Jim Morrison American Poet

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

"But the man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less cocksure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable Mystery which it tries, forever vainly to comprehend."
The final paragraph of The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley.


"If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it's to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel."
Jim Morrison

"To be a poet meant more to Jim than writing poems.
It meant embracing the tragedy, fate had chosen for him and fulfilling that destiny with gusto and nobility"
Paul A. Rothchild 1993

"An American Prayer documents a fragment of the passion of Jim Morrison. It is not art as he would have it, but nothing posthumous is perfect. It is not the whole picture but the best part of the trip is intact. And like finding a roll of Diego Rivera's under an industrial sink, it is treasure unearthed. We feel a sense of
guilt but we are grateful for the glimpse. Notes toward a symphony of ritual. Last movements to reach out, to penetrate. New information. Interesting, inspiring new ammunition and that is truly something."
Patti Smith Creem Magazine 1979.

"There's really no difference between Jim's book and Jim's lyrics. I can read a page and I've heard him sing pretty much the same thingI don't think there's any difference at all for him. This is written poetry and what he does on stage is spoken poetry. His spoken poetry
is very effective although some poems read better than they speak but for the most part spoken poetry is more effective."
Ray Manzarek 1969.

"No Compromise, that was Jim Morrison's style. He was always trying to stretch his own limits in body and soul.One step beyond, putting himself out on the edge."
From Stumbling Into Neon 1974.

"I've never seen anybody from our generation who could put words together like Jim. He wrote some of his best stuff towards the end. If he had been more disciplined he could have done even greater things."
Robbie Krieger 1980.

"His best work reveals Morrison as a poet of revalation, providing insights into the kind of truths only imagination can glimpse. He was capable of producing startlingly brilliant poetic images one minute only to lapse into complete obscurity the next. His talents
were like his personality...protean and spontaneous."
Tony Magistrale 1992.

"Jim Morrison probably got the closest to being an artist within rock and roll, I think. . . .His death made me sadder than anyone's. He was a really great poet."
Patti Smith

"An American Prayer has long been one of the most singular works in the rock canon. Morrison's incredible poetic images come to full force on this album, as the Lizard King delivers a riveting posthumous performance. This CD is a must own for all rock fans."
Randy Krbechek's Metronews Music Reviews

"I consider Jim Morrison to be the equal to Rimbaud or Van Gogh: the tortured genius too sensitive and too smart to exist without some sort of distraction, usually chemical and destructive. I think Jim regarded himself in this lineage/tradition although he never said so. He saw himself more as a shaman with the psychedelics and rhythm and the whole Sixties tribal feeling. The beautiful thing about The Doors is the music and lyrics are timeless. This was conscious on their part when they wrote the songs, to strive to write about
universal elements -- the sun, the moon, earth, fire, water, sex,death. They succeeded. Jim's myth gets the band attention, but it's the music and lyrics that keeps the band as relevant as ever."
John Hagelston Rhino Records

"In his twenty seven years, Jim accomplished many things. He recorded 7 albums, toured the world, wrote nearly 1600 pages of poetry, four books, and even produced two award winning films.
However, Jim Morrison was more than a poet, more than a songwriter and a performer. He was a man, a husband and an idol to millions. Although his shooting star has come and gone, he has forever earned
himself a place in musical and cultural history. Every year, thousands of fans still flock to see Jim at his final resting place. Pere-Lachaisse cemetery in Paris, France"
Tracie Peters Jim Morrison Fan websitesite

"Those familiar with the lyrics of the Doors will not be
surprised, but others may be put off because Morrison is unafraid to use crude imagery and talk unabashedly about taboo topics such as sex and religion. Although many dismiss his poetry as simplistic random
musings, Morrison is a gifted lyricist with a vivid imagination. However, An American Prayer must be listened to in one sitting to be fully appreciated, preferably at nighttime when one is alone and can
devote full attention to the listening experience. This album is not for everyone, but is a must-own for Doors completists and fans of Jim Morrison's poetry."
Vik Iyengar, All Music Guide

"An American Prayer" by Jim Morrison is a beat-poetry album that's as surreally beautiful as words can be. His voice is low and calm like a front-seat passenger on a long drive. He seems very aware yet barely awake, letting sentences drip from his mouth like sleeper's
spit. This sleeper is having a fantastic nightmare. The music by the Doors is merely a helping hand, hidden in the tangled bush of pure poetry.
Morrison was not a happy man, to be sure. "An American Prayer" is the best memory there is of Jim Morrison, another tortured musician.
Unfortunately, the beauty of his words without the constraint of music never came out until it was too late to ask him about it."
Lia Rudolph Perfect World Staff 2002

"Intense, erotic, and enigmatic, Jim Morrison's persona is as riveting now as the lead singer/composer "Lizard King" was during The Doors' peak in the late sixties. His fast life and mysterious death remain controversial more than twenty years later.
The Lords and the New Creatures, Morrison's first published volume of poetry, is an uninhibited exploration of society's dark side -- drugs, sex, fame, and death -- captured in sensual, seething images.
Here, Morrison gives a revealing glimpse at an era and at the man whose songs and savage performances have left their indelible impression on our culture."
Amazon .com

"I like people who shake other people up and make them feel uncomfortable."
Jim Morrison

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

"Listen, real poetry doesn't say anything, it just ticks off the possibilities. Opens all doors. You can walk through any one that suits you. And that's why poetry appeals to me so much- because it's so eternal. As long as there are people, they can remember words and
combinations of words. Nothing else can survive a holocaust but poetry and songs. No one can remember an entire novel. No one can describe a film, a piece of sculpture, a painting, but so long as there are human beings, songs and poetry can continue.
If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it's to deliver poeple from the limited ways in which they see and feel."
Jim Morrison

"Jim Morrison was probably one of the most truly intellectual of the sixties rock casualties. Jim was lead singer of the Doors, known for the profundity of the songs they sang, songs composed mostly by
Morrison himself. For Morrison not only had an exciting stage presence and a voice so strong it could make itself heard without a mike during a riot; he was also a gifted poet, a man of words, as he described himself and one of the most creative talents of the great
rock decade."
Marianne Sinclair in Those Who Died Young 1979

"Morrison's lyrics were filled with dark and contradictory images. His words paint a picture of an individual obsessed with death, pain, blood and suffering. Words that evoke pleasant or comforting portraits- innocent animals, beautiful young women or mothers and
children, for example- are deliberately marred in any number of ways. In "Soft Parade" for example, Morrison writes: "When all else fails, we can whip the horses' eyes and make them sleep and cry."
Brett Keogh Masters Of Rock 1990

"Morrison seemed to understand that any generation so intent on giving itself permission to go as far as it could was also giving itself a license for destruction, and he seemed to gain both delight and affirmation from that understanding. Consequently, in those moments in the Doors' experimental, Oedipal
miniopera "The End", when Morrison sang about wanting to kill his father and fuck his mother, he managed to take a somewhat silly notion of outrage and make it sound convincing, even somehow justified."
Mikal Gilmore Rolling Stone 1991

"I offer images— I conjure memories of freedom that can still be reached— like The Doors, right? But we can only open the doors— we can't drag people through. I can't free them unless they want to be free— more than anything else....A person has to be willing to
give up everything- -not just wealth. All the bullshit he's been taught— all society's brainwashing. You have to let go of all that to get to the other side. Most people aren't willing to do that."
Jim Morrison

"Jim and Michael were always working on things together. Nothing actually came of it, but had Jim come back from Paris, Man! Michael,Jim and I would be working together. I would have loved that, and so
would Michael. Many times, when we perform, as we do in "The Third Mind," I think Jim Morrison would love to be on stage, doing exactly what Michael is doing. Reading his poetry with me, playing the piano
behind his poetry. It would have been so much fun working with both of them."
Ray Manzarek 2000.

"I'm kind of hooked to the game of art and literature; my heroes are artists and writers.
I'm a word man. See, there's this theory about the nature of tragedy, that Aristotle didn't mean catharsis for the audience but a purgation of emotions for the actors them selves. The audience is just a witness to the event taking place on stage."
Jim Morrison

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

"I wrote a poem called The Pony Express. That was the first I can remember. It was one of those ballad-type poems. I never could get it together, though.I always wanted to write, but I figured it'd be
no good unless somehow the hand just took the pen and started moving without me really having anything to do with it. Like automatic writing. But it just never happened. I wrote a few poems, of course.
Horse Latitudes I wrote when I was in high school. I kept a lot of notebooks through high school and college, and then when I left school, for some dumb reason - maybe it was wise - I threw them all
away. There's nothing I can think of I'd rather have in my possession right now than those two or three lost notebooks. I was thinking of being hypnotised or taking sodium pentathol to try to remember, because I wrote in those books night after night. But maybe if I'd never thrown them away, I'd never have written
anything original - because they were mainly accumulations of things that I'd read or heard, like quotes from books. I think if I'd never gotten
rid of them I'd never have been free."
Jim Morrison during an interview with Jerry Hopkins.

THE PONY EXPRESS 21st May 1954

The pony express carried the mail
Over hill, over dale.
Over rough rugged trails
And the brave men that carried it
Didn't complain,

For they knew they were helping their good country's name

They rode and rode through
Strong winds and rain just
To carry the mail and build
Up our name
Over Indian country and great sandy plains,
They carried the mail and shared our fame.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

He had no musical training to speak of, but a striking way with words. Many of the songs on the first three Doors albums were written in his head then arranged by his fellow musicians. He constantly filled notebooks with poems and lyrics, and eventually
saw some of his poetry published. He said this was the proudest moment of his life.
Morrison wasn't a great poet - his work was occasionally
pretentious, sometimes laughable - but he was a great lyricist, an entirely different proposition. It was his dark meditations which gave The Doors an edge other bands lacked. While their contemporaries in LA sang of peace and love, The Doors explored the
flipside of the hippie dream, the dark comedown at the end of the interminable party, the frightening spaces at the centre of psychedelia. While most singers were content to reiterate the clichés of pop music, Morrison incited his audience to Break On Through, to take the highway to the end of the night, to sail on the
Crystal Ship. It was a voyage inspired and informed by Morrison's influences, all of them literary - the mysticism of William Blake, the existentialism of Sartre, the beat generation of Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsberg, the dark philosophy of Frederick Neitzche. For a few brief years, Morrison was instrumental in bringing a new poeticism to rock and roll.
Mick Fitzsimmons BBC Radio 2 Website

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

AN AMERICAN PRAYER

Do you know the warm progress
under the stars?
Do you know we exist?
Have you forgotten the keys
to the kingdom?
Have you been born yet
& are you alive?

Let's reinvent the gods, all the myths
of the ages
Celebrate symbols from deep elder forests
(Have you forgotten the lessons
of the ancient war)

We need great golden copulations

The fathers are cackling in trees of the forest
Our mother is dead in the sea

Do you know we are being led to
slaughters by placid admirals
& that fat slow generals are getting
obscene on young blood

Do you know we are ruled by T.V.
The moon is a dry blood beast
Guerrilla bands are rolling numbers
in the next block of green vine
amassing for warfare on innocent herdsmen
who are just dying

O great creator of being
grant us one more hour to
perform our art
& perfect our lives

The moths & atheists are doubly divine
& dying
We live, we die
& death not ends it
Journey we more into the
Nightmare
Cling to life
our passion'd flower
Cling to cunts & cocks
of despair
We got our final vision
by clap
Columbus' groin got
filled w/ green death

(I touched her thigh
& death smiled)

We have assembled inside this ancient
& insane theatre
To propagate our lust for life
& flee the swarming wisdom
of the streets
The barns are stormed
The windows kept
& only one of all the rest
To dance & save us
W/ the divine mockery
of words
Music inflames temperament

(When the true King's murderers
are allowed to roam free
a 1000 Magicians arise
in the land)

Where are the feasts
we were promised
Where is the wine
The New Wine
(dying on the vine)

resident mockery
give us an hour for magic
We of the purple glove
We of the starling flight
& velvet hour
We of arabic pleasure's breed
We of sundome & the night

Give us a creed
To believe
A night of Lust
Give us trust in
The Night

Give of color
hundred hues
a rich Mandala
for me & you

& for your silky
pillowed house
a head, wisdom
& a bed

Troubled decree
Resident mockery
has claimed thee

We used to believe
in the good old days
We still receive
In little ways

The Things of Kindness
& unsporting brow
Forget & allow

Did you know freedom exists
in a school book
Did you know madmen are
running our prison
w/in a jail, w/in a gaol
w/in a white free protestant
Maelstrom

We're perched headlong
on the edge of boredom
We're reaching for death
on the end of a candle
We're trying for something
That's already found us

We can invent Kingdoms of our own
grand purple thrones, those chairs of lust
& love we must, in beds of rust

Steel doors lock in prisoner's screams
& muzak, AM, rocks their dreams
No black men's pride to hoist the beams
while mocking angels sift what seems

To be a collage of magazine dust
Scratched on foreheads of walls of trust
This is just jail for those who must
get up in the morning & fight for such

unusable standards
while weeping maidens
show-off penury & pout
ravings for a mad
staff

Wow, I'm sick of doubt
Live in the light of certain
South
Cruel bindings
The servants have the power
dog-men & their mean women
pulling poor blankets over
our sailors
(& where were you in our
lean hour)
Milking your moustache?
or grinding a flower?
I'm sick of dour faces
Staring at me from the T.V.
Tower.
I want roses in
my garden bower; dig?
Royal babies, rubies
must now replace aborted
Strangers in the mud
These mutants, blood-meal
for the plant that's plowed

They are waiting to take us into
the severed garden
Do you know how pale & wanton thrillful
comes death on a strange hour
unannounced, unplanned for
like a scaring over-friendly guest you've
brought to bed
Death makes angels of us all
& gives us wings
where we had shoulders
smooth as raven's
claws

No more money, no more fancy dress
This other Kingdom seems by far the best
until its other jaw reveals incest
& loose obedience to a vegetable law

I will not go
Prefer a
feast of Friends
To the Giant family


(II)

Great screaming Christ
Upsy-daisy
Lazy Mary will you get up
upon a Sunday morning

"The movie will begin in 5 moments"
The mindless Voice announced
"All those unseated, will await
the next show"

We filed slowly, languidly
into the hall. The auditorium
was vast, & silent.
As we seated & were darkened
The Voice continued:

"The program for this evening
is not new. You have seen
This entertainment thru & thru.
You've seen your birth, your
life & death; you might recall
all of the rest-(did you
have a good world when you
died?)-enough to base
a movie on?"

An iron chuckle rapped our
minds like a fist.

I'm getting out of here
Where're you going?
To the other side of morning
Please don't chase the clouds
pagodas, temples

Her cunt gripped him
like a warm friendly
hand.

"It's all right.
All your friends are here."

When can I meet them?
"After you've eaten"
I'm not hungry
"O, we meant beaten"

Silver stream, silvery scream,
impossible concentration

Here come the comedians
look at them smile
Watch them dance
an indian mile

Look at them gesture
How aplomb
So to gesture everyone

Words dissemble
Words be quick
Words resemble walking sticks

Plant them
They will grow
Watch them waver so

I'll always be
a word-man
Better thn a birdman

But I'll charge
Won't get away
w/out lodging a dollar

Shall I say it again
aloud, you get the point
No food w/out fuel's gain

I'll be, the irish loud
unleashed my beak
at peak of powers

O girl, unleash
your worried comb

O worried mind

Sin in the fallen
Backwoods by the blind

She smells debt
on my new collar

Arrogant prose
Tied in a network of fast quest
Hence the obsession

Its quick to admit
Fast borrowed rhythm
Woman came between them

Women of the world unite
Make the world safe
For a scandalous life

Hee Heee
Cut your throat
Life is a joke

Your wife's in a moat
The same boat
Here comes the goat

Blood Blood Blood Blood
They're making a joke
of our universe


(III)

Matchbox
Are you more real than me
I'll burn you, & set you free
Wept bitter tears
Excessive courtesy
I won't forget


(IV)

A hot sick lava flowed up,
Rustling & bubbling.
The paper face.
Mirror-mask, I love you mirror.

He had been brainwashed for 4 hrs.
The LT. puzzled in again
"ready to talk"
"No sir"- was all he'd say.
Go back to the gym.
Very peaceful
Meditation

Air base in the desert
looking out venetian blinds
a plane
a desert flower
cool cartoon

The rest of the
world
is reckless & dangerous
Look at the
brothels
Stag films
Exploration


A ship leaves port
mean horse of another thicket
wishbone of desire
decry the metal fox

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

JAMAICA

The hour of the wolf has now ended.
Cocks crow.
The world is built
up again, struggling in
darkness.

The child gives in to night­<br>Mare, while the grown
Man fears his fear.

I must leave this island,
Struggling to be born
from blackness.

Fear the good deep dark
American Night.
Blessed is Night.

The flood has subsided
The movie panic & the
chauffeured drive
Thru the suburbs

Wild folks in weird dress
by the side of the hiway

Some of the men wear
Tunics or short skirts.
The women posture on
Their porches in mock &
classical pose.

The driver aims the car
& it guides itself. Tunnels
click by overhead.

Love the deep green gloom
of American Night.

Love frightened corners,
Thrill to the wood-vine.

So much of it good
& so much quantity.

The Major's boots are where
he left them.

Pseudo-plantation.

Period prints ­ white
& black boxing match.

A Negro Dance

The principal of the school holds his nose.
"A dead cow is in there. I wonder
why they haven't sent someone to
remove it?"

A vulture streams by,
& another. The white tip
of his claw-like red beak
looks white, like meat.
Swift sad languorous
shadows.

The cat drinks little cat
laps from a sick
Turquoise swimming pool.

(Insane couplings out in the night.)

America, I am hook'd to your
Cold white neon bosom, & suck
snake-like thru the dawn, I
am drawn back home
your son in exile
in the land of Awakening
What dreams possessed you
To merge in the morning?

"I been in a daze"

A spot, a reef, behind
the nursery door, off
the main bedroom­<br>"Those are the major's."

The bed looms like a white
funeral butterfly barge
at one end of the room,
hung w/ nets & sails.

"We're outlaws."

"What church is that?"
:Church of God."
while bandana, white tambourine

­Walking on the Water­<br>
"In traditional style, we'll
give them a good political
back-siding" ­ (laughter)

"Victimization"

a frog in the road
children in church
drums
Sun-Sun
lying like death
on the back seat
Revival.

A whore­house.
Lord John & Lady Anne's.
Red-blooded Blue­blooded.
Queen's bosom.Is it The Princess?

Golden­blood, like me, he said,
folding the bill again neatly,
the Queen's ear ­ a naked
cock stuck in her ass.

Ha Ha Ha Ha.

You're no more innocent
than a turkey vulture

A cannon.

The Negro slaves & the English
killed the Indians, & mixed
w/ the Spanish, who were soon
forced out.

Yes, big battles

Boom Boom

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

The Morrison Mystique

"The shard of glass was jagged. It jutted toward the sky as if trying to pierce it, to cut away the boundary between heaven and earth. Or maybe slice off a piece of hell. So thought the lanky figure who stared into the broken mirror. He was handsome; the distorted reflection of the shattered glass could not hide his good looks. His hair was long and curled over the collar of his white T-shirt. His skin was pale and his face looked even younger than his twenty-two years. There was a softness to him, a gentleness, an almost seductive quality. His face was more than handsome, it was pretty; and the way he cocked his head slightly, exposing his alabaster white neck, displayed a vulnerability that most men would be afraid to reveal. But he was not feminine. In his eyes something definitely masculine burned. More than masculine even. Something dangerous.

Jim Morrison peered closely at his image in the mirror. He looked so different than he had a year and a half ago when he'd arrived in Los Angeles. The chubbiness was completely gone -- the past few weeks of near starvation had taken away the last of it. His eyes were more penetrating, his cheeks hollow and slightly sunken, like a fashion model's. The easygoing strut that had looked clumsy when he was a pudgy kid at FSU had taken on a sleekness at UCLA. He looked graceful now.

Morrison ran his fingers over the sharp edge of the glass. He hadn't eaten a decent meal in over a week. For a while it had bothered him, but this past day had been the easiest of all. Since the can of beans he had eaten at noon yesterday, nothing but water had entered his system. Well, of course, there was the acid. For an instant he wondered if there was any nutritional value to acid. Since nutrients gave one energy and helped the body function correctly and acid enabled him to feel he could do the same things by using mind over matter, perhaps it qualified. His mind easily made the jump in logic and he knew that if he wanted to he could explore this concept and all its ramifications for hours. He looked at the finger he had been rubbing over the sharp glass. It was bleeding. Good. The acid was kicking in.

But tonight was not for exploring the mundane until it became the magnificent. Nor was this the night to dissect details -- like the time he had observed how the melting drops of wax from his candle solidified themselves to the coffee can next to his sleeping bag. Eventually they had become not a minute detail of the burning candle, but the dominant theme, the very purpose of the candle's existence. Before that night had ended he had even been able to hear the drops bond with the aluminum of the coffee can. Feel the alloys of the metal break down to the point where they could be fused slightly with the wax. But not tonight. Tonight was for something special, He had saved the lion's share of the acid for this night and already he knew that it was not going to be wasted.

The sun was dropping. Soon it would be time. From his position on the rooftop he could watch the sun descend into the ocean until the Santa Monica pier blocked the view in the distance. Fire melting into the sea. That was how he thought of it. Jim liked the sea, but it was the sun that fascinated him. Actually, more than that, it was the disappearance of the sun. Watching something so bright and so powerful vanish without a trace excited him. It was the onset of the night, the rising of the moon and appearance of the stars that spoke to his inner being: Let's swim to the moon/Let's climb thru the tide/Penetrate the evenin'/That the city sleeps to hide. Of all the lines of poetry he'd written in the weeks since coming to the rooftop this was his favorite.

Outwardly it appeared that he was failing miserably at life. Here he was living on the roof of an abandoned office building in Venice, California. Having graduated from UCLA a month ago, he had thought so little of his degree that he hadn't even bothered to pick it up. Film school seemed a thousand miles away; here was where the real issues of his life would be determined. He knew that now. The roof was barren except for his little corner near the chimney -- a sleeping bag, an orange crate housing a few books covered with a towel to keep out the moisture, the coffee can,, and the candle. But those things weren't what mattered. Next to them, lying open on the cement floor, was something more valuable than anything in the finest house in Beverly Hills -- a tattered black Scholastic notebook filled with his poetry. And although he'd been writing poetry all his life, he felt that these words were different, that there was something more powerful about these poems. Not only more powerful, but more rhythmic -- they had a natural beat to them.

He stared out at the descending sun and his gaze dropped to the collage of T.V. antennas on the houses below: Gazing on a city under/Television skies. The words poured into his mind. It had been like this the past few days; that's how he knew he was getting closer. It had something to do with the isolation, he knew that for sure. He was in a different world up on the roof. Just him and his mind. Sometimes, late at night, when he heard sounds in the abandoned budding below, he liked to imagine they were spirits. Restless souls who had crossed over to the other side too early, without saying what they had to say. And lately he'd been hearing sounds on the roof itself, late at night when it was pitchblack ..."

from Break on Through by James Riordan and Jerry Prochinichy.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Drawn down the distance
of long cities
riding thru the open
night alone
launching fever & strange carnage
from the back seat.
Rare Jim poem from Doors Tour Book 1969

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

The Lizard King
by Brian Kantor

Some may see The Doors front man and offbeat poet extraordinaire Jim Morrison as the epitome of American culture, while countless others may see him as the complete antithesis. Rising to fame as American involvement in the Vietnam War reached a pinnacle, Morrison’s acclaim grew in a time of great American turmoil. The war in Vietnam was held as an issue of high controversy amongst many Americans. Many saw our involvement as utter ludicrousness and did not comprehend the need to send U.S. troops overseas to fight a war they had nothing to do with. As a result, certain Americans began both directly and indirectly rebelling against the beliefs and norms of the time, and thus, the counterculture movement was born. Jim Morrison became an icon of this rebellious revolution against a confused American government.
James Douglas Morrison was born on December 8, 1943 in Melbourne, on Florida’s east coast. He was the eldest child of George Stephen and Clara Clark Morrison whose latter two children were Anne and Andrew respectively. By order of his father, a career Navy man, Jim attended naval academy for his elementary and high school years. He later attended St. Petersburg Junior College and Florida State University before finally graduating from UCLA in 1965 as a film major with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree.
It was around the time of his graduation when Jim met the three other Doors members who were in desperate need of a vocalist. Being a then-undiscovered poet influenced by the likes of Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, Morrison was asked if he would sing some of his offbeat lyrics over a few jams that The Doors had been working on. The music that resulted distinctly spoke for itself. After immense popularity and the release of six impressive albums in a span of just five short years, Jim quit The Doors and moved to Paris in March of 1971 with his girlfriend Pamela Courson. Then later that same year, during the early morning of July 3, Jim Morrison was discovered dead in his bathtub due to a lethal mixture of alcohol and heroin (mysteriously, however, Jim had often spoken of his hatred of heroin and his fear of needles); he was only twenty-seven years old.
The symbol that was Jim Morrison had been bred completely by the society that he grew up in. Fueled by an era of governmental protest and an emerging counterculture movement, Jim Morrison lashed out in his own way against the injustice he saw in America. The entire concept of being able to speak one’s own mind is a thoroughly American ideal in itself, obviously dating all the way back to the Bill of Rights. He used his poetry and music to utilize his right to freedom of speech and to voice his opinions on society, life, love, and death, regardless of the public’s stance on such issues.
Morrison was an avid drug user and publicly attested to this fact on many occasions. While touring outside of the United States, Morrison would walk down the streets of various cities being offered hallucinogens of all kinds and made it a point to consume each as soon as it touched his hand. He was not a mindless dope-fiend nor was he a belligerent troublemaker; Jim Morrison was one of the few true American rebels. He blatantly publicized his avid drug use as a means of speaking out against a system he saw as sour and corrupt. In doing this, Morrison, not surprisingly, offended countless Americans. Parents across the nation forbade their children from listening to his “ravings of sinful indulgences,” and The Doors albums were banned in sixteen states. On one occasion, while playing to a sold out crowd in Miami on March 1, 1969, Morrison was literally dragged offstage by police after taunting them and exposing himself to the crowd. Actions not unlike this one combined with parents’ hatred of all that Jim and The Doors stood for, made Morrison even more appealing to the rebellious American youth.
Jim’s image drastically changed during his five-year reign as an American icon. During the time of the first two Doors albums, Jim had been dubbed “The Ultimate Barbie Doll.” He had become a teenybopper sensation with a ridiculous following of young women throwing themselves at him constantly. He did not wish to be known as a sex symbol but, rather, as a figure of rebellion. Jim saw his newly attained rock star image as going against everything that he wished to represent. It was upon this realization that Morrison’s drug use worsened. He began purposefully gaining weight and growing a beard to detract from his sexuality and became a full-blown alcoholic. It was during this period that he was arrested on stage, and it was this period that brought about the disbanding of The Doors.
Still today, the name Jim Morrison or “The Lizard King,” as he was often called, personifies the word ‘rebellion,’ a truly American ideal. As Americans, we have a distinct reputation for rebelling against anything and everything that we feel is unjust and oppressive. From the tyrannical rule of Britain to the sin of slavery and segregation to the terror of Vietnam, the American people have not been ones to sit back and accept what they see as wrong. Jim Morrison personifies this ideal.
Over the years since his tragic death, Morrison has become somewhat of an American Legend, a myth. His tale seems to exist amongst those of other American legends like Davy Crockett, Johnny Appleseed, and Paul Bunyan. The Jim Morrison story, however, is as real as they come. Many Americans of today look to him as a symbol of rebellion and as a constant reminder that we as a nation and as individuals are free to follow and shape our own destiny. Molded by a culture that often questions authority, Morrison left behind him a legacy of maintaining that ideal. Jim Morrison was and always will be a true American.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

MR. MOJO RISES

July 3, 2001 marked the 30th anniversary of Doors vocalist Jim Morrison's passing. Following the overdoses of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin (in September and October of 1970), Jim's death at age 27 in many ways marked an end to the youth culture of the 1960s. For the latter half of that decade, The Doors were in the vanguard of rock. Morrison, along with keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore broadened the boundaries of popular music, scoring Top 40 hits like "Light My Fire," "People Are Strange," and "Hello I Love You" that broke on through to the other side both in terms of sound and subject matter (Ray's organ work and Jim's cathartic howl would go on to inspire hundreds of imitators).

Bright Midnight Records, a collaborative endeavor of The Doors and Rhino Handmade, offers fans a chance to hear previously unavailable interviews and performances from Morrison and the band. Several releases were recorded at The Aquarius Theatre on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood, CA where the group performed for two nights (and conducted a private rehearsal) in July of 1969. The Soft Parade would soon be racing up the charts, and that album's hit "Touch Me" is heard to fine effect in these shows, along with such other Doors originals as "The Crystal Ship" and such favored covers as "Gloria" and "Who Do You Love." As the 1960s drew to a close, The Doors became a focal point for controversy due largely to Morrison's substance-fueled antics. The world of literature was very different from that of popular music, and its appeal for Jim began to extend far beyond penning song lyrics. Long a student of verse, Morrison published a book of poems in 1970, The Lords And The New Creatures, and recorded the spoken word performances that would later be heard on An American Prayer. Jim soon moved to Paris to pursue the literary muse, and it was there that he died. Morrison's death (found unconscious in a bath tub, it was officially ruled a heart attack) has attracted an aura of mystery as well as a steady stream of fans to Pere Lachaise Cemetery where he was buried in the Poet's Corner along with Balzac, Moliere, and Oscar Wilde.
Longtime Doors confidante (and author of the Morrison biography No One Here Gets Out Alive) recalls the time: "I heard the news July 6th, when the rest of the world heard it. B. Mitchell Reed, a well-known radio personality for KMET (the definitive album-oriented rock station in L.A. at the time), broke the news:
'In case you haven't heard, Jim Morrison died in Paris three days ago. Bill Siddons, The Doors' manager........'
I heard that and bolted to The Doors office where I was working as an assistant and in charge of the fan mail. "In retrospect, Jim burnt himself out on whatever was available. You can look at photos of him at 22 when the band started and 27 when he died and he looked 56. What drug killed him? Determining what drug under what circumstances is simply trying to determine what caliber gun he held to his own head. He was playing Russian roulette with his life for five years, pushing the envelope ever forward. And on July 3rd, he pushed it too far. "I consider Jim Morrison to be the equal to Rimbaud or Van Gogh: the tortured genius too sensitive and too smart to exist without some sort of distraction, usually chemical and destructive. I think Jim regarded himself in this lineage/tradition although he never said so. He saw himself more as a shaman with the psychedelics and rhythm and the whole Sixties tribal feeling. The beautiful thing about The Doors is the music and lyrics are timeless. This was conscious on their part when they wrote the songs, to strive to write about universal elements -- the sun, the moon, earth, fire, water, sex, death. They succeeded. Jim's myth gets the band attention, but it's the music and lyrics that keeps the band as relevant as ever."
Rhino Records
by John Hagelston

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

May 30-31st 1969
Cinematheque 16 Hollywood Los Angeles.

This is the first of two poetry readings and
midnight film screening benefits for Norman Mailer's New
York mayoralty campaign. Films included the Doors'
Feast of Friends and Andy Warhol's I, a Man.
Jim Morrison reads the long version of 'An American Prayer,' and he is visibly nervous. Afterward, he is joined by Robby Krieger on guitar and they run through a repertoire of rhythm and blues songs including Elvis
Presley's 'I Will Never Be Untrue.'
The second night also sees poetry readings and Jim once again reads American Prayer and is once more joined by Robby to play rhythm and blues standards.
This time they are recorded and 'I Will Never Be Untrue' makes it onto the American Prayer album ten years later.
The Doors On The Road

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

CAN WE RESOLVE THE PAST
- Hey man you want girls
Pills grass come-on
I show you good time
This place has everything
Come-on, I show you

Burlesque Beat

Can we resolve the past -- lurking jaws
joints of Time -- the base -- to come
of age in a dry place -- holes & caves

The music was new black polished
chrome & came over the summer
like liquid night -- the D.J.'s
Took pills to stay awake & play
for 7 days

The General's son had a sister.
They went down to see him.
They went to the studio & someone
knew him. Someone knew
the T.V. Showman.

He came to our home room party &
played records & when he left,
in the hot noon sun, & walked
to his car, we saw the Chooks
had written F-U-C-K on his
windshield. He wiped it off
w/ a white rag &, smiling cooly,
drove away.

"He's rich. Got a big car."

My friend drove an hour each day
from the Mts. The bus gives
you a hard-on w/books in your
lap. We shot the bird at the
black M.P.

My gang will get you. Scenes
of rape in the arroyo. Seductions
in cars, abandoned buildings.
Fights at the food stand.
The dust. The Shoes
Opened shirts & raised collars.
Bright sculptured hair.
Spades dance best, from the hip.

Someone shot the bird on the
afternoon dance show. They gave
out free records to the best
couple.



So much forgetten already
So much forgotten
So much to forget

Once the idea of purity
born, all was lost
irrevocably

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Printer's proof of Jim Morrison's first, privately-published book of poetry, The Lords: Notes On Vision. This copy contains Jim's handwritten comments describing how he wants the finished product to appear.


Handwritten poetry from Jim Morrison