Post by darkstar3 on Feb 8, 2011 19:18:08 GMT
CRAWDADDY!
Issue 21
The Unknown Soldier
By Michael Horowitz
In the spring of 1968 the world expected The Doors’ third album. They didn’t get it. What they got instead was a three minute sound tracked film called “The Unknown Soldier.”
The work is typical later Morrison, revealing fully his current potential. The film opens at the breakfast table, an archetypical family scene. The action switches to a California Beach, Morrison’s favorite setting. Our Hero is tied to a tree by ropes, command orders are given, and he is shot to death. After his burial, the whole world celebrates wildly, while Morrison sings hysterically on the sound track: “It’s all over, baby! The war is over!”
When the film played at the Fillmore East, a young audience brimming with anti-war frustration broke into pandemonium. “The War Is Over!” cried teenyboppers in the aisles. “The Doors ended the fucking war!” The Doors’ little passion play had grabbed the audience. Jimmy and the boys had done it again.
But what about that dead soldier? Morrison attains a bizarre duality in The Unknown Soldier. He is killed on the screen but survives triumphantly in sound. His is both victim and victor, martyr and apostle.
“It’s a little early to be disillusioned,” suggests Dr Albert Goldman. “But my hunch is that The Doors are stalling. And they’re slipping – as you must in this business when you stall – into the teenybopper circuit. Their audiences are getting younger. They’ll be getting more mechanically repetitive. And it may end up with Morrison sort of peeling off and becoming a movie star.
“I worry about the militarism in the Unknown Soldier,” Goldman complains. “Morrison has an authoritarian personality. When The Doors sit down to dinner, he sits at the head of the table. I think he’s more like his father than he realizes. In the Unknown Soldier there is an inversion. Instead of the officer, he’s the deserter. But it’s the same thing.”
Not that Goldman isn’t sympathetic to Morrison’s current artistic problem. Having posed as the rebel, the vocalist now finds himself with a measure of victory. But it is difficult to transcend rebellion and it comes as no surprise to see Morrison rehashing the theme of authority rather than following through.
“The initial vision was essentially a vision of breakthrough,” Goldman recounts. “What they offered you was a coal with blue-black embers on the outside and a ferocious center leaping through. Occasionally they gash the outside of the ember and the real frenzy in the core breaks through.
“That was the spirit of their first album. That’s what got us all excited. That’s what raised all the sunken continents in everybody’s mind, you see.
“They evangelically converted everyone. Then came the moment of truth. You’ve got the world on your side. But where are you at, baby? What are you going to do about it? You made the girl love you. Now, do you love the girl? Do you want to marry her?
“At that moment they really began to go into their problem. The flip side of breakthrough is estrangement. Once you’ve broken away, it’s pretty bleak out there. The rebel cuts himself off. It’s Christ in the garden.
END.
Issue 21
The Unknown Soldier
By Michael Horowitz
In the spring of 1968 the world expected The Doors’ third album. They didn’t get it. What they got instead was a three minute sound tracked film called “The Unknown Soldier.”
The work is typical later Morrison, revealing fully his current potential. The film opens at the breakfast table, an archetypical family scene. The action switches to a California Beach, Morrison’s favorite setting. Our Hero is tied to a tree by ropes, command orders are given, and he is shot to death. After his burial, the whole world celebrates wildly, while Morrison sings hysterically on the sound track: “It’s all over, baby! The war is over!”
When the film played at the Fillmore East, a young audience brimming with anti-war frustration broke into pandemonium. “The War Is Over!” cried teenyboppers in the aisles. “The Doors ended the fucking war!” The Doors’ little passion play had grabbed the audience. Jimmy and the boys had done it again.
But what about that dead soldier? Morrison attains a bizarre duality in The Unknown Soldier. He is killed on the screen but survives triumphantly in sound. His is both victim and victor, martyr and apostle.
“It’s a little early to be disillusioned,” suggests Dr Albert Goldman. “But my hunch is that The Doors are stalling. And they’re slipping – as you must in this business when you stall – into the teenybopper circuit. Their audiences are getting younger. They’ll be getting more mechanically repetitive. And it may end up with Morrison sort of peeling off and becoming a movie star.
“I worry about the militarism in the Unknown Soldier,” Goldman complains. “Morrison has an authoritarian personality. When The Doors sit down to dinner, he sits at the head of the table. I think he’s more like his father than he realizes. In the Unknown Soldier there is an inversion. Instead of the officer, he’s the deserter. But it’s the same thing.”
Not that Goldman isn’t sympathetic to Morrison’s current artistic problem. Having posed as the rebel, the vocalist now finds himself with a measure of victory. But it is difficult to transcend rebellion and it comes as no surprise to see Morrison rehashing the theme of authority rather than following through.
“The initial vision was essentially a vision of breakthrough,” Goldman recounts. “What they offered you was a coal with blue-black embers on the outside and a ferocious center leaping through. Occasionally they gash the outside of the ember and the real frenzy in the core breaks through.
“That was the spirit of their first album. That’s what got us all excited. That’s what raised all the sunken continents in everybody’s mind, you see.
“They evangelically converted everyone. Then came the moment of truth. You’ve got the world on your side. But where are you at, baby? What are you going to do about it? You made the girl love you. Now, do you love the girl? Do you want to marry her?
“At that moment they really began to go into their problem. The flip side of breakthrough is estrangement. Once you’ve broken away, it’s pretty bleak out there. The rebel cuts himself off. It’s Christ in the garden.
END.