Jim Morrison

Saturday, June 26, 2021

I appreciate the band The Doors more than I love them. At the height of my teenage years, The Doors were very much part of my landscape. My dad took me to see the band Them at the Whisky on the Sunset Strip. I was either eleven or twelve years old, and for a short time, the Whisky had matinee performances for all ages, as long as they were with an adult. I couldn't get enough of Them's Gloria, Here Comes The Night, but especially the creepy and sensual  Mystic Eyes. Them, with Van Morrison, was extremely moody, and I got the impression that they were not happy to do a show at three in the afternoon. The sounds they were making were brilliant, and the voice of Van was, of course, magnificent. I can see Van's lips and mouth moving from the audience, but the rest of his body was like a petrified rock. The opening act was The Doors.

I'm pretty sure that this performance was before their first album came out because it was the first time I heard their music. I remember them doing an extended version of Light My Fire, but I was mostly impressed that they did a version of a Kurt Weil/Bertolt Brecht song Alabama Song. My first aural memory is hearing Lotte Lenya singing that song on an album devoted to the theater songs by her husband, Weil, and Brecht. Not only did that album played consistently in our household, but my German Grandmother had the same album. She played the record there when I stayed with her on the weekends. Jim Morrison gave the song the perfect theatrical touch.

What impressed me then as a teenager, and even now, the quality of Morrison's voice and how he relayed the words dramatically and profoundly. When you're twelve or thirteen, hearing a man wearing leather pants, and to me, resembling a Marlon Brando at his most "Wild One" stance in life, well, it's very impressive for a young tot. As I got older and found myself in a world of desire, I understood Jim's voice like a siren to surrender your hesitance to be loved in a difficult to articulate manner. Still, all the boys and girls naturally understood the implications. 

The Sixties were wild and fun but also full of tension and a feeling that everything will collapse spectacularly, and by 1969, you can feel the bummer in the air. Of all the bands, The Doors were among the entranceway to a less kind and more violent world. In that sense, they were not that different from The Velvet Underground, but of course, The Doors were more successful and commercial. I think mainly due to Jim Morrison's voice and iconic sensibility. Like Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Vince Taylor, and Gene Vincent, there was something indecent about Morrison's presence in the world.  I recalled seeing him in Topanga Canyon in a Volkswagon by himself drinking from a brown bag.

It was until recently that I became aware of the Frank Sinatra touch to Jim's vocal talents. Like Sinatra, Morrison can express a tender form of communication that is sexual as well as romantic. If he lived, I would hope that he would have stayed in Paris and become a chanson singer, telling narratives through songs. Or even do the great American songbook. He would have been a natural match to those classic songs of mood and romance. I don't relate to The Doors doing the blues or rock n' roll. It doesn't feel like a genuine relationship to me, in that The Doors' true nature is to do ballads and European songs. Perhaps due to John Densmore's jazz-like drumming, Robby Krieger's exotic touches, and Ray Manzarek's jazzy approach to the melodies. To me, they sound like a jazz band than a rock group. That is the unique strength of The Doors. In that sense, they remind me of the classic Manfred Mann in their approach to pop songs, but in a jazz musician's approach to that style or medium. 

I didn't exactly turn sour on The Doors, but I felt that I grew out of them. I never liked the image of Jim Morrison as the Poet, Lizard King, or drunk. In my version of Jim, he's a sophisticated observer like Baudelaire with his Paris, except Jim's landscape is in Los Angeles. Maybe if his poetry was more Frank O'Hara than Michael McClure, who I think is a fantastic poet, but I don't like how he influenced Jim's writings. The Morrison, in my mind, is a fictional character. On the other hand, Jim (why do we feel comfortable using people's first names when we don't know them?) is a classic crooner. In essence, the ultimate smooth crooner. 

Here is my playlist on Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/jim-morrison-and-the-doors-ballads/pl.u-r0LqtjDggL7