Other writers who inspired a young Jim Morrison and played a significant role in the development of the poet’s mind included: Nietzsche, Kerouac (On the Road), Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, Plutarch, Dylan Thomas, James Joyce, Balzac, MoliÈre, Cocteau, and the source of his greatest inspiration, Arthur Rimbaud. Rimbaud was a nineteenth-century French poet who believed that poets should live their lives in derangement of the senses. The poet must know all types of love. He must suffer through the most incredible pain. By living a life filled with excess, the poet will then receive his greatest visions. In Rimbaud’s “A Season in Hell,” the poet states, “Attain death with all your appetites, your selfishness and all the capital sins.” Rimbaud also spoke of “the predestined tragedy.” This would become the fatal flaw within the poet’s life. To some seekers tragedy would come through alcoholism, to others through drug addiction, while still others would be led to madness. Morrison was greatly impressed that Rimbaud completed his poetry by the time he was only nineteen. Like the Beat poets of the 1950s, Rimbaud ran away from home as a youth and followed his teachings. He gladly lived in squalor. Sometimes he slept on the streets and preached revolution and contempt for both the Church and women. He read many books based upon occult themes and studied the works of banned poets. Rimbaud died at thirty-seven. Jim Morrison was faithful to his poetic mentor. After the Doors had achieved great success, Jim lived in the filth of the cheapest hotels, which were always conveniently located near the Doors’ business offices. Michael McClure commented on Morrison’s acceptance of Rimbaud’s teachings in Frank Lisciandro’s Jim Morrison: A Feast of Friends: “When you arrange to derange the normal balance of your senses, whether you do it with alcohol, or lack of sleep, or with starvation, or whether you do it with sex, or whether you do it with drugs, you not only add to the body of your knowledge but you jar the body of knowledge so that you are looking out in a different way … and this is what a young poet really must do, what a meaningful young poet must do—a young poet writing about acts of adventure and consciousness and perception.”16
In his quest for experience, Morrison wound up at UCLA studying filmmaking. It was there that he met Ray Manzarek and the Doors were formed. Manzarek became the keyboardist who would compose the musical scores for Morrison’s poetry. The name for the band came from a combination of a quote from William Blake and a small book published by Aldous Huxley. Blake had written that “If the doors of perception are cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” Huxley, on the other hand, described his drug experiences with mescaline as “what Adam saw on the morning of creation” in The Doors of Perception. Huxley was also one of the first proponents of LSD. When Huxley died on November 23, 1963, the same day that President Kennedy was assassinated, he was reported to have taken LSD for what he knew would be the last time just a few minutes before his death. (Ironically, Huxley is one of the crowd members on the cover of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band). Jim Morrison also agreed with William Blake’s famous quote from “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”: “The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom.” Obviously this quote would also serve as an inspiration to Arthur Rimbaud as well.
One of Morrison’s friends, January Jansen, who designed many of Jim’s costumes, including his trademark snakeskin pants, remembered Morrison pushing everything to the edge: “He wanted to push everything to the limit. Just like when he was walking on the edge of the ledge [Morrison once walked a building ledge that was at least fifty feet above a busy street]. He wanted to see how far far was.”17 At times, other friends suggested that Morrison had a conscious death wish. They told tales of his drunken “death rides” in automobiles going at high rates of speed, and some became convinced that Jim Morrison would go out in a flaming crash in James Dean style.
Jim Morrison was a complex individual. He was composed of several classic personalities. His first personality was that of the Greek god Dionysus. He well represented the lifestyle of excessive drinking and wild behavior. Appropriately, the first play structure to be developed was the tragedy. The very term “tragedy” comes from the Greek phrase “goat song.” This was used to honor the god Dionysus, who was half man with the legs of a goat.
Another classical figure that Morrison admired was Alexander the Great. Jim studied ancient history and developed a great admiration for Alexander. Morrison was so impressed by the Macedonian conqueror that he would pose for photos with his head gently tilted to one side like many of the marble busts of Alexander that appeared in that age. Tragically, Morrison, as well as Rimbaud, accepted Alexander’s challenge to die young with glory.
Finally, Morrison would fit a casting call for the brooding, dark melancholy Prince of Denmark, Hamlet. Hamlet and Morrison were the ultimate enigmas. The reader is never able to completely understand Hamlet’s motivations and actions compared with a similar Shakespearean hero such as Macbeth or Lear. Perhaps Shakespeare is saying that the character Hamlet is like the mystery of life itself. The purpose of existence can never be completely understood. Man can never come to grips with his own desires or understand his purpose for being. These absolute truths are kept from us. We only explore the grand mystery of life with very limited vision.
Whenever I listen to “The End” I can’t help but compare its impact with Hamlet’s question of whether to live or die. Both poets form contrasting attitudes concerning death. Of course, Hamlet is terrified of what may exist in the unknown eternity that follows death, whereas Morrison seems to welcome the passing as a gentle friend. Strangely, the listener can’t be sure whether Morrison is welcoming the end for himself or for another. One of Morrison’s repeated themes is the “killer on the road” or “the hitchhiker [who] stood by the side of the road and leveled his thumb in the calm calculus of reason.” In Morrison’s “The Hitchhiker” the poet combines the story of a mysterious stranger who hitches a ride and confesses a murder that he committed in the desert. The structure of the poem combined with “Riders on the Storm” produces a chilling effect. Some fans actually believe that this scene could be autobiographical in that it is only one more of the “cardinal sins” through which the poet must pass to the ultimate understanding of life and death.
Freudian interpretations of Prince Hamlet’s character suggest that the grieving prince suffered from an Oedipus complex. Obviously, this can be interpreted in Morrison’s creation of the following lines: “Father?” “Yes, Son?” “I want to kill you.” “Mother? I want to …” What follows next is a series of primal Oedipal screams. These lines could also have suggested Hamlet’s conflict between his uncle-father and aunt-mother. It’s the answer Hamlet is looking for. He would have the courage to confront his uncle-stepfather and revenge his father’s death. His preoccupation with his mother’s incest and his warning to “go not to my uncle’s bed” would remove his final rival for his mother’s attention.
When the Doors were developing their biography, Morrison told the publicists that his parents were dead. When his mother and younger brother attended one of the Doors’ performances he refused to greet them. When they were seated in the theater by the Doors’ management, he performed the graphic Oedipus scene from “The End” while looking his mother directly in her eyes. In a final comparison to Shakespeare’s tragic hero, it would seem that both Hamlet and Morrison were able to grasp reality only through driving themselves to the very brink of madness.
Jim Morrison was a willing student of the occult. At least twice in his all too short life he performed blood-drinking rituals. The first took place in a Wiccan Handfasting Ceremony on June 24, 1970 (Midsummer Day). Patricia Kennealy was not only a practicing witch but also a high priestess in her coven. During the wedding ceremony, both parties drew their own blood and mixed it in a chalice that was partially filled with wine. At the conclusion of the service they both drank from the cup and were thereby joined together.
The second episode occurred when Morrison was having an affair with a beautiful Scandinavian girl whose name was
Ingrid. When she suggested that at times she and some of her friends drank their own blood Morrison insisted that they should also do so. She went into the bathroom and produced a razor blade and after five tries managed to cut the fleshy part of her hand. Morrison collected her blood in a champagne glass. All during the remainder of the night they danced in the moonlight, made love, and awoke with Ingrid’s dried blood smeared across both of their bodies. Morrison did not contribute his blood to this feast, possibly because he was unable to cut himself at the earlier ceremony and had actually blacked out for a few seconds. Though Morrison was involved with countless women, only Pamela Courson provided a haven for him to replenish his creative powers. She believed in him as a great poet and he felt responsible for her because, as he once said, “she had never grown up.” Perhaps she was Wendy caring for Peter Pan in the Never-Never Land existence of a rock and roll wasteland. It was not a perfect relationship. At times the lovers seem determined to bring as much pain upon the other as possible, but love and hate are our two strongest emotions. Out of this antithesis was born a complete symbiotic devotion that lasted throughout both of their short and tragic lives.
Other rumors existed that his reference to being the “Lizard King” and “rid[ing] the snake … to the ancient lake” from “The End” could be further references of his involvement in the occult and in particular the practice of black magic. Some fans felt that the snake and lizard symbols represented the Prince of Darkness himself. In “L.A. Woman,” Morrison sings a line “Mr. Mojo Risin’.” The mentioning of the word “mojo” hints at the dark powers of voodoo; however, the very phrase is also an anagram for Jim Morrison’s name.
Ironically, Jim Morrison performed two tributes to fellow rock stars who died young. The first was for Otis Redding after his fateful plane crash. The Doors were booked at the Winterland in San Francisco to perform three shows starting on December 26, 1967. Redding was the headliner due to his amazing performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. Tragically, Otis Redding was killed on December 10, 1967. Morrison had admired Redding greatly and decided to perform a tribute to the fallen singer the first night of the scheduled shows. Morrison ordered two-dozen blood-red roses and carried them out on stage with him for the first performance. As he emerged from the darkness, he was enveloped in the multicolored stage lights. Jim walked calmly to the front of the stage as the Doors began the syncopated rhythm to what was now to be rock and roll’s true requiem, “When the Music’s Over,” and calmly said, “Poor Otis, dead and gone, left me here to sing his song, Pretty little girl with the red dress on, Poor Otis dead and gone.” At this point Morrison threw the crimson rose petals into the audience and began singing the distinctive lyrics as a tribute to Redding. The audience of course was mesmerized. Morrison would include his poetic tribute to Otis Redding in the creation of his lyrics to “Runnin’ Blue,” which was later included on the Soft Parade album.18
Jim Morrison would yet again compose a final tribute to another rock star dying young when he became aware of Brian Jones’s death on July 3, 1967. Morrison once again appealed to his tragic muse and wrote “Ode to L.A. While Thinking of Brian Jones, Deceased.” Little did the Lizard King know that on this very date two years hence he would join Brian Jones beyond the metaphysical veil of existence.
The ultimate legend concerning Jim Morrison has to do with the events that led to his death. Morrison had left the United States to live in Paris and concentrate solely upon his poetry. He and Pamela leased an apartment so that Morrison would renew himself as a poet. After all, he had always considered himself a poet first and never seriously regarded himself as a gifted rock singer. The music was to serve as a complement for his poetic outlet. It became a chance for him to display his emotion, and to preach what he saw as the coming revolution.
On the night of July 2, 1971, Jim Morrison had attended a movie, Pursued, staring Robert Mitchum (some sources claim that Jim and Pamela went together while other sources claim that Morrison attended the movie alone). Later that night, after he had returned to the apartment with Pam, Morrison complained of chest pains. This may have been due to a respiratory infection that was troubling him at this time. Early the next morning, Pamela Courson found his body still in the tub. The time of death was fixed somewhere near 5:00 A.M. In this scenario, some medical opinions state that a blood clot could have left the lungs and lodged in the singer’s heart, killing him instantly. A medical examiner was summoned to the apartment and after checking the body for the telltale signs of needle marks—indicating a possible drug O.D.—the official cause of death was given as “myocardial infarction,” a simple heart attack. This was the official version released to the media that followed Morrison’s death. Jim’s funeral took place on July 8, 1971. Pamela made arrangements to lease a grave for thirty years in the historic Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Somehow it seemed very appropriate that the American Poet would be placed in eternal rest with other celebrities including Frederic Chopin, Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, Honoré de Balzac, and ironically Paul Verlaine, Rimbaud’s homosexual lover. Strangely, there were reports that Morrison had visited Père-Lachaise just three days before his own death.
The second version of the strange death of Jim Morrison concerned evidence of a drug overdose. In this version it was not known if Morrison had attended a movie and then made his way to the Rock ’n’ Roll Circus, a hangout for heroin addicts, or simply just bypassed the movie. It was rumored that Morrison had purchased some heroin, some say cocaine, and went back to his apartment where he later became sick and died there in his bath. It would appear that the effects of both the heroin and alcohol would thus be increased, with a relatively small amount leading to his death. In Marianne Faithfull’s Faithfull: An Autobiography, she has stated that she was accused of giving Morrison the fix that had taken his life. She also stated the name of the dealer who had sold Morrison the deadly heroin. Faithfull mentioned seeing the body and noticing a large purple bruise over his heart.
It was also rumored that Morrison may have suspected the white powdery substance, heroin, found with Pam in the apartment to be cocaine. After taking the substance, Jim became sick and later died from the powerful reactions of the heroin mixed with the alcohol he had previously consumed. In No One Here Gets Out Alive, Danny Sugarman mentioned how during an interview following Jim’s death, Pamela Courson repeated over and over again how it was all her fault. If Morrison died of a drug overdose we will probably never know, because an autopsy was never performed. During the medical investigation at Morrison’s apartment, Pamela told the medical examiner that Jim had never taken drugs and that he had a bad respiratory infection. Since there was no physical evidence of drug abuse, such as needle marks, the coroner ruled the death as a result of natural causes.
The story of Jim Morrison’s death should have concluded with one of the above explanations; however, it is extremely hard to allow a legend to just simply die. Following the sudden and mysterious death of the Lizard King, many of his devoted fans were actually convinced that Morrison was not dead. At the Fillmore West in 1967, Morrison suggested that the Doors pull off a death hoax to bring the new band more popularity.19 (It is strange that in this same year the Beatles had just released the Sgt. Pepper’s album, which later supplied a large number of the “Paul is dead” rumors.) Morrison also talked with a number of close friends and commented upon how he could see himself radically changing his life at any time. He actually told his record officials that if they received a message from a Mr. Mojo Risin’ in Africa that the message would actually be from him. The Mr. Mojo Risin’ would serve as his new identity. As stated earlier, Morrison deeply respected Arthur Rimbaud. Rimbaud managed to fake his own death; afterward, he disappeared to Africa and became a trader and gunrunner. Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek once claimed that if anyone could get away with faking his own death it would be Jim. A few days after the announcement of his death, a few fans claimed that they saw Morrison boarding an airplane leaving Paris. Newspapers and fan magazi
nes have reported individuals who claimed to be Jim Morrison cashing checks and buying property. They claimed that the individual’s appearance was astonishingly similar to that of the dead singer.
In a “table hopping” interview (December, 1994) with my friend Gary James from Syracuse, New York, Jim Morrison’s brother-in-law, Alan Graham, commented that he was not so sure that Jim Morrison was buried in Père-Lachaise Cemetery. He stated that the corpse found in the bathtub had turned blue and was bloated. At first Pamela had not mentioned the true identity of the newly discovered corpse; it was simply suggested that the body was just another long-haired hippie drunk. Eventually, Pam had to produce a passport to identify the body. It was at this time that the American Embassy contacted Jim Morrison’s family.
Graham also suggested that the body in the bathtub may have actually belonged to a mysterious German acquaintance of Morrison. This friend borrowed Morrison’s jacket and impersonated the American singer. Some insiders actually claimed that this fellow looked so much like Morrison that they could very well have been taken for twins. Graham claimed that there was at least one occurrence when Dieter, the associate’s name, was thrown out of a restaurant for trying to impersonate Jim Morrison. Alan Graham found it quite possible to believe that this may have been the body found in the early morning hours of July 3, 1971.
Take a Walk on the Dark Side Page 24