his inimitably over-the-top way—the opposite of what he ostensibly intended: a hysterically sophomoric parody that celebrated virtually every irritating trait that made Morrison an insufferable man-child much of the time. Suffice it to say, his tantrums as well as the evidence of his untapped potential have been abundantly documented by a variety of individuals who, unlike Stone, had the advantage of actually being there, and being sane.

Morrison, like Hemingway, or (insert-name-of-notoriously-tortured-artist), had periods of productivity that preceded or followed, or happened alongside the drugging, drinking, and debauchery. Not focusing on (or even acknowledging) his more mundane—if lucid—moments is somewhat understandable given the constraints of a two hour movie, but it does any artist a considerable disservice to trivialize the efforts and industry that commonly accompany even the slightest of achievements. To be certain, Morrison was seldom sober in the recording studio, but that’s one reason he wasn’t a novelist. It is also why he is no longer alive. Oliver Stone’s ass-backwards hagiography is a quintessential slab of outsider’s groupie-envy, and despite what he may actually have intended, he turned his hero into a rather uninteresting cartoon character. In the final analysis, Morrison may have cared too little about his life, but he cared a great deal about his work.

Did you know freedom exists in a schoolbook?
Did you know madmen are running our prisons
Within a jail, within a gaol
Within a white free protestant maelstrom?
We’re perched headlong on the edge of boredom. 

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Morrison, not to praise him…

Well, at least the carefully manufactured, sacrilegious icon, fashioned from that most contemptible of forces: the artless imitators who seek to project their own half baked and unrealized rock star fantasies and, of course, the soulless record execs, whose gluttony launched a thousand greatest hits collections. And it hasn’t exactly helped that the people who claim to love him best have done the most to consummate and capitalize on the pseudo-mythology of a man who somehow gets younger every year. Death has been very good to Morrison, but it’s been even better for those who continue to profit from his fleeting but fruitful body of work. Not to mention his body.

This is not the end, my friends: despite misguided movies and the money-driven marketing machine, the music does endure simply because it continues to resonate with an always expanding audience. Forty years after “Light My Fire” Jim Morrison, to borrow an infamous headline, is still hot, he is still sexy, and he is still dead. But mostly, the Doors are very much alive.

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October 20, 199_

November 7, 2008 By Leave a Comment

October 20, 199_

Jim Morrison, I saw you today at a Chinese Buffet (6.95 all you can eat).
And I could not help but notice:
The dull complacency and exhaustion
That I saw in your eyes;
An obese stumbling gait imitating
Your once svelte Lizard King Prowl;
A resigned beard,
An indifferent slouch,
A southern drawl (scarcely audible)
Has replaced your butterfly scream.
Is it the tyranny of boredom?
A dream deferred:
To the safety of TV dinners
And the comfort of insipid re-runs
Before bedtime.

How was it?

To grow old and die at 27
Then: To start over again.
A play-thing of the gods.
The frenzied productivity
Of acid-fueled creativity;
A papier-mache soul,
A black and blue ego.
Everyday was Saturday,
A lifetime of summers
In only six years.
What was it like?
To die nightly
And live only to die:
Prurient fodder for the public eye.

How is it?

Now: Mysterious no more.
Burned inside-out
From your wandering, aimless rebellion.
Now it’s Church on Sunday:
A banana peel reality.
Once you told us to wake up but have you
yourself awoken?
Trapped in this new-fangled slumber.
Do you remember? The message:
Even now its cadence echoes, falling
On the deaf ears of idle purchasers.

October, 1991

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They Will Rock You (They Are The Champions)

November 7, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Part One: Introduction (and Apology)

October ’08. In the spirit of two quintessentially American inventions (obsessions, really), baseball and rock and roll, it seemed like a swell idea to merge the two in a lighthearted exercise designed to celebrate the World Series. If one were to imagine fielding the ultimate all-star team comprised of the greatest “players” from the roster of rock music history, how would one begin? Well, for starters, this project could best be understood as falling somewhere in the spectrum of compulsive list making, a passionate engagement with rock music, and the increasingly ubiquitous phenomenon of fantasy teams that exist in the shadow universe of sports freaks. This discussion might begin with the innocent posing of an impossible question: who is the all-time MVP of rock and roll? Or, who are the chosen ones who would find their way onto the roster of any respectable short list? Most people, once the considerable pool of candidates was properly examined, could quickly reach consensus, right? Keep dreaming. The only thing more inimically American than sports and music is our unquenchable compulsion to compete, to choose a side and see what happens.

The whole idea, initially, was simply to have fun with the process. Immediately, I found myself fighting my choices and second-guessing my gut instinct. I realized that an endeavor like this is not dissimilar from what someone (probably a professor) once said regarding the infighting in academia: the battles are so bloody because the stakes are so small. Still, I am, admittedly, one of those idiots who spends an unreasonable amount of time contemplating the various criteria that renders certain artists (and works of art) viable, indelible, immutable. So, the question became: what was I thinking? Especially since I’m the type of person who would probably have an easier time deciding which digit to hack off if the alternative was isolating the one album I could not live without. No man is an island, but my imaginary desert island is all-inclusive: it’s all coming with me or I sink under the weight of its excess, drowning happily with those songs echoing in my mind. In sum, I should have known better. This, of course, is ultimately an agonizing endeavor, and (I know) if I ever saw someone else making a list like this, I’d certainly have a reaction (invariably a visceral one). So with that said, I serve up this offering with the encouragement of any responses, questions, critiques and most of all, alternate suggestions.

 

The Commissioner

Part Two: The Bench, Bullpen and Pitching Rotation

In the interest of fairness (and sanity), some parameters quickly became imperative. The roster: American bands only. The time period: post 1960. Naturally, and necessarily, this eliminates some of the most important artists, the progenitors. But any competitive team must start with proven leaders, right? We need coaches! Problem solved. Question: who is going to oversee this ultimate all-star team? Answer: why look further than the true godfather and indisputable king of rock and roll, Chuck Berry? He pretty much invented the game, so all of the players are by default his acolytes and apostles. Plus, there is nothing that will surprise or faze him; he’s been there, done that. Also, he is eccentric and irascible, as so many of the great skippers in any sport seem to be. He certainly is not lacking for self confidence: if someone needs to ride the pine due to poor performance, are they going to second guess Johnny B. Goode? Finally, there is always the tantalizing possibility of him duck walking out to home plate to argue a close call with the umpire. (That umpire, incidentally, is Rick Rubin. Who else has successfully mediated so many fruitful proceedings involving some of the biggest egos on the planet?)

Chuck Berry’s coaching staff represents the roots of rock music: the ones upon whose backs the British invasion and whitewashed American imitators climbed for profit. Little Richard, Fats Domino, Bo Diddley make a formidable bunch. The pitching coach is Roy Orbison and the hitting coach is, of course, Jerry Lee Lewis. Buddy Holly, forever young and good-natured, is bench coach. But what about soul brother number one, the fan’s choice as most valuable playa? James Brown, the hardest working man in show business, could be nothing other than Commissioner. As such, he supervises all internal affairs, speaks for the Players Association and oversees the relations with other leagues, including Blues, Funk and Country. (This explains the absence of fellow Commissioners Muddy Waters, George Clinton and Johnny Cash, all of whom have their own franchises and farm teams to organize.) In related news, if the Motown/Soul squad ever got involved, the slaughter rule might need to be put in place. Still, there is one glaring omission. What about the great white hope, Elvis Presley? Elvis, alas, is out: call it the revenge of the Negro Leagues. Not to worry, Elvis—along with Frank Sinatra and John Wayne—is safely ensconced up in the skybox, carousing with the owners and their obsequious entourages.

 

The Manager

Before introducing the starters and bullpen, let’s give a shout out for the deep and formidable bench, players who could step in at any time to make key contributions. In alphabetical order we have Alice in Chains, The Allman Brothers, The Cars, Kiss, Metallica, The Pretenders, Santana, Sleater-Kinney, Van Halen and Wilco. Our Triple-A affiliates are confident that up and comers such as The Black Keys, The White Stripes, The Fiery Furnaces and Iron and Wine are attracting attention and are all likely to have long and prosperous careers.

And so, without further ado, let’s have a look at the pitching rotation. These are the badasses who can shut down any lineup, and these studs all bring the noise via electric guitar. Starting with the cornerstone, the most important player on the field, our staff ace Jimi Hendrix. Plain and simple, this unhittable southpaw has the best ERA in the history of the game. His career was cut tragically short, but in his prime if you needed to win Game 7 of the World Series, this is the man you wanted on the mound. His complete dominance has never been debatable, and his stuff remains unmatched and inimitable. Next in the rotation is a proud product of Texas, Stevie Ray Vaughn. Another maestro cut short in his prime, he is nevertheless a first ballot hall of famer. Along with Hendrix’s patented machine gun delivery, SRV could always be counted on to release the Texas Flood. The third spot in the rotation is occupied by the quirky and impossibly prolific provocateur, Frank Zappa. Celebrated as much for his guile and élan, Z’s approach was always more cerebral: you never quite knew exactly what he was going to serve up, but more often than not, this long-haired hurler would be laughing at your expense before you realized the ball had left his hand. Vital for more than three decades, there is no question that Zappa was most definitely not in it only for the money. The rotation is balanced out by two insufficiently celebrated living legends, each employing opposite styles to similarly devastating effect. If Vernon Reid can reliably dazzle a lineup with his lightning-fast licks and mastery of an assortment of pitches, Buzz “King Buzzo” Osbourne is the ultimate grinder: his methodical, torrential barrage is on par with the best knuckleball—it is instantly identifiable but exceedingly difficult to master, much less describe.

 

The Ace

The bullpen is stocked with singer/songwriters, all of whom are masters of finesse, capable of taking over a game in the late innings. The set-up men, Kurt Cobain and Mike Patton, represent two of the more important and influential voices of the ‘90s. Like too many of his teammates, Cobain’s career was cut short, but Patton is settled in for the long haul, and it seems safe to assume that he’ll own many records by the time he hangs up his spurs. As the game winds down, two old school options emerge: from the east coast we have Lou Reed while representing the gold coast is Jackson Browne. Reed tends to give up too many walks, but he lives on the wild side; Browne serves up the occasional long ball when he’s running on empty. Ultimately, despite some less successful outings, these two veterans are there for you when you need them most. Every bullpen needs the situational specialist (sometimes lovingly referred to as the LOOGY, or Lefty One Out Guy), and on this squad Don Van Vliet (sometimes lovingly referred to as Captain Beefheart) always provides enough Electricity to induce that one crucial out. Last but far from least, the team requires a fearless closer to shut ‘em down and seal the deal. All energy, emotion and raw ability, Janis Joplin is an unflappable and intimidating as anyone who has ever played the game. Big Brother and the Holding Company knew how to hold a big lead, and there was never anything cheap about the thrills Janis delivered.

Part Three: The Starting Lineup

And now, the starting lineup, complete with designated hitter (as it would somehow seem less American not to play by American League rules; all of the National League purists are encouraged to join the conversation about how the game used to be played over at Nogoodmusicwasmadeafter1960.com), organized by batting order:

NAME POSITION

Creedence Clearwater Revival SS
Bruce Springsteen CF
Steely Dan 1B
R.E.M.  3B
The Pixies DH
Bob Dylan C
Lynyrd Skynyrd LF
The Doors RF
The Beach Boys 2B

Question: Where are the Grateful Dead? Three answers: First, they are too busy patrolling the concourse, dispensing miracles, to participate in organized games. Second, and perhaps more to the point, what position, exactly, is Jerry Garcia going to play? Finally, the game needs a mascot, and what could be more appropriate than the Steal Your Face guy flying in and around the stadium, at once part of the game and calmly removed from it; like a beach ball, only trippier. Also, instead of the current trend of singing “God Bless America” during the seventh inning stretch, we’re pumping in Howlin Wolf’s rendition of “Smokestack Lightning” because, frankly, it doesn’t get any more American than that.

Leading off, at short stop, is the hits machine Creedence Clearwater Revival. In their relatively brief, but remarkably productive prime, they were not only a force to be reckoned with, but unparalleled as a positive force in American music. They led the league in hits and batting average over three seasons (1968-1970). Their highlight reel runs constantly on FM radio, and it’s worth recalling that these dudes rocked the flannel look long before it was cool (in the ‘70s or in the grunge 2.0 fashion cycle).

Hitting in the number two spot, in centerfield, is Asbury Park’s own Bruce Springsteen. A promising rookie in ’73 who’d paid some serious dues for several years in the minor leagues, his breakthrough season came in 1975 when he garnered MVP honors for Born To Run. Since then he has seldom been out of favor, cranking out timely singles and infusing the game with his unmatched energy and integrity. If the team ever hits a losing streak, the Boss is often at his best when times seem the toughest: Bruce understands (and does his best to ensure) that the glory days are always in the future.

 

Spunk In Centerfield: The Boss

Batting third and flashing some serious leather at first base is the quiet but deadly duo Steely Dan. These guys were as close to a dynasty as anyone else in the much-maligned decade of the ‘70s. Perfectionists, oddballs, studio wizards, the Dan put together a string of winning seasons that any band would happily emulate. Consummate team players (never ones to put their faces on albums), Donald Fagen and Walter Becker were such perfectionists that they stopped touring altogether in the ‘70s so they could concentrate on crafting their meticulous string of albums. Every team requires the quietly obsessed, lead-by-example professional, and in the understated Dan, this squad has the perfect player to keep them grounded, and focused on what matters most.

The clean-up hitter and arguably most impressive player on the squad is that most American of bands, R.E.M. Not only the ultimate run producer and homeruns leader (from their rookie season in ’83 through at least ’96, their prime is one extended batting title). Consistency has always been their hallmark, and only the most versatile, fearless and original band could cover the hot corner year in and year out. If they’ve shown their age in recent years, it does not (cannot) diminish their credentials: a longer heyday than any other American band, hands down.

Batting fifth is highly regarded designated hitter The Pixies. This perennial fan favorite would warrant inclusion in the lineup courtesy of their two masterworks Surfer Rosa and Doolittle. But to put their influence and reputation in proper perspective, consider the fact that Kurt Cobain once admitted that on the Nirvana hit “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, he was “basically trying to rip off the Pixies…I should have been in that band—or at least a Pixies cover band.” Factor in that this is also the band that (sort of) spawned The Breeders, not to mention Black Francis’s metamorphosis into Frank Black, and the considerably satisfactory solo career he’s had. When you contemplate a band that hit long bombs when given the chance (with the strikeouts that are an inevitable part of the DH position), you might be hard pressed to come up with a better slugger. If the bases are loaded with two outs in a tie game, all that needs to be said is “if man is 5, then the devil is 6 and if the devil is 6 than god is 7”. That (rally) monkey’s gone to heaven.

 

Catcher, Captain and Iconoclast: Bob Dylan

Team captain, and catcher, Bob Dylan hits sixth. To be honest, he could play anywhere and do anything he feels like. It’s rather unlikely that he’d want to be associated with any teams, as he owes allegiance to no one other than Woody Guthrie. Dylan is, in short, the consensus leader of this entire generation: he is the alpha and omega of post-‘60s American music. Everyone from The Byrds to the Beatles and singer-songwriters from Van Morrison to Neko Case are, in their own way, paying homage to everything the bard from Minnesota made possible.

Batting in the number seven slot, it’s the tough-as-nails, first off the bench in a brawl southern boys Lynyrd Skynyrd. And where else but left field for a band that took Neil Young to task for critiquing “sweet home” Alabama, only to befriend him later? Where else but left field for a group with ultimate southern street cred advocating that we toss all pistols to the bottom of the sea (“Saturday Night Special”)? These non-NRA endorsing rednecks wrote songs that were remarkably nuanced (“That Smell”, “Needle and the Spoon”) and unusually sensitive (“Tuesday’s Gone”, “Simple Man”) as well as the obligatory ‘70s anthems (“Sweet Home Alabama”, “Give Me Three Steps”, “Free Bird”). Like too many of their teammates, tragedy derailed their run to glory, but the body of work is versatile, deep and enduring.

Hitting eighth and getting the mojo rising in right field are The Doors. Not too many groups have finished their careers as solid and strong as they began them, but L.A. Woman was almost as perfect a swan song as The Doors was a debut. Overlooked and easy to dismiss (Jim Morrison was to rock music what the oft-suspended and self-immolating prima donnas are to today’s sports), they cast an immense and influential shadow—often on the short list of younger band’s role models. And while right field is arguably the least exciting and uneventful position in the field, when you need that long throw home on a rope, or that perfect song at the end of the night before you slip into unconsciousness, the Lizard King is always ready to light up the fire.

 

The Hits Machine at Second Base: Brian Wilson

Finally, batting ninth and turning double plays at second base, it’s the forever young angels from the gold coast, The Beach Boys. Obviously, they had enough ammo, early in their career (another runs factory) to warrant serious consideration for inclusion on this team. But some historical perspective is imperative when really assessing the Beach Boys’ place in history: while The Beatles are (correctly) credited with creating rock music’s first commercially embraced work of art with Sgt. Pepper, it is well documented that Paul McCartney’s initial inspiration was to somehow make a record as incredible as Pet Sounds. A second baseman is counted on to stir the pot and produce timely singles, and The Beach Boys delivered some of the most crucial hits ever in postseason play: “Wouldn’t It Be Nice?”, “God Only Knows”, and, of course, “Good Vibrations”—the single still hear ‘round the world.
So there it is: the ultimate lineup of American rock music legends. While I reserve the right to second-guess myself (that, after all, is pretty much the point—along with instigating discussion!), I am happy to make the case that this team represents the best possible players, based on the various criteria. What do you think?

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The Doors: Open For Business (Again)

May 8, 2007 By Leave a Comment

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/33678/the-doors-open-for-business-again/

The Doors: Open for Business (Again)

[8 May 2007]

If the first two Doors albums are drugs, they’d be of the decidedly psychedelic variety; the next couple are a dangerous cocktail of amphetamines and Quaaludes. Morrison Hotel is beer: authentic, unfiltered, as American as it gets. L.A. Woman manages to be all of the above.

by Sean Murphy

 Ten days, ten thousand dollars. That is the time and money required to craft one of rock music’s significant debut albums. If the Doors had simply disbanded after their eponymous first effort, they would unquestionably hold a sacrosanct space in the ‘60s canon. Recorded around the same time as Sgt. Pepper (not after, which is noteworthy), The Doors helped establish the possibility that a rock and roll album could—and should—be a complete, fully-formed statement. If, inevitably, this raising of the artistic bar inexorably led to unwelcome excesses, such as the progressive rock “concept album” in the early-to-mid ‘70s, it also elevated the music from the short, fluff-filled releases of the early-to-mid ‘60s.

How did it happen?

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The Doors

(Rhino; US: 27 Mar 2007; UK: 26 Mar 2007)

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Strange Days

(Rhino; US: 27 Mar 2007; UK: 26 Mar 2007)

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Waiting for the Sun

(Rhino; US: 27 Mar 2007; UK: 26 Mar 2007)

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The Soft Parade

(Rhino; US: 27 Mar 2007; UK: 26 Mar 2007)

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Morrison Hotel

(Rhino; US: 27 Mar 2007; UK: 26 Mar 2007)

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L.A. Woman

(Rhino; US: 27 Mar 2007; UK: 26 Mar 2007)

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First and foremost, so much ink gets spilled rehashing and aggrandizing the living legend of the Lizard King that it is, unfortunately, easy to overlook the certainty that the Doors were a first-rate band capable of creating incredible music. And they did: the often exceptional compositions were not conjured up from the bong water—all three of the musicians (Ray Manzarek played keyboards, Robbie Krieger played guitar and John Densmore played drums) were trained players with experience, reaching across classical, jazz, folk and blues. (A more extensive analysis of Jim Morrison’s ceaselessly controversial status as a poet was recently undertaken and can be found here).

A propitious way to create a near perfect album is to begin with an indelible opening salvo, and “Break on Through”, the first song and first single, still sounds fresh and essential 40 years later. This song delivers in every way: a signature sound (nothing else, then or now, sounds anything like this) and an urgency that balances aggression and acumen, in under three minutes. In terms of influence, it should suffice to say that the testimonials from bands in subsequent generations are numerous, and from a historical perspective, this dark but dynamic concision anticipates punk rock every bit as much as, say, the Velvet Underground.

Admittedly, “Light My Fire”—the second single and the one that actually broke them through, topping the charts in the infamous Summer of Love—reverberates, today, with more of that free-love vibe (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but the incredible trifecta that kicks off the proceedings remains remarkably, even improbably edgy and unique. Again, no other band made music that sounded like this and it is, to a large degree, attributable to Ray Manzarek, who, in addition to piano and organ, handled the role of bassist, utilizing his Fender Rhodes piano bass (on later albums the band would indulge themselves with the services of a session bassist, but on most of the early albums Manzarek did double duty). His versatility is on full display throughout these first three songs, and nowhere is his handiwork better represented than on the third track, “The Crystal Ship”: his restrained, often ethereal organ sound is always the water that the rest of the band could cook with, while his discerning, almost elegant, turn at the piano provides cerebral counterpoint.

A few more remarks about Manzarek: up to this point (and, to a large extent, outside of the mellotron mini-revolution pioneered by King Crimson and the Moody Blues in the late ‘60s, and the keyboards so essential to most progressive rock acts like Yes, Jethro Tull and Genesis in the early ‘70s) organ music was—and remains—generally relegated to the sideline on the rare occasions it appears at all. Certain groups might employ the use of an organ for one of their mellow or somber songs, but bringing an organ to the forefront was an original, and risky undertaking. Aside from the piano/organ interplay, Manzarek consistently creates different sounds with his instrument. At times he opts for funky and cool (“Soul Kitchen” or “I Looked at You”), other times carnivalesque (the group’s spirited cover of Brecht and Weill’s “Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)”, or “Take It As It Comes”), and occasionally jazzy. Although any mention of this causes supercilious purists to puke, there is no getting around the reality that those extended and groundbreaking solos in “Light My Fire” were modeled, in part, on the standard improvised chord changes of bebop.

Let’s face it, one reason it is so easy, even imperative, to poke fun at the Doors is because Manzarek himself, who has been anything but tongue-tied in interviews over the years, seems entirely too eager to elucidate the ways in which the band consciously emulated John Coltrane while composing their most important song. It might have behooved him a bit to understand that the considerable majority of even the most proficient jazz musicians are wary of drawing any sort of overt comparisons to Coltrane (mostly because the first thing it does is amplify the rather extreme divergence between the very good and the Great). And yet. Robby Krieger, through lessons and discipline, had developed a facility on the flamenco guitar before moving on to amplified blues, then rock; John Densmore received classical training and played in jazz bands for years; Manzarek too had classical training. Nevertheless, there is no shortage of musicians (in rock and even in jazz) who have all the technique and ambition in the world, but cannot craft truly original, irrevocable melodies. Only the most obstreperous haters will deny that, as a tune, “Light My Fire” is irresistible … at least the first million times.

Certainly, the first album contains some less essential moments, such as “Twentieth Century Fox”, “I Looked At You” and “Take It As It Comes”, but two covers (the aforementioned “Alabama Song”, and an improbably convincing rendition of the pretty much uncoverable Howlin’ Wolf’s “Back Door Man”) work in wonderful ways. Listen, again to “Back Door Man” and compare it to the paint-by-numbers pastiches of classic blues songs the Rolling Stones and the Beatles were attempting only a few years earlier. “End of the Night” is undeniably of its time, but still provides pleasure, particularly in its economy and the way it anticipates the expansive final track which, if not the Doors’ best song, is definitely among their most cherished and controversial. “The End” is the Doors’ “Stairway To Heaven”, the song that is the Dead Sea Scrolls for adolescent seekers: it entices and disorients not unlike the narcotic, agitating effect that Edgar Allan Poe’s stories initially have on young readers. Morrison’s stream of consciousness Götterdämmerung will incite debates until the sacred cows come home, but there can be no quarrel with the music. Manzarek and Krieger do some of their finest—if understated—work here, but it is Densmore’s passive-aggressive percussion that represents, certainly at the time of its recording, an apotheosis of sorts. It is scarcely conceivable how many psychedelic adventures this song has provided a soundtrack for, which is entirely appropriate considering that, according to legend, Morrison laid down his vocals (in two takes) while reeling from a particularly intense acid trip. Whatever else it may signify, “The End” is an ideal, inevitable coda, and one of the best closing songs on one of the very best rock albums.

Only the authority and influence of the first album keeps its follow-up somewhat in its shadow. More than a few fans, however, might insist that Strange Days is actually superior. Overall, the sophomore effort (also released in 1967) sounds more tied to its time, but as an artifact of that era, it holds its own all these years later. Not unlike the first album, Strange Days features an extended closing statement, the more straightforward but also more calculated (and less arresting) anthem “When The Music’s Over”. To its credit, the band did not ardently attempt to duplicate the formula that worked so well the first time around (not that this would have been possible anyway), and were willing, even eager, to take some risks. The results are mixed, but mostly very good and occasionally exceptional. For starters, the somewhat overproduced title track (with its dated echo effects on the vocal) might not catch LSD in a bottle like “Break On Through”, but it more than adequately conveys, lyrically and musically, a foreboding menace that anticipates the not-so-loving summer of ’68:

 

Strange eyes fill strange rooms
Voices will signal their tired end
The hostess is grinning
Her guests sleep from sinning
Hear me talk of sin and you know this is it.

Radio staples “People Are Strange” and “Love Me Two Times” are shadowy nuggets of tight, intelligent song craft: even after you’ve heard them each a thousand times (and who hasn’t?), they always deliver the goods. A trio of obscure gems make this album essential for the casual fan who thinks a greatest hits collection will suffice: “You’re Lost Little Girl” is a lithe ballad with propulsive choruses (it’s always a delight to hear Densmore elevate the energy at exactly the right moment with his cymbal rides and rim shots); “I Can’t See Your Face In My Mind” is one of the experiments that comes off spectacularly (the eastern vibe seems neither forced nor affected, no matter how much incense was probably obscuring the air during recording); “Unhappy Girl” has Manzarek mixing things up by overdubbing organ on top of a backing track playing backward. Oddly, it works. Perhaps the shining moment is the sublime “Moonlight Drive”, allegedly the song Morrison first sang to Manzarek on a beach in Venice before the band officially formed. It sounds like a ‘50s love song spun through a psychedelic wheel, with dirty bottleneck grounding it in the here and now (that being 1967 or 2007). And so, a little bit slighter, but quite solid, Strange Days remains an album everyone should own.

Love (or even tolerance) of the group’s next two albums is what separates the cautious Doors fans from the true believers: each is extremely brief with several throwaways and a handful of the band’s better moments. Waiting For the Sun is the one that almost never got made, discourtesy of Morrison’s now chronic capriciousness; the antics that bolstered his myth, but more often than not derailed the delicate act of making good music. The obvious example of this dynamic is epitomized by the song that is not on the album. An ambitious composition, “The Celebration of the Lizard”, based on a poem by Morrison, was intended to fill up an entire side of the album. For myriad reasons (Morrison’s histrionics in the studio, the inability to record songs when the singer didn’t bother making it to the studio, general lethargy and uninspired musical ideas), the band never came close to a worthwhile take, and fans would have to wait a couple of years to hear a version on Absolutely Live!. A section of the song survived, and based on the quality of “Not To Touch The Earth”, it might have been the group’s masterpiece.

 

Although it was a huge hit single, “Hello I Love You” is as close to bubblegum schlock as the Doors ever came (not to mention the rather blatant larceny of the Kinks’ “All Day and All the Night”), yet Morrison, even on a lightweight tune, could craft a dazzling line: “Sidewalk crouches at her feet / Like a dog that begs for something sweet”. “Love Street” is an enchanting love song that still injects the dark undercurrent the singer could seldom resist:

 

She has robes and she has monkeys
Lazy diamond studded flunkies
She has wisdom and knows what to do
She has me and she has you.

More lyrical virtuosity appears on the short but astounding “Summer’s Almost Gone”—also one of Morrison’s better vocal performances:

Morning found us calmly unaware
Noon burned gold into our hair
At night we swam the laughing sea
When summer’s gone, where will we be?

A couple of fan favorites, “The Unknown Soldier” (which has not aged especially well) and “Five To One” (which has) conclude the first and second sides. In the end, not at all bad for a record that came dangerously close to imploding at the launch pad.

By 1969 Morrison, if not phoning it in, was otherwise preoccupied by more urgent matters of wine, women and sloth. As the rest of the band struggled to assemble the odds, ends, snippets and unfinished blueprints that would eventually become The Soft Parade, the front man applied himself to the full-time activity of mutating from Adonis to Falstaff, having (mostly) eschewed acid for alcohol. Krieger, who had quietly contributed several songs to the last two albums, stepped up and wrote lyrics for half the tunes this time out. (People tend to forget, if they ever actually knew, that even on the earlier albums, many of the singles came from Krieger’s pen: he co-wrote “Light My Fire”, not to mention “Love Me Two Times”. For iThe Soft Parade, he supplied “Touch Me”, making him the de-facto hit maker of the group). Still, despite Krieger’s admirable enthusiasm—or survival instinct—the band missed Morrison’s inimitable edge:

 

Come on take me by the hand
Gonna bury all our trouble in the sand.
(from “Tell All The People”—Krieger)

The mask that you wore
My fingers will explore
The costume of control
Excitement soon unfolds.
(from “Easy Ride”—Morrison)

Or,

Wishful sinful, our love is beautiful to see
I know where I would like to be …
(from “Wishful Sinful”—Krieger)

The lights are getting brighter
The radio is moaning
Calling to the dogs
There are still a few animals
Left out in the yard
But it’s getting harder
To describe
Sailors
To the underfed.
(from “The Soft Parade”—Morrison)

And yet, uneven as this one is, like the previous album there are some beauties. “Wild Child” is as close to perfection as the Doors got between their first and last album, featuring Krieger’s effortlessly smooth slide guitar, and some of Densmore’s most cocksure, kickass drumming. Arguably, the elastic essence of what often set the Doors slightly apart from the pack is represented by what is probably the most unfamiliar track, “Do It”. To say it is lyrically thin is beneficent, but the authority of Morrison’s vocals—mostly repeating “Please, please listen to me, children”—is exhilarating (and special kudos must be offered to long-suffering perfectionist Paul Rothchild: he had produced all the albums thus far, and uses the studio brilliantly here to capture a clean sound, particularly on Densmore’s drums, and always augmenting Morrison’s range, bringing out all the warmth he could wring out of his vocal takes. Another way of putting it is to say he made Morrison sound like he could actually sing, something not in abundant display on the live albums).

The title track, a cut and paste job of previously uncompleted shreds and fragments, manages to be messy, embarrassing and brilliant, sometimes all at once. Take it or leave it, no other band would ever conclude a song with the words, “When all fails we can whip the horse’s eyes / And make them sleep, and cry”. In between accelerated turns in his coffin, Dostoyevsky had to grin at least a little bit. To be certain, this is a trillion light years from “Soul Kitchen” or “People Are Strange”, but the horns and strings and somewhat indulgent envelope-pushing prove that the Doors were anything but a self imitating machine. Like any other group that endures through successive generations, their songs have an authentic, instantly identifiable sound; even when—as is often the case—the actual songs sound nothing alike. Untalented opportunists have sold their souls for much less, and in fact are doing so right now on prime time TV.

Morrison Hotel was, rightly, lauded as a stunning return to form, although that appraisal is only halfway accurate. It was a return to the days when the Doors put out unreservedly great records, but Morrison Hotel is nothing at all like its predecessors. A stripped down, blues-flavored affair, the entire band is on fire, with Krieger continuing to make a case for being perhaps the most under appreciated guitarist in a major rock group. From the moment this sucker hit the streets, one needed only a cursory glance at the revealing band photo spread out across the inside foldout cover (for those who can recall that album covers were minor works of art in their own right; for those who can recall albums): in a bar, sporting casual threads, surrounded by cigarette smoking, unpretentious patrons, this is a group that had lived a little but was still alive.

If the first two Doors albums are drugs, they’d be of the decidedly psychedelic variety; the next couple are a dangerous cocktail of amphetamines and Quaaludes—highs and lows surging in an uneasy rush. Morrison Hotel is beer: authentic, unfiltered, as American as it gets. Plain and simple, some of the band’s most indispensable material appears on this one, and the tone is set with ballsy assurance on the familiar opener, “Roadhouse Blues”. It is the next song, however, that showcases what this new and improved model sounded like. “Waiting for the Sun” is ominous, yet inviting; there are traces of the psychedelic fog, mostly thanks to Manzarek, but it’s Krieger and Densmore (along with raw and refreshingly live-sounding vocals from Morrison) that propel this song into a new decade. Significantly, the band finally had the wherewithal to complete a track intended to appear on the earlier album that bore its name.

 

Even the ostensibly expendable numbers are bristling with a rediscovered energy. For instance, Manzarek is all over the ivories on “You Make Me Real” and, again, Morrison sounds like he not only showed up, but he actually cares. When, toward the end of the song, he recalls “Roadhouse Blues” with the reprised shout of “Let it roll baby roll”, there is no mistaking the purpose, and this most undemonstrative of bands seems to actually be enjoying themselves. Perhaps this is too much of a good thing, as the lame closer “Maggie M’Gill” represents one of the band’s weakest moments, and “Land Ho!” is so-so. It’s the kind of track that, if initially left off the album and “rediscovered” for a subsequent box set, would be a delight. On the other hand, the effortless synergy of a band clicking on all cylinders is in full effect on “Queen of the Highway”. If the brief, bittersweet “Indian Summer” uncannily conjures up the sound and feel from the first album, this is understandable since it was actually recorded in 1966 (an outtake from that album, this early—and amazing—love song’s subtle nod to “The End” is more obvious, and poignant considering it came first).

Special mention must be made of those indispensable songs. “Peace Frog” alone should satisfy either the curious or the unconvinced that Robbie Krieger is a bad man. These are indelible riffs from a man who grew up listening to old school blues and was helping author the codebook of rock and roll, still very much a work in progress at that point. Likewise, for anyone who insists Morrison can’t sing, cue up “Blue Sunday” (which “Peace Frog” segues seamlessly into), and stop resisting. Finally, the definitive track, and the one that pointed the way to the road ahead, is “The Spy”. A straight up, slow blues, Krieger and Densmore hang back like bar band veterans and allow Manzarek to do his thing. For folks who associate Manzarek with the alternately dated and occasionally clumsy-sounding organ, it might be a surprise to hear how authentic and authoritative his piano touch still sounds (and perhaps you’ll even catch yourself wishing he had employed it a bit more often before and after this particular album). Like “Indian Summer”, this one could be quite effective as an instrumental, but it happens to boast one of Morrison’s finest vocal performances. It almost seems, in retrospect, that in 1967, Morrison tapped into potential even he didn’t realize he had, and then spent a few years struggling—and at times, understandably paralyzed—to meet the inevitable expectations (at best) or avoid copying his younger self (at worst). Here, he finds a newer voice, the voice his body and brain had grown into, and it’s almost unthinkable that the old soul singing had recently turned 26.

If Morrison Hotel served as an unequivocal acknowledgment that the ‘60s were over (on multiple levels, not least of which the literal one), then L.A. Woman is another stride toward the future. It remains more than a little tantalizing to conjecture what, and how much, ammunition the band had up their collective sleeves, but judging solely on the increasing quality of their final two recordings, it is reasonable to lament some spectacular music that never had the opportunity to get made. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Doors album without some drama. This time, producer Paul Rothchild decided the band was a spent force, or, he had done all he could do to wrangle what he felt were acceptable versions of the assembled works in progress. Based solely on the strength of the eventual results, one wonders what he was thinking. In an inspired move based mostly on necessity, the band rallied around longtime engineer Bruce Botnick and decided to record the album pretty much live in the studio. What happened next could be a combination of luck, skill and the innate advantages of a band operating like a family, but whatever it was, the songs recall what worked so well on Morrison Hotel but also go places the band had not come close to approaching thus far. One obvious difference was the group’s employment of an actual bassist (Jerry Scheff) as well as a rhythm guitarist (Marc Benno); where the band had utilized session bassists on and off, it’s no coincidence that the meatier, bluesier sound is directly attributable to these welcome additions.

Krieger, the one-man hit machine, is back with “Love Her Madly” which, like “Love Me Two Times”, is a perfectly constructed pop confection that never gets stale. Two “fat Jim” songs feature raw vocals that turn to actual hollers and screams at times. To belabor an earlier point, Morrison sounds about a hundred years older than he did only a few years before, but his voice, and lyrics, have evolved with the band meeting him halfway. This singer would bludgeon the earlier material, but the young lion could never have gotten his paws around a song like “The Changeling”: “I had money, I had none / But I never been so broke that I couldn’t leave town”. On “Been Down So Long”, Morrison and Krieger sound raw, even angry, it’s a clever desperation that balances exhaustion and release. A dubious selection makes for the only false note: a lazy and half-assed obliteration of John Lee Hooker’s “Crawling King Snake”, which should have been left at the lake with the other snake. (Quick fantasy: if they had held onto “The Spy”, and put that in the exact same spot as “Crawling King Snake”, and—if you really want to kick it up a notch—they swapped “Been Down So Long” for “Peace Frog/Blue Sunday”, L.A. Woman would go from being a great album to the short list of rock masterpieces.)

Solid departures like “L’America” and “The Wasp (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)” provide further indications of the different, and desirable, direction the band might have continued to travel toward, and the startling vulnerability (the Lizard King was human, after all) of “Hyacinth House” assumes an added poignancy considering Morrison would not be alive to listen to this album:

 

Why did you throw the Jack of Hearts away?
It was the only card in the deck that I had left to play
And I’ll say it again, I need a brand new friend
And I’ll say it again, I need a brand new friend, the end.

One of the great one-two punches in the Doors’ catalog concludes side one: “Cars Hiss By My Window” is arguably the band’s best song that no one has heard:

 

Headlights through my window, shinin’ on the wall
Can’t hear my baby, though I call and call …
Windows started trembling with a sonic boom
A cold girl will kill you, in a darkened room.

If you gave Lightnin’ Hopkins a lot of acid, he might have sounded something like this: lower than mellow, aged way beyond his years, but still seeing the sweetness and the humor and mostly telling it like it is. As straightforward as this song is, it is deceptively deep and reveals the considerable dividends of Scheff and Benno’s presence. Morrison’s human guitar howl at the end of the song sets up a sublime segue into what might be the band’s ultimate song. The title track is not as long or loquacious as the epics that closed out the first two albums, and while it is every bit as dark, it is also accessible and direct, a love letter and farewell note to the city the singer embodied:

 

I see your hair is burning
Hills are filled with fire
If they say I never loved you
You know they are a liar …
Are you a lucky little lady in the City of Light
Or just another lost angel … City of Night.

 

Morrison captured L.A. for the ages, and notably, he did not need to status-check at the Chateau Marmont to conjure it up. The city was in his blood: it was the back-alley bars, rat-trap hotels and squalid side streets that he prowled, equal parts inspiration and escape. So much dissipated potential, to be certain, but it’s also reasonable to suggest that his accelerated stretch in the spotlight enabled him to write the songs on L. A. Woman, not unlike Malcolm Lowry’s extended period of self destruction instigated Under the Volcano.

Finally, while the Doors, obviously, did not realize this would be their last album, could any band ask for a more perfect finale than “Riders On the Storm”? If “L.A. Woman” depicts the claustrophobic, corrupted city of angels, “Riders On the Storm” takes on the big questions: Who are we? Why are we here? Where are we going? Perhaps the definitive marriage of music and words, this song could be an intriguing poem and a first-rate instrumental piece, but Morrison’s mellow, mature vocals (the decision to whisper the lyrics over the recorded take is an expert move) and Manzarek’s trickling rain on the keyboards make this, by any criteria, a stunner:

 

Riders on the storm
Into this house we’re born
Into this world we’re thrown
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out on loan
Riders on the storm.

There will always be plenty of speculation about how much more Morrison could have done, what he might have achieved, what other things he had to say. On the other hand, looking back on the way he left things, what more needed to be said?

Addendum: Behind The Music or, Detritus, Destruction and Resurrection

A few thoughts regarding these remasters, which are advertised as “40th Anniversary Mixes”. Enticement: the entire Doors catalog—all six studio albums—have been remastered, again, and given the lavish liner note treatment to commemorate the four decades since the debut album. Warning: these albums have been tampered with (hence, remixed) in ways that may be refreshing or sacrilegious, depending upon one’s perspective. Verdict: it is a bit of both, mostly good. These remixes are, in the words of the man primarily responsible (then and now) for engineering/producing them, “The Doors, as they were originally intended to be heard!”

We are all, by now, accustomed to the inevitable re-releases, with studio banter and false starts: they are advertised as such, obviously designed with the more passionate fans in mind. On the other hand, some caveat emptor action is applicable in this instance. Any prospective shopper should be fairly warned that the discs have been remastered and remixed, so these won’t sound like the albums you grew up with. (For those who are not aware, the initial pressing of compact discs, from the mid ‘80s, were properly redone in the late ‘90s via straight-up digital remastering that removed hiss and improved audio quality). In his breathless liner notes, Botnick alerts us to his (our?) revelation that the first Doors album has, for the last 40 years, been pressed at the wrong speed (!) Listen: “When the album was mixed at Elektra studios … either the four-track playback recorder was running slow or the stereo two-track was running fast.” And all these years I thought Iwas the only one who had noticed this! My guess is that the same people who will be flabbergasted by this development are the same folks who swear they can hear discernible warmth emanating from their system’s $600 gold plated connecting cables.

Sound aside—and the remastering job is, for the most part, an improvement in terms of clarity and instrumental balance—it’s the “bonus” material that fans will likely love or hate. If, for instance, you think it’s cool to actually hear Morrison sing “She get high” instead of “She get …” (was I the only person who, for many years, thought he was saying “Seek it”?), and can dig all the “fucks” restored to the, uh, climactic section of “The End”, then these reissues might, in the (actual) words of Mr. Botnick, “possibly change your life!” Interestingly, the first time the “fuck” version of “The End” was unleashed was during the powerful and disturbing opening scene of Apocalypse Now. This is more than a little ironic, because Botnick’s (and the remaining band members, who are not on record as having raised any objections) rationale painfully recalls Francis Ford Coppola’s insistance, upon reissuing his extended, bloated vision (Apocalypse Now Redux), that this was the real film in all its glory. Needless to say, it is entirely appropriate if the artist decides, decades later, that certain mistakes, false starts and excesses initially edited out deserve (demand!) to be resurrected. But that does not mean it improves the material; indeed, as we now see quite often with posthumous novels-in-progress (or worse, ones the author trashed for good reasons), alternate takes of old songs and director’s cut material (the latter two at least added as bonus material so as to not sully the initial versions that audiences are familiar with), there can be too much of a good thing.

Suffice it to say, similar sorts of embellishments exist on all of these reissues. Some are intriguing, some are appalling, and several are so incredibly ill-conceived you literally aren’t sure if you should laugh or sob. Again, assuming you are the type of fan who wants to hear snatches of lyrics or notes that didn’t make the first cut, it’s worth checking out these versions. For the first four albums, the slightly cleaner sound is a plus, especially on Waiting for the Sun and The Soft Parade. Of these two, Waiting for the Sun is probably the best bet, as the clarity is quite noticeable, but the bonus material includes the previously unreleased demo of “The Celebration of the Lizard”. Don’t get too excited: for anyone who has long wondered whether or not this song was meant to be the Doors’ magnum opus, the material here does little to make a case for it. The version on Absolutely Live! is half-decent, so between that and the polished section that became “Not to Touch the Earth”, it was not unreasonable to hope this song should have been among the band’s best—a genuinely tantalizing thought. Sadly, based on the take that survives, it’s not merely a work in progress, it’s a mess.

On the other hand, Morrison Hotel has bountiful bonus material—most of which is various takes of “Roadhouse Blues” under construction; they are interesting the first time around, but unlikely to inspire repeat listens. More importantly, this one is too slick by a half, rendering a raw, dirty classic straitjacketed into pristine submission. Finally, L.A. Woman provides a bit of a conundrum: moderately improved sound, but do you want to have anyone tampering with perfection? (Wait until you hear what they’ve done to “Cars Hiss By My Window”.) Lest anyone think, understandably, that I’m advising against picking up these reissues, remember that I’ve had the benefit of listening to them. In conclusion, I know I would not have taken anyone else’s opinion too seriously until I’d heard them for myself.

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The Doors by The Doors

December 21, 2006 By Leave a Comment

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/books/reviews/9180/the-doors-by-the-doors-by-the-doors-with-ben-fong-torres/
The Doors
by The Doors and Ben Fong-Torres
Hyperion
November 2006, 304 pages, $45.00
The Doors: The Complete Illustrated Lyrics
by Danny Sugarman
Hyperion
November 2006, 208 pages, $19.95

by Sean G. Murphy

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Morrison, not to praise him…
Well, at least the carefully manufactured, sacrilegious icon, fashioned from that most contemptible of forces: the artless imitators who seek to project their own half baked and unrealized rock star fantasies and, of course, the soulless record execs, whose gluttony launched a thousand greatest hits collections. And it hasn’t exactly helped that the people who claim to love him best have done the most to consummate and capitalize on the pseudo-mythology of a man who somehow gets younger every year. Death has been very good to Morrison, but it’s been even better for those who continue to profit from his fleeting but fruitful body of work. Not to mention his body. With that in mind, the following words will be eschewed for the duration of this discussion: Shaman, Dionysus, Rimbaud, God, Satan, and Witchcraft.
When it comes to the Doors, the world generally breaks into two camps: those who hate them and those who do not. Amongst those who do not, there are those who like them, and those who really like them. And then there are the real fans. This is not an uncommon spectrum for any well-known band, but considering the Doors released their last official album in 1971, their continued relevance—and the cult of personality disorder Morrison still enjoys—is impressive and more than a little inscrutable (and, for the haters, more annoying than anything else). Amongst the critics, the so-called experts, there tends to be an increasing dichotomy: those who regard Morrison as a poetic genius (or better still, a poet), a Lord Byron of the late 20th century; and those who actually read some poetry after high school and consider him a clown, a poseur whose laughable lyrics don’t merit a second thought.
The reality, as it often insists on being, remains pretty squarely in the middle. Compared to the Romantic poets, like Shelley or Keats, Morrison ain’t much (then again, who is?); although, compared to the Beats—as he often is—he comes off okay. And if that assessment tends to underscore the observation that the Beats weren’t all that, so be it. The only pertinent criteria should be: when measured against rock musicians who came before and after him, Morrison more than holds his own. The list of articulate wordsmiths who tower above the Lizard King is substantial, but the number of those who cower beneath him is incalculable.
And so, in spite of Oliver Stone’s best efforts to immortalize a few of his favorite things (About Jim Morrison? About the ‘60s? About himself? All of the above?), he mostly achieved—in his inimitably over-the-top way—the opposite of what he ostensibly intended: a hysterically sophomoric parody that celebrated virtually every irritating trait that made Morrison an insufferable man-child much of the time. Suffice it to say, his tantrums as well as the evidence of his untapped potential have been abundantly documented by a variety of individuals who, unlike Stone, had the advantage of actually being there, and being sane.
Morrison, like Hemingway, or (insert-name-of-notoriously-tortured-artist), had periods of productivity that preceded or followed, or happened alongside the drugging, drinking, and debauchery. Not focusing on (or even acknowledging) his more mundane—if lucid—moments is somewhat understandable given the constraints of a two hour movie, but it does any artist a considerable disservice to trivialize the efforts and industry that commonly accompany even the slightest of achievements. To be certain, Morrison was seldom sober in the recording studio, but that’s one reason he wasn’t a novelist. It is also why he is no longer alive. Oliver Stone’s ass-backwards hagiography is a quintessential slab of outsider’s groupie-envy, and despite what he may actually have intended, he turned his hero into a rather uninteresting cartoon character. In the final analysis, Morrison may have cared too little about his life, but he cared a great deal about his work.
Did you know freedom exists in a schoolbook?Did you know madmen are running our prisonsWithin a jail, within a gaolWithin a white free protestant maelstrom?We’re perched headlong on the edge of boredom.
The Doors: The Complete Illustrated Lyrics is one of the best books that should have been around 20 years or so ago. Today, every compact disc—particularly the classic rock back catalog favorites, which have now been re-remastered for ever-enhanced sound quality and company profits—comes with lyrics, and pictures. In the rare exceptions to this rule, the curious listener can painlessly peruse an entire band’s history online. Back in the mid-’80s, more money was apparently spent on the elaborate full color cardboard cases that compact discs came in, which most people promptly threw away after tearing open. And the “booklets” inside the actual jewel case were mostly two-sided inserts with a miniature replica of the album cover and song titles. Often, the task of ascertaining the lyrics of an elusive song was a sort of adolescent quest for the Holy Grail. All of which is to say, it’s debatable what makes this kind of book worthwhile in our box set, official and unofficial website, Google-ready moment in time. Fortunately for those on the fence, The Complete Illustrated Lyrics is beefed up with well-intended essays and (mostly insufferable) recollections from many of the unusual suspects, waxing moronic about Mr. Mojo Risin’, that psychedelic seeker, all those clown tears that saved every life but his own, etc. One shudders to be a fly on the wall during a potential tete-a-tete between Oliver Stone and (Doors producer) Paul Rothchild; in fact, I believe Jean Paul Sartre wrote a play about it. Listen: “Insanity of course is a symbolic death … and the cleansing is a rebirth. And then of course there’s the incredible Oedipal thing …” If this sample (courtesy of Rothchild) is your cup of treacle, there’s plenty of pleasure to be found in these pages.
Still, all the lyrics are included and should impart sufficient impetus for any lapsed fan to return to the only thing that matters—the songs. The other problem, of course, with presenting the Doors’ albums on the page is that it has the unfortunate effect of isolating the words from the music, which considerably lessens their distinctive force.
Well, I woke up this mornin’ and got myself a beerThe future’s uncertain and the end is always near.
Morrison was not a poet. Then again, Charles Bukowski and Allen Ginsberg were not rock stars. It might be reasonable, if a bit facile, to propose that more than a few poets would kill for the type of audience popular singers have at their disposal. And that is where the music comes into play: crucial as, say, Michael Stipe, David Byrne, and Peter Gabriel’s lyrics are to our collective consciousness, it’s unlikely we’d ever have heard of them if they’d published their work in chap books instead of pop albums. In Morrison’s case, some of the lyrics can stand-alone and do work rather nicely being read:
The cars crawl past all stuffed with eyesStreet lights shed their hollow glowYour brain seems bruised with numb surpriseStill one place to go, still one place to go.
On the other hand, while “The Crystal Ship” is interesting, if somewhat slight, on the page, one listen elucidates, instantly, why the song remains enigmatic and enchanting four decades on—the mood created by the music (Ray Manzarek’s subtle organ and solemn piano accompaniment; Robby Krieger’s almost ethereal guitar notes and John Densmore’s always intelligent percussion): the rush and remorse inextricable from day-to-day existence; the deadening of the senses through chemical escape; the illusory respite from reality that is more or less Morrison’s epitaph; all the pain and unfulfilled promise of his life, along with much of the glory and redemptory grace, somehow contained in one song (all in all, a pretty impressive use of two minutes and 40 seconds).
There are, to be sure, throwaway moments—at least lyrically speaking—on each of the first two albums, but the group did a great deal of its abiding work in 1967 when the svelte, leather-clad lead singer was at the top of his game. The Doors stands tall as one of the seminal debuts in rock and roll, but the aptly titled Strange Days remains a most righteous second act. Its centerpiece, “When The Music’s Over”, clocking in at over 11 minutes and closing the second side (like “The End” from the first album), supplies the lion’s share of sound bites for any half-serious discussion of the Doors. But it is the succinct “People Are Strange”, an astonishing portrait of alienation (misleadingly merry, due to the carnivalesque music—one of the rare instances where Ray Manzarek did not provide an appropriate backdrop for Morrison’s words) that could work as well, or better, in black and white:
People are strange, when you’re a strangerFaces look ugly, when you’re aloneWomen seem wicked, when you’re unwantedStreets are uneven, when you’re down.
One can’t help but wonder: if this song featured only the accompaniment of an acoustic guitar with harmonica-embellished choruses, and was sung badly (in other words, if it was a Bob Dylan tune) it would—justifiably—be heralded as a masterpiece.
The third and fourth albums (Waiting for the Sun and The Soft Parade) proved difficult to record, mostly due to the singer’s intransigence, and his antics are not so lovingly rehashed in many of the books’ interviews. Still, each record has more than a few remarkable moments. It is a shame that the trite pop confection “Hello, I Love You” is their most popular song from 1968, when a song that actually articulates the broiling undercurrents of that year as well as any other, “Five To One”, warrants that acclaim:
Five to one baby, one in fiveNo one here gets out alive…The old get old and the young get strongerMay take a week and it may take longer.
That sentiment certainly holds up better than most of the peace and love sonic popcorn that permeated the scene. Like Arthur Lee (his LA neighbor and early hero), Morrison should get props for articulating—if not embracing—the sinister elements buried beneath this not-so-soft parade. When he set sober eyes on a target, Morrison was as adept as anyone at cataloging the banal and the exotic, the perverse and the pathetic; when he set his sights on the weird circus of the late ‘60s, some of the images are at once unsettling and splendid:
Large buxom obese queensGarden hogs and cunt veteransQuaint cabbage saintsShit hoarders and individualistsDrag strip officialsTight-lipped losers andLustful fuck salesmenMy militant dandies:All strange order of monstersHot on the trail of the woodbineWe welcome you to our procession.
To his considerable credit, Morrison the artist constantly looked around him for inspiration, and mercifully little naval-gazing made its way into his writing. At the risk of channeling Paul Rothchild, it seems reasonable to suggest that in constantly instigating what could easily have been a safer, static existence (he was rich, after all), Morrison always shattered the display case and did not shy away from the broken glass; in fact, it inspired some of his lasting lyrics:
Can you find me soft asylumI can’t make it any moreThe man is at the door …All our lives we sweat and saveBuilding for a shallow grave.
And, from the same album ( The Soft Parade ), special mention must be made for the short but stunning “Wild Child”, a mini tour de force that truly straddles the line between gibberish and genius. Or, maybe it’s simply the band: at their tightest with the ever reliable Densmore dropping bombs in the background and some sick slide guitar from Krieger, perhaps just about any lyrics would sound cool:
With hunger at her heels, freedom in her eyesShe dances on her knees, pirate prince at her sideWild child, full of graceSavior of the human race.
Judge for yourself what that means, but it’s undeniably Jim Morrison.
Coincidentally or not, as Morrison grew a beard (and a gut), and liquor replaced LSD as his preferred source of inspiration (or escape), his lyrics became less surreal and he often wrote with precision and clarity. One of the band’s best moments, from Morrison Hotel, is a blues song that radiates sex, power, and paranoia while still exuding coolness:
I’m a spy in the house of loveI know the dreams that you’re dreaming ofI know the words that you long to hearI know your deepest, secret fear.
And on their last album, LA Woman , Morrison again gets back to basics of the blues, once more interlacing the bitter with the sweet:
The cars hiss by my windowLike the waves down on the beachI got this girl beside meBut she’s out of reach.
By the end, Morrison was a million miles from the blue bus and riding the snake to the lake, and if he’d abused his body (he was 27 going on 60 when he finally cancelled his subscription to the resurrection), he had lived and learned along the way. His ultimate statement was a love song about, and for, the city of angels, his adopted hometown that made him immortal:
Drivin’ down your freewayMidnight alleys roamCops in cars, the topless barsNever saw a woman so aloneMotel money, murder madnessLet’s change the mood from glad to sadness.
The Doors, By The Doors is another in an endless series of collector’s items, and it’s safe to assume that there is a readymade audience for these types of commodities or they would cease to exist. This latest installment, for what it’s worth, is the first such collection featuring only the band and its associates (hence, The Doors by The Doors). It also includes, for the first time, extended commentary from his family, and it is both touching and refreshing to see that his estranged father finally accepted—and acknowledged—his famous son’s legacy. In addition to gorgeous full-page color photos, there are interviews (culled from past and present) that provide useful and often illuminating context for the times and circumstances in which the albums were created.So: these books are not required reading, even for more-than-casual fans, but isn’t it for the much more than casual fans that coffee table productions with never before seen pictures are assembled? This is not the end, my friends: despite misguided movies and the money-driven marketing machine, the music does endure simply because it continues to resonate with an always expanding audience. Forty years after “Light My Fire” Jim Morrison, to borrow an infamous headline, is still hot, he is still sexy, and he is still dead. But mostly, the Doors are very much alive.
— 21 December 2006

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