Death Of Morrison by dwilliams_66

This morning, I read an article written by Richard Harrington, "Morrison: Still Hot, Still Sexy, Still Dead; A Revolutionist Critique of The Man and the Myth," originally published in The Washington Post on March 10, 1991.

Although no one knows for sure how he died (there was no autopsy), I believe Jim Morrison chose death.

It was no secret that Jim Morrison was an alcoholic. Of his drinking, Morrison once called it "the difference between suicide and slow capitulation."

Toward the end of his article, Harrington surmised of Morrison:

He seemed less scared of dying than of growing old and irrelevant, and it was the original dreams—films, poetry—that seemed to enflame
him. Morrison still seemed to think that immortality was more probable
in print than on vinyl… Then he took a bath and died.

Amazingly, Jim Morrison has been dead for 40 years. And like most artists, he is more famous in death than he was in life.

What do you think? Was Jim Morrison's death a strangely conceived career move?

Source: Jim Morrison Project

Uploaded by MrJamesPamela on Nov 4, 2011

Part One

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

My Jim Morrison idolization began on a hot afternoon in August, 2003. It was the last day of summer vacation, I was sixteen, and I was about to make out with my new boyfriend for the second time. It had only been 24 hours since our first kiss, and due to our youth and lack of experience (and, perhaps, to his Catholicism), we decided that one make out session equalled monogamy. Despite our official relationship status, I was a bit nervous about that afternoon’s proposed itinerary, and my nervousness only increased when my boyfriend suggested we put on some music. I sat down on his couch, and he began browsing through his record collection. Of course I knew that the music selection ritual was a prelude to hormonal teenage madness, and while that delighted me, it terrified me just the same. In my opinion, it was awkward enough that we both knew we were about to make out—why prolong that in-between phase of the process? How was I supposed to act? Seductive? Casual? What if he lost interest during his hunt for the perfect tunes? What if he forgot what we were there to do? What if he didn’t like the way I looked sitting on his couch? Should I strike a pose? I wondered.

After a few minutes he held up a record that had a dark reddish brown and yellowish gold cover. ”All right, here we go. The Doors,” he said, pulling the record out of the sleeve. He looked at me, and I feigned approval. The truth was I hadn’t listened to The Doors since I was in 8th grade and wanted to listen to some “cool” music while I did my math homework. For as much as I enjoyed “Break On Through,” I soon had to turn off the music and concentrate on pre-algebra. Naturally, I didn’t bother telling him this—I didn’t want to say anything that might make him second guess his selection. Plus, I had only been his girlfriend for 24 hours; it was too early to start losing my allure.

He admired the record for a second, and then, all of a sudden, he looked up at the ceiling and said, “Of course we bow down to you, Jim Morrison, in all your rock and roll glory.” He put the record on the player, set the needle down, and turned up the volume. It was “L’america”—track one, side two of L.A. Woman. Four minutes and thirty-eight seconds later, he skipped “Hyacinth House” and went straight to “Crawling King Snake.” Whether this action was sickeningly smooth or just plain sickening is up for debate. Either way, it worked; too well. In the midst of all that was happening, I found myself wondering if my parents had any Doors vinyl at home.

Uploaded by arielplain on Jul 19, 2008

When “Riders On The Storm” had long since ended and I arrived back at my house, I went straight for my dad’s record shelf. Sandwiched between Donovan and The Dream Academy was the dark reddish brown and yellowish gold record. I pulled it off the shelf and brought it upstairs to my room, where it remained for many, many years.

Something had shifted, and I knew it. After that day, there was no going back. I devoured the entire Doors catalogue with the kind of voracity that only a 16-year-old girl is capable of. Soon, the aviator sunglasses showed up; then the boots. I’d leave my hair wavy not because I was lazy, but because I realized I actually liked the way it looked unkempt.

For me, Jim Morrison’s music (and I say “Jim Morrison’s music” because it was Jim Morrison who made the music matter) was the perfect soundtrack for adolescence—dark, flawed, and endlessly libidinous. When I felt fantastic I’d put on “Roadhouse Blues,” and when I felt like killing someone, I’d put on “The End.” This is not to say that Jim was the first musical artist to speak to my tortured teenage soul; for example, my first two years of high school would have been Hell without Lou Reed. Still, there was something about listening to “Not to Touch The Earth” on a bad day that resonated with me in ways that made the second side of Berlin seem irrelevant. For as much as I loved Lou’s weirdness, I needed Jim’s ferocity. After all, I was a straight edged 16-year-old living in suburbia; a savage hero was a necessity.

Uploaded by 6strings27 on Dec 29, 2007

Part 2

When the music is your special friend
Dance on fire as it intends
Music is your only friend
Until the end

While Jim’s premature death automatically made him a rock and roll legend, that does not appropriately explain his allure. What it comes down to is the fact that even while he was alive, he was something of a supernatural being. What other popular musician—and I mean Tiger Beat popular—sang about patricide? And “dead President’s corpses”? And horses being blinded with whips? And dared to ask, “What have we done to the earth?” It takes guts to willingly scare the Hell out of your fans, and to do it without the use of fake blood or creepy masks or lighting effects, well, that’s just genius. So much of Jim’s music is dark, and when it isn’t dark it’s twisted.

Uploaded by RakyMaky on Nov 26, 2009

There are, of course, some safer Doors compositions. Even when they’re safe, though, they’re not that safe. “Light My Fire,” which was originally brought to the table by Robby Krieger, is one of the most well-known Doors songs. Just because it is popular, however, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have teeth. Jim added a verse to the song that rhymes “wallow in the mire” with “funeral pyre,” a structure, usually made of wood, for burning a body as part of a funeral rite. As a form of cremation, a body is placed upon the pyre, which is then set on fire, and his delivery is nothing short of primal. When Jim wails, “TRY TO SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE,” there’s nothing safe about it. He’s not just asking you to light his fire, he’s demanding it; who knows what he’ll do if he doesn’t get his way?

His seduction power, his theatricality, his animalistic passion THIS is what gives The Doors staying power. THIS is what sets Jim apart from other notable front men. THIS… ::sigh::

Uploaded by eaglerocktv on Jun 20, 2008

Although it may feel like it was only yesterday, my junior year of high school was a long time ago. I may not be 16 anymore, but I still wear big black boots, I still hate hair products, and I still love Jim Morrison. I still look forward to the day I can listen to “The Unknown Solider” without feeling angry, I still recite “The Movie” to myself when I’m sitting in dark theaters, and I still listen to “When The Music’s Over” while I’m driving around at night. Sometimes, I wonder what my world would be like if Jim were still alive. Maybe he would have graced the cover of Rolling Stone one more time. Maybe he would have had a minor role in Pirates of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Maybe he would have written a book. And Lord knows, his take on George W. Bush’s presidency would have been priceless. Would The Doors be worth seeing live? Would Jim be giving Mick a run for his money?

For as phenomenal as it would be to hear Jim mutter, “Fuck George Bush” on national television, I have no illusions about the situation. Jim was an alcoholic and a drug user, and everything I’ve read about him suggests that he had some kind of chemical imbalance (phrases such as “Manic Depressive Disorder” and “Bipolar Disorder” weren’t spoken as trippingly on the tongue during the 1960s). Yet, somehow, by some miracle, Jim’s legacy is nothing but rockin’. The image of him in tight leather pants will always overshadow the image of him in his puffy latter-days, and he will always be a vibrant young superstar and never a washed up burnout. The fact that I will never see him live is overshadowed by the fact that I will also never have to watch him perform a painful rendition of “Touch Me” on American Idol. As my younger brother said to me when we watched Bob Dylan mumble his way through his set list at the Santa Monica Civic in 2008, “It’s moments like this when I realize it’s better that Morrison’s dead.” Yes, he’s dead, but he’s not dead dead. He was so full of life he never really died.

Uploaded by strubkin on Mar 3, 2009

Epilogue

It hurts to set you free
But you’ll never follow me…

One Sunday night in November of 2004, I sat down at my desk to fill out my University of California application. At that point, I wasn’t completely sure where I wanted to go to college. To be frank, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go at all. Why move away? Why leave all the people I loved? More importantly, why move away and leave all the people I loved just to go to school? I didn’t understand it. To me, all college represented was “Goodbye,” and that was torture.

I got through the “Name, Age, Social Security Number” crap in record time, and then, suddenly, I was face-to-face with an essay assignment. TWO essay assignments. The first essay was only supposed to be around 200 words, and the prompt was so simple I don’t even remember what I wrote. After I finished the first assignment, the doorbell rang. When I opened the door, no one was there. I looked down at the ground, and sitting on my doormat was a chocolate bar, a white envelope, and a Doors pin. Inside the envelope was a note that said:

“This fine European chocolate reminded me of your fine European figure. I hope Mr. Morrison keeps you warm on this cold evening.”

I smiled. I knew my boyfriend had left me the present, but not because of the flattering note. The Doors was still our band. When I got back inside I read the note again, and, quite suddenly, the idea of going away to college seemed ten times as miserable.

Reluctantly, I went back to my room and sat at my desk. The second essay prompt was glowing on my computer screen:

Open-ended

Rationale: This question seeks to give students the opportunity to share important aspects of their schooling or their lives—such as their personal circumstances, family experiences and opportunities that were or were not available at their school or college—that may not have been sufficiently addressed elsewhere in the application.

Is there anything you would like us to know about you or your academic record that you have not had the opportunity to describe elsewhere in this application?

I was flabbergasted. ”Is there anything you would like us to know about you or your academic record“? This pissed me off. Me OR my academic record? In my opinion, those were two very different things. What had I not “had the opportunity to describe elsewhere in this application”?; The application asked for my email address, my nationality, and my GPA—none of those things were a reflection of the real ME. Just who the Hell did these UC people think they were?

I was so angry I could scream. I was about to spend a decent amount of my precious time trying to convince people I already hated that they should let me into one of their disgusting establishments. I took a deep breath, unwrapped that bar of fine European chocolate, and took a bite. When I was ready, I placed my hands back on the keyboard and let loose:

Before I sink
Into the big sleep
I want to hear
I want to hear
The scream of the butterfly

The End?

Uploaded by GuitarxFighter on Oct 3, 2010

Source: Dorky Days

This is the end, beautiful friend.
It hurts to set you free,
But you'll never follow me.
The end of laughter and soft lies.
The end of nights we tried to die.
This is the… end.

Jim Morrison shares his final resting place with the likes of Chopin, Oscar Wilde and hundreds of poets, aristocrats and geniuses. However, only his grave in Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris is watched over by a round the clock cop as it is not only the busiest site of this extraordinary place but generates a different type of hysteria that would have amused Oscar Wilde into one of his most caustic witticisms. Morrison wanted to be known as a poet and had a flair for words. He saw himself as a poet trapped in a Rock Star's body. His band, mythical ‘The Doors’ faced the classical paradox of the day—gains from the allure of a dangerous persona and downfall brought by the same. A ravaged Morrison died in Paris on July 3, 1971 at the age of 27 like other two ‘Js’ Jimi Hendrix and Janice Joplin. Whatever nostalgic fans (most of them from the generation after his death) may say, it was a diminished icon who suffered the heart attack (as per official version) in his bath tub. However, death is integral to his enduring legend—a cacophony of mysticism, sexuality, poetry and psychedelic haze. "He's hot, he's sexy and he's dead" shouted the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine ten years after Morrison’s death, It was correct then it is true now.

Later half of sixties was a good time for Morrison to be alive. The raging counter-culture with its angst ridden yearnings, primal sexuality, unhinged drunkenness and a wildly seductive notion of enlightenment—was ready for him. He came and lent a veneer of sheer sexiness to the excesses of his era. Continued popularity of the music of the period owes a great deal to the hankering for the nostalgia for a richly complex experience imbued with rage, lust, spirituality, freedom and an unapologetic flirtation with death and destruction. It was youth’s way of gaining access to unimagined possibilities—a vision of hope and deadly charms of anarchy.

Morrison remains a key figure on the cultural landscape of the century gone by and still looms large. James Douglas "Jim" Morrison was born in the family of a ranking navy officer on December 8, 1943. He met Ray Menzarek a classically trained pianist, while doing a film course at UCLA Graduate School of Film. Morrison’s poetic potential were evident to Menzarek and they decided to collaborate. Manzarek met John Densmore, who brought in Robby Krieger. The band’s christening was done by Morrison. ‘The Doors’ came from William Blake through Aldous Huxley’s book on mescaline, The Doors of Perception. Blake had written and Huxley had quoted "If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite." That was 1965 and in 1966 they were fired from Whisky-a-Go-Go club where they were the house band, for oedipal explicitness of ‘The End’. Thus began the firming up of ‘Lizard King’ persona of Morrison. In a poem that appeared on the sleeves of their album "Waiting For The Sun" Morrison pronounced "I am the Lizard King, I can do anything." The moniker stuck. The band is credited with hot albums like The Doors, Strange Days, Waiting for the Sun, The Soft Parade, Morrison Hotel and L A Woman.

Morrison’s aura of unpredictability and dark potential gained in strength very quickly. His ‘inspired exhibitionism’ made sure that ‘whatever he did was seen as brilliant or brilliantly calculated’. In December 1967 he was arrested for public obscenity at a concert in New Haven, and in August 1968 he was arrested for disorderly conduct aboard an airplane en route to Phoenix. All that added to the dangerous appeal of his poisonous charms. But he was riding a tiger and he was slipping. His March 1969 arrest in Miami for exhibiting “lewd and lascivious behavior by exposing his private parts” finally managed to dent Morrison’s sense of invincibility. The singer was restricted to Miami for the good part of the year for the court proceedings. The charges were never proved but the tension brought home the realization of harsh realities. It affected concert schedules and many performances were cancelled.

Soon after L.A. Woman was recorded in 1971, Morrison informed the group that he was leaving. A depleted Morrison both physically and emotionally moved to Paris. He was accompanied by his long time companion Pamela Courson. In his estate controversy later, Courson was legally treated as his wife. Jim also had a Celtic wedding with Patricia Kennealy which was never recognized by law. Morrison led a quiet life in Paris and tried to write poems. Days of raunchy taboo-bending were over. As per official version He died of heart failure in his bathtub in 1971 at age 27. His death gained a mysterious aura partly because news of his death was not made public until days after his burial in Paris’ Père-Lachaise cemetery. Many conspiracy theories were floating. Many fans still refuse to believe Morrison is dead. Sam Bernett, former manager of the Rock 'n' Roll Circus nightclub of Paris, claimed in his book that instead of dying of a heart attack in a bathtub Morrison overdosed on heroin on a toilet seat in the club. He claimed that he was dissuaded by Morrison's drug dealers from calling the police. He and some other people brought the body to the apartment Morrison had rented, and staged his body in the bathtub. Whatever the circumstances, the death was in accordance with the tradition of high-profile demises—contentious, mysterious and above all sudden. Courson, one of the few people who saw Morrison’s corpse, died in Hollywood of a heroin overdose on April 25, 1974, she too was 27.

She looked so sad in sleep…
Like a friendly hand… just out of reach… 
A candle stranded on… a beach

If Jimi Hendrix was raw talent, Jim was structured for fame with that elusive characteristic that lures without any obvious reason. His appeal was much more natural or, more accurately, animal. Hendrix was a master of improvisational panache, Morrison’s voice has been referred to as a “beautiful pond for anything to drown in.” While Hendrix was ‘vodoo child’ Jim was ‘Satan’s Seraph’ who epitomized sexual nirvana with his hint of spirituality, moody burst of creativity and difficult to contain rebellious streak. Creator of memorable lines, Hendrix was pathologically inarticulate while Jim was able to give intellectual crust to his views with great communicability. Though, he was main poetic force of The Doors, all the songs are attributed to the band. His interviews and one-liners stand testimony to his deliciously absurd poetic sensibilities. His poems, did not find many takers among critics but they have a charm of their own. His devastating antics and relentless chase of chaos could not obscure his avant-garde sensibilities. Unlike many of his lyrics, Morrison was capable of unexpected tenderness in his poetry.

Contrast it with the absurd beauty of these lines from ‘Rider on the Storm’

There's a killer on the road…
His brain is squirmin' like a toad…
Take a long holiday…
Let your children play…
If ya give this man a ride…
Sweet memory will die…
Killer on the road, yeah

One is captivated by hints of other realms of consciousness when The Doors sings ‘Swim to the moon’ and ‘penetrate the evening that the city sleeps to hide’. They are at their drunken best with ‘L.A. Woman,’ sex drips through ‘Come on Baby Light My Fire’ ‘Roadhouse Blues’ can set the tone for any rock party. ‘The End’ is a poetry of oedipal jolts, an odyssey that seeks to shock with casual profanity. ‘Break on Through (to the Other Side)’ is one of the anthems of rock. An absolute favourite is ‘Riders on the Storm’. In the song silken barbarism of that sexy beast Morrison’s voice gains its full grandeur along with the searing poetry of the absurd. Metallic texture of the shivery tones, throbbing keyboards of Ray Manzarek, the fluid lyrical guitar of Robby Krieger and the supple drums of John Dansmore make the sultry, languid and soothing experience of the song which is also full of violence and alienation. Sublime music masks the edginess which encapsulates the tortured zeitgeist of an epoch. Remove the hoopla created by wild antics of Morrison’s flirtations with chaos, you get some really solid music. Howsoever romantic this flirtation may sound but lingering regret remains—a regret of losing out on many more such gems as mentioned above.

When Oliver Stone’s eponymous movie on The Doors came in 1991, it was not subject to normal cinematic scrutiny deploying usual parameters of reviewing a movie. The movie was viewed and castigated through lens of the nostalgia. Learned critics were ‘wincing at infidelities like absence of hope and light’. They saw in its failure a ‘grim reminder of that we (Americans) have lost our pioneering cultural influence’. The New Yorker lamented the ‘mean spiritedness that kept breaking through’ the movie—the ‘bad faith’ and tabloid like sensibility’. Time Magazine was no less caustic, Richard Corliss wrote “Kilmer (Val Kilmer played Morrison) is just conventionally good-looking; he can't prowl like Blake's Tyger or pose with the sultry arrogance of a Beat poet. Nor does he have the intellectual seductiveness that made Morrison a toy of the hip literati. In short, Kilmer is not Jim, and his casting denies The Doors the chance to be a meditation on the lure of sexual power.” Yes you get the idea, sixties counter culture evokes extreme responses and rock was a religion with those who lived through the period and icons like Morrison, Hendrix and Joplin were its presiding deities.

Source: Modern Masters