L'America

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Yeeeaahh I took a trip down to L'America
To trade some beads for a pint of gold
I took a trip down to L'America
To trade some beads for a pint of gold
L'America, L'America, L'America
L'America, L'America, L'America

C'mon people, don't ya look so down
You know the rain man's comin' ta town
Change the weather, change your luck
And then he'll teach ya how ta...find yourself
L'America

Friendly strangers came to town
All the people put them down
But, the women loved their ways
Come again some other day
Like the gentle rain
Like the gentle rain that falls

I took a trip down to L'America
To trade some beads for a pint of gold
I took a trip down to L'America
To trade some beads for a pint of gold
L'America, L'America, L'America
L'America, L'America, L'America
L'America

The Doors recorded this piece months before the other songs on LA Woman.
It was originally intended for the movie Zabriskie Point by Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni.
But for some unknown reason he rejected the song so The Doors used it for the album LA Woman.

Jim Morrison teases on this track with a near Fuck insertion into this lyric.
Playfully highlighting the use of what were called 'fuck clauses' into concert contracts after Miami by promoters.
If Jim said fuck the band did not get paid.
"...Change the weather, change your LUCK, and then he'll teach you how to F..F..Find yourself...L'America "

Morrison was fascinated with Latin America or L'America and wrote several poems called L'America which must have had a root in this song lyric.

Featuring some really haunting keyboard from Ray Manzarek.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

14 Reasons To Love John Densmore
Modern Drummer 2010

The Doors bluesy final album before Morrison's death, features some of Densmore's loosest and best-feeling drumming.
This track is a journey through the United States via the snare drum.
John begins with a simple rudiment-style military pattern 0.57.
He crashes where you least expect it 1.39 and later fills his way into a shuffle 2.06.
For the instrumental break he shifts his original snare pattern into a version that has a bit more forward motion 2.30, and then he breaks into an active all-snare shuffle 3.31, leading to a tight group accelerando and adding ferocious snare smacks 4.22 at the very end.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Jim's LAmerica poems.

LAmerica
Cold treatment of our empress
LAmerica
The Transient Universe
LAmerica
Instant communion and
communication
lamerica
emeralds in glass
lamerica
searchlights at twi-light
lamerica
stoned streets in the pale dawn
lamerica
robed in exile
lamerica
swift beat of a proud heart
lamerica
eyes like twenty
lamerica
swift dream
lamerica
frozen heart
lamerica
soldiers doom
lamerica
clouds & struggles
lamerica
Nighthawk
doomed from the start
lamerica
"That's how I met her,
lamerica
lonely and frozen
lamerica
& sullen, yes
lamerica
right from the start"

Then stop.
Go.
The wilderness between.
Go round the march.


LAMERICA

Trade-routes
guide lines
The Vikings & explorers
Discoverers
The unconscious

a map of the states
The veins of hiways
Beauty of a map
Hidden connections
Fast trampled forest

Madness in a whisper
neon crackle
The hiss of trees
A city growls

rich vast & sullen
like a slow monster
come to fat
& die

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Ray Manzarek:
Antonioni was interested in using it in Zabriskie Point.
So we played it for him, and it was so loud, it pinned him up against the wall. When it was over, he thanked us and fled. So he turned to Pink Floyd, as European filmmakers tend to do when they want rock & roll.

[wplj]

When the hell was this track recorded, anyway? Soft Parade sessions? A one-off session? Does ANYONE know?

[casandra]

I don't know, but I think it was a single session.

Antonioni film’s Zabriskie Point was premiered in February 1970. The soundtrack of the film was released in January 1970 with the attended by Pink Floyd and the Grateful Dead. Pink Floyd songs were recorded in November 1969. The Doors song was rejected, but L'America was probably recorded in October 1969 or earlier. So the recording would take place shortly before Morrison Hotel (recorded in November 1969).

I don't know if after Antonioni rejected the Doors, he looked for Pink Floyd or he already had thought to resort to them for the film before.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

In October 1969 Antonioni was in Rome and someone brought him Floyd's Ummagumma LP which he really liked and it was decided to try and hire Pink Floyd to record all the original music they needed for the movie.
It is said that Antonioni visited The Doors who had recorded "L'America" for Zabriskie Point.
So if he decided to use only Floyd in October then "L'America" could not have been recorded during Morrison Hotel which began in November.
Of course he did not use all of the Floyd stuff so perhaps he visited them during the MH sessions and they recorded it then.
If you research this on the net you will see that people are under the impression he visited the LAW sessions and "L'America" was being recorded for this but of course he would need a time machine to do that as it was a year in the future.
It is said Jim wrote "L'America" for the film itself but we know it was a series of poems anyways and all that was needed was to put music to the words so it may well have been a one off session recorded before MH. Like most Doors History it is a maelstrom of confusion so the short answer is nobody seems to know not even the still living Doors

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

LAMERICA

Clothed in sunlight
restled in waiting
dying of fever

Changed shapes of an empire
Starling invaders
Vast promissory notes of joy

Wanton, willful & passive
Married to doubt
Clothed in great warring monuments
of glory

How it has changed you
How slowly estranged you
Solely arranged you

Beg you for mercy



Part of the evolving L'America from the compilation Wilderness.