Post by darkstar3 on Apr 4, 2011 20:35:11 GMT
Interview with - Jane Scott - Cleveland, Ohio
by: Michael Olszewski
Masters Of Rock Magazine Vol. No. 3 - The Life and Times Of Jim Morrison
Only a few hundred tickets had been sold for the show. As Jane recalls Morrison had his priorties set before the interview could be conducted. The first thing that had to be accomplished was to locate a beer. Morrison had been drinking during the sound check, and he approached the interview with some skepticism. Morrison quickly opened up to her. She recalls him joking about the lack of press attention he was getting in the city. "Where is everybody, man? Oh, yeah..this is Cleveland" he joked. Soon he was sharing some private thoughts with the sole reporter there.
Jane recalls, "He told me how tiring the tour had become, and the progress the Doors had made in a relatively short time. Of course he kept interrupting our talk to get more beer, but we also talked about the dark mood of the music and how it developed from his written word. Jim wondered how his music would be taken by those outside of his core audience on the West Coast, "Light My Fire" had been a number one record, but the stage act encompassed far more than that with a much darker tone. He also stressed the group had no leader...it wasn't Jim Morrison and the Doors, but the Doors...a cohesive group acting as a single voice with their music. Jim also said it was more democratic that way - with every band member an equal voice in their music and the direction they would take."
Curiously, Jim's list of vital statistics showed his parents as 'Deceased,' though Jane had been told that wasn't actually the case. She questioned Morrison about this apparent contradiction, and his somewhat chilly response was: "I've lost touch with them." Jane then asked the underlying message of 'The End.' "I asked him about the apparent link with the Odeipus complex and the disturbing finale to that song. The violent ending unnerved me somewhat, and he told me the song didn't start out with that in mind. Jim said it was an improvisational "goodbye" song used to end their sets at the London Fog, a club that embraced their music early on. "It was on the Sunset Strip, and it became more serious as we performed it from night to night. There were new lyrics every time we played it. Something really wicked clicked every night we played the Whisky-A-Go-Go. The Doors were second on the bill - something powerful moved me the first night, it just happened. They fired us the next day." Morrison also told me about a new song called "When The Music's Over," (Strange Days releases in Nov 67), was an erotic sermon..a tweleve and a half minute sermon on our lives. He called the first album a blueprint. He said the next release would be more elaborately produced and packaged a bit differently. "Morrison also described the knowns and the unknowns...a glimpse into reality. I don't know if I'm religious but I might want to start my own someday."
Our conversation took a strange turn at that point,
and Jim asked me if I was religious. We began a
fairly deep discussion on whether God exists, and what
kind of Supreme Being he was. Jim looked at me, and
asked, "Do you think He's a benign God or a God of
vengeance like that in the Old Testament?" He said he was searching for God -a God of love, but did know if he would ever find him. Morrison said it was something that
preyed on his mind and admitted it wasn't something he
could talk to just anyone about. He said most of the
people he spoke to in the music industry just wouldn't
understand.
Jane Scott saw Morrison again on the next tour and she found him to distant and difficult to communicate with.
However, their relationship took an odd turn in early
1971. Jane received a call from Morrison when the tour
ended. (Note the last tour of the Doors ended December
12, 1970 New Orleans). He called her from his Los
Angeles home saying he felt he had to speak to someone.
Jim talked about how the previous tour had drained
him. He spoke of the flustration he was feeling in the
studio. "I spoke with him for about an hour, and the time passed quickly. Perhaps it was because I was older than him, but he told me about his need to communicate. Jim was very much a philosopher. He told me about his relationship with his parents, saying he was a military brat who couldn't relate to his father. He also said the family was fairly well off, though he couldn't understand their values. Jim went on to describe the break with his father, and I sensed he wasn't truly happy in part because of that split. There seemed to be a tremendous sense of guilt he couldn't shake. "He also said he didn't know he was writing 'The End' until it appeared in the manner it did on the Doors first album. It was then that he noticed the Oedipus link. Jim didn't realize what he was getting into. I'm not a psychologist, but it appears that guilt was a part of the whole Morrison mystique. I would say it played much more of a role that it would for the average performer. I think Jim's parents were dead in a way to him...there was no communication with them at that time. We said goodbye, and I thought about that conversation for a long time after.
"I was surprised to hear of his death. The facts
seemed so unclear about the way he died. Jim told me in the last conversation that he feared he was washed
up, that he had made himself too available in his
shows. He was also worried about his image after
fighting obscenity charges brought against him in Florida. He said was there was love in his life, but his
career was a different kind of love. He was a poet, and
you got the impression that he anticipated a dramatic
death."
"My last conversation with him was a surprise call
from Los Angeles and it showed a different side of Jim
Morrison than most people saw. He gave me the impression he was searching, and I think he must have still been searching in the end. I don't think he knew what he was searching for. Maybe it was reality. Maybe it was just peace."
by: Michael Olszewski
Masters Of Rock Magazine Vol. No. 3 - The Life and Times Of Jim Morrison
Only a few hundred tickets had been sold for the show. As Jane recalls Morrison had his priorties set before the interview could be conducted. The first thing that had to be accomplished was to locate a beer. Morrison had been drinking during the sound check, and he approached the interview with some skepticism. Morrison quickly opened up to her. She recalls him joking about the lack of press attention he was getting in the city. "Where is everybody, man? Oh, yeah..this is Cleveland" he joked. Soon he was sharing some private thoughts with the sole reporter there.
Jane recalls, "He told me how tiring the tour had become, and the progress the Doors had made in a relatively short time. Of course he kept interrupting our talk to get more beer, but we also talked about the dark mood of the music and how it developed from his written word. Jim wondered how his music would be taken by those outside of his core audience on the West Coast, "Light My Fire" had been a number one record, but the stage act encompassed far more than that with a much darker tone. He also stressed the group had no leader...it wasn't Jim Morrison and the Doors, but the Doors...a cohesive group acting as a single voice with their music. Jim also said it was more democratic that way - with every band member an equal voice in their music and the direction they would take."
Curiously, Jim's list of vital statistics showed his parents as 'Deceased,' though Jane had been told that wasn't actually the case. She questioned Morrison about this apparent contradiction, and his somewhat chilly response was: "I've lost touch with them." Jane then asked the underlying message of 'The End.' "I asked him about the apparent link with the Odeipus complex and the disturbing finale to that song. The violent ending unnerved me somewhat, and he told me the song didn't start out with that in mind. Jim said it was an improvisational "goodbye" song used to end their sets at the London Fog, a club that embraced their music early on. "It was on the Sunset Strip, and it became more serious as we performed it from night to night. There were new lyrics every time we played it. Something really wicked clicked every night we played the Whisky-A-Go-Go. The Doors were second on the bill - something powerful moved me the first night, it just happened. They fired us the next day." Morrison also told me about a new song called "When The Music's Over," (Strange Days releases in Nov 67), was an erotic sermon..a tweleve and a half minute sermon on our lives. He called the first album a blueprint. He said the next release would be more elaborately produced and packaged a bit differently. "Morrison also described the knowns and the unknowns...a glimpse into reality. I don't know if I'm religious but I might want to start my own someday."
Our conversation took a strange turn at that point,
and Jim asked me if I was religious. We began a
fairly deep discussion on whether God exists, and what
kind of Supreme Being he was. Jim looked at me, and
asked, "Do you think He's a benign God or a God of
vengeance like that in the Old Testament?" He said he was searching for God -a God of love, but did know if he would ever find him. Morrison said it was something that
preyed on his mind and admitted it wasn't something he
could talk to just anyone about. He said most of the
people he spoke to in the music industry just wouldn't
understand.
Jane Scott saw Morrison again on the next tour and she found him to distant and difficult to communicate with.
However, their relationship took an odd turn in early
1971. Jane received a call from Morrison when the tour
ended. (Note the last tour of the Doors ended December
12, 1970 New Orleans). He called her from his Los
Angeles home saying he felt he had to speak to someone.
Jim talked about how the previous tour had drained
him. He spoke of the flustration he was feeling in the
studio. "I spoke with him for about an hour, and the time passed quickly. Perhaps it was because I was older than him, but he told me about his need to communicate. Jim was very much a philosopher. He told me about his relationship with his parents, saying he was a military brat who couldn't relate to his father. He also said the family was fairly well off, though he couldn't understand their values. Jim went on to describe the break with his father, and I sensed he wasn't truly happy in part because of that split. There seemed to be a tremendous sense of guilt he couldn't shake. "He also said he didn't know he was writing 'The End' until it appeared in the manner it did on the Doors first album. It was then that he noticed the Oedipus link. Jim didn't realize what he was getting into. I'm not a psychologist, but it appears that guilt was a part of the whole Morrison mystique. I would say it played much more of a role that it would for the average performer. I think Jim's parents were dead in a way to him...there was no communication with them at that time. We said goodbye, and I thought about that conversation for a long time after.
"I was surprised to hear of his death. The facts
seemed so unclear about the way he died. Jim told me in the last conversation that he feared he was washed
up, that he had made himself too available in his
shows. He was also worried about his image after
fighting obscenity charges brought against him in Florida. He said was there was love in his life, but his
career was a different kind of love. He was a poet, and
you got the impression that he anticipated a dramatic
death."
"My last conversation with him was a surprise call
from Los Angeles and it showed a different side of Jim
Morrison than most people saw. He gave me the impression he was searching, and I think he must have still been searching in the end. I don't think he knew what he was searching for. Maybe it was reality. Maybe it was just peace."