The Poetic Legacy of Jim Morrison, the Lizard King
- by Thomas Hobbs
THE WIDE-RANGING AND OFTEN PROPHETIC WRITINGS OF THE DOORS’ FRONTMAN ARE CELEBRATED IN A NEW ANTHOLOGY
Jim Morrison’s reputation as a hell-raising, leather-clad Lizard King means he is primarily celebrated in pop folklore as a beer-swilling frontman, an “erotic politician” who filled rock stadiums with indecent howls and dark wit. Yet the late Doors singer, who was found dead at 27 in a Paris bathtub nearly 50 years ago, was first and foremost a poet, according to Robby Krieger, the band’s jazz-channelling guitarist.
The still-awestruck 75-year-old describes Morrison as “a genius. He was the only guy I met at that age who was so preoccupied with death and philosophy. No one else was even close to thinking like he was thinking.
"Jim was always a poet. When I wrote 'Light My Fire’, Jim added the line ‘try to set the night on fire’. We found out recently he had actually written that line in a poetry notebook from way back, when he was just a child.”
