Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Feb 20, 2005 22:10:32 GMT
Jim Morrison Rock Singer Supreme
Sue Jeffries editor of The Soft Parade Doors fanzine....
The general belief is that Jim Morrison wished to be remembered as a poet not a rock and roll singer which is surrendering to the general consensus that he knew he was going to die in Paris and wanted to be buried in a poets graveyard. Believe what you will but we have no solid evidence to substantiate either of these statements and assume that because he was laid to rest among literary legends that he automatically earned the right to rest there. Appreciation of any artistic talent is purely a matter of personal taste and just because someone says an artist is a great poet, singer or actor doesn't make him one in the eyes of the rest of the world. Jim’s poetry was never considered to be a major factor in his popularity and was hardly the fuel which fired the amazing devotion and mythical status which he seems to have acquired in the minds of his followers (fanatical or otherwise) although the final words of “As I Look Back” from the Wilderness collection did bring home how premature his death was and make us wonder what he could have achieved in sober maturity.
I prefer to remember Jim as a rock singer blessed with a voice from heaven who possessed an even greater talent for song writing- pure out and out rock songs, okay, even pop songs. We have conditioned ourselves to believe that Jim wanted to be regarded as a serious poet and left America to escape the pressures of being a rock star, so we WANT to remember him as he desired, because he left such a profound impression on everyone he had come into contact with and we mourn the loss of the talent which inspired the deep feeling we carry.
Jim was successful as a singer/songwriter with a band. His life did not exactly impede his appeal and he played unmercifully upon our fantasies.
He wrote the most wonderful songs and tunes and this was his strength.
We all know how good he was at manipulating words, making them appear more complicated than they were but he also carried a good tune in his head and together they were dynamite. Some of the best examples are to be found on ‘Morrison Hotel’…one of the best rock albums of all time. ‘Land Ho!’, ‘Roadhouse Blues’, ‘Ship of Fools’ all of these are pure rock songs as compared to ‘The End’. ‘When The Music’s Over’ or ‘The Soft Parade’ which are mainly a series of non-sequitors set to a musical backing. The quality of songs on the ‘Morrison Hotel’ album is even more startling when one considers the circumstances surrounding the recording of this album and the pressures forced upon Jim. Songs on the first two albums were conceived by Jim during his Venice sabbatical and formed the foundation of The Doors success based on his personal experiences and heavily influenced by his choice of reading material. When he became famous and abandoned his beloved books in favour of more dubious activity he had to fall back on his natural talent for writing and composing tunes. We can see how difficult this was for him in the ensuing two albums ‘Waiting For The Sun’ and ‘The Soft Parade’ which contained only a handful of tuneful songs…. ‘Love Street’, ‘Spanish Caravan’, ‘Wishful Sinful’, ‘Easy Ride’ and were filled up with a fistful of musical phrases. So he really had to dig deep into his natural talent for the making of ‘Morrison Hotel’ and ‘LA Woman’ albums there’s no doubting that Jim had bags of natural talent and even though his musical repertoire ran the gauntlet from fatuous rambling to inner anguish he admitted in his 1968 London interview that he wanted to write a song that was “like the coming of Spring or the sun rising…..just pure unbounding joy!”
Whether he achieved that or not is a matter for debate although ‘You Make Me Real’ and ‘Hello I Love You’ would seem to fit that category. But even while listening to these songs one is always aware of an underlying feeling of misery. There was no ‘moon’ and ‘June’ about Jim’s love poems and songs either…the number of which can be counted on one hand although some after lyrical scrutiny would contain a profession of ‘love’ hidden amongst the personal observations.
‘My Eyes Have Seen You’ being possibly the best example and the beautiful ‘Indian Summer’ the most obvious.
We are obliged to feel Jim’s songs must always contain some hidden meaning behind the (seemingly) straightforward lyrics Why?
Is this because in the many books that have been written bout Jim his words have been savagely analysed in order to find some mysterious enigmatic meaning under the surface. Most of the searching and analysing is futile. Jim was a writer of rock songs and he knew which side his bread was buttered and to suggest that he was trying to do anything other than record good rock and roll albums is furthering the myth that he was some sort of Shamanistic demi-God created to fill some religious void. He was not!
He was a very special human being, highly intelligent, who wrote, sung and performed some of the best rock and roll songs and music of the sixties.
Let us Remember him that way!
Doors4Scorpywag Summer 2004
by Sue Jeffries from Walsall
Sue Jeffries editor of The Soft Parade Doors fanzine....
The general belief is that Jim Morrison wished to be remembered as a poet not a rock and roll singer which is surrendering to the general consensus that he knew he was going to die in Paris and wanted to be buried in a poets graveyard. Believe what you will but we have no solid evidence to substantiate either of these statements and assume that because he was laid to rest among literary legends that he automatically earned the right to rest there. Appreciation of any artistic talent is purely a matter of personal taste and just because someone says an artist is a great poet, singer or actor doesn't make him one in the eyes of the rest of the world. Jim’s poetry was never considered to be a major factor in his popularity and was hardly the fuel which fired the amazing devotion and mythical status which he seems to have acquired in the minds of his followers (fanatical or otherwise) although the final words of “As I Look Back” from the Wilderness collection did bring home how premature his death was and make us wonder what he could have achieved in sober maturity.
I prefer to remember Jim as a rock singer blessed with a voice from heaven who possessed an even greater talent for song writing- pure out and out rock songs, okay, even pop songs. We have conditioned ourselves to believe that Jim wanted to be regarded as a serious poet and left America to escape the pressures of being a rock star, so we WANT to remember him as he desired, because he left such a profound impression on everyone he had come into contact with and we mourn the loss of the talent which inspired the deep feeling we carry.
Jim was successful as a singer/songwriter with a band. His life did not exactly impede his appeal and he played unmercifully upon our fantasies.
He wrote the most wonderful songs and tunes and this was his strength.
We all know how good he was at manipulating words, making them appear more complicated than they were but he also carried a good tune in his head and together they were dynamite. Some of the best examples are to be found on ‘Morrison Hotel’…one of the best rock albums of all time. ‘Land Ho!’, ‘Roadhouse Blues’, ‘Ship of Fools’ all of these are pure rock songs as compared to ‘The End’. ‘When The Music’s Over’ or ‘The Soft Parade’ which are mainly a series of non-sequitors set to a musical backing. The quality of songs on the ‘Morrison Hotel’ album is even more startling when one considers the circumstances surrounding the recording of this album and the pressures forced upon Jim. Songs on the first two albums were conceived by Jim during his Venice sabbatical and formed the foundation of The Doors success based on his personal experiences and heavily influenced by his choice of reading material. When he became famous and abandoned his beloved books in favour of more dubious activity he had to fall back on his natural talent for writing and composing tunes. We can see how difficult this was for him in the ensuing two albums ‘Waiting For The Sun’ and ‘The Soft Parade’ which contained only a handful of tuneful songs…. ‘Love Street’, ‘Spanish Caravan’, ‘Wishful Sinful’, ‘Easy Ride’ and were filled up with a fistful of musical phrases. So he really had to dig deep into his natural talent for the making of ‘Morrison Hotel’ and ‘LA Woman’ albums there’s no doubting that Jim had bags of natural talent and even though his musical repertoire ran the gauntlet from fatuous rambling to inner anguish he admitted in his 1968 London interview that he wanted to write a song that was “like the coming of Spring or the sun rising…..just pure unbounding joy!”
Whether he achieved that or not is a matter for debate although ‘You Make Me Real’ and ‘Hello I Love You’ would seem to fit that category. But even while listening to these songs one is always aware of an underlying feeling of misery. There was no ‘moon’ and ‘June’ about Jim’s love poems and songs either…the number of which can be counted on one hand although some after lyrical scrutiny would contain a profession of ‘love’ hidden amongst the personal observations.
‘My Eyes Have Seen You’ being possibly the best example and the beautiful ‘Indian Summer’ the most obvious.
We are obliged to feel Jim’s songs must always contain some hidden meaning behind the (seemingly) straightforward lyrics Why?
Is this because in the many books that have been written bout Jim his words have been savagely analysed in order to find some mysterious enigmatic meaning under the surface. Most of the searching and analysing is futile. Jim was a writer of rock songs and he knew which side his bread was buttered and to suggest that he was trying to do anything other than record good rock and roll albums is furthering the myth that he was some sort of Shamanistic demi-God created to fill some religious void. He was not!
He was a very special human being, highly intelligent, who wrote, sung and performed some of the best rock and roll songs and music of the sixties.
Let us Remember him that way!
Doors4Scorpywag Summer 2004
by Sue Jeffries from Walsall
