by Ray Manzarek
When we weren’t getting our fill of cultural Western civilization sophistication, we were mixing the album with Paul Rothchild at a small studio Elektra Records had set up in their office. And it was sounding like a mother. Paul was doing a brilliant job. His ears were as golden as Botnick’s and he had entered the space of serendipity where he could do no wrong. He had received the “great visitation of energy” and he was twirling pots and goosing faders like a man possessed. The sound he was coaxing out of the speakers was dark and mysterious. Definitely psychedelic but with the California air of freedom. The sun was always shining. The light was always illuminating the dark and shadowy corners. There was mystery but there was nothing to fear. Dionysus and Apollo had come together. They had fused themselves into Doors music. And we were ecstatic. Rothchild’s mix was more than we could have imagined. It was going to be a hit. I knew it. I could feel it in the ether. My receptors had been plucked by the muse of music. We were on our way and there would be no turning back. And the fates said, “You wanted success, Ray? Well, here it comes. Here are your desires, fulfilled. But are you prepared to live with the consequences?”
And lying in wait for Jim Morrison, waiting to begin the mad, downward spiral of consequences, was none other than the fantasist of the Factory himself…Andy Warhol.
It was love at first sight on Andy’s part. He knew the real goods when he saw it. And he saw it in Jim. To Jim, Andy was merely the entrée into decadence. The benign De Sade. The giggling Caligula of the Lower East Side. He held the keys to that gathering of quasi-artistic but beautiful young people known as the Factory—Andy’s great loft of silver foil, silk screens, and anything goes. Jim was down there within the first week of our opening at Ondine. He loved it. He loved the games, the role playing, the attitude. The challenges to go further, to go beyond the self-imposed, societally sanctioned bounds of psychic control. To go beyond the pale. And Jim—like Kurtz (Brando again) in Coppola’s Apocalypse Now—was born to go beyond the pale.
And so was Nico, the Valkyrian angel of death. Nico was the singer in a Warhol show called Exploding Plastic Inevitable with the Velvet Underground as the band. She met Jim and went gaga. And she would push his buttons at every opportunity, in a deep and Germanic-accented voice….
“I’m going to take another von. Vhat’s the matter, Jeem, are you afraid?” the Valkyrie would say to the California Dionysus, who would always respond to the challenge.
“Afraid? Shit, I’ll take two!”
“Jeem, you are crazy. That’s why I loff you.”
And they would retire to a silver-foiled room for more. More of everything. More drink, more pills, more sex. Evidently, she gave great head, understanding the proper use of the tongue on the underside of the penis, especially that supersensitive area at the base of the head where that small crease attaches to the shaft, that crease that when lightly licked and flicked with a moist, soft tongue produces shudders of ecstasy in the male of the species. And she wasn’t ashamed to do it. To bring her man to climax and not remove his penis from her mouth. To hold it close and take it in even deeper at his moment of consummation. To not deny him the warmth and moisture of her mouth as he ejaculated. To swallow his semen and wait for his member to soften and recede back into itself. Only then would she take her lips away, look up at Jim, and smile….
“Did that please you, Jeem?”
Jim could only nod in pleasure, being speechless at the intensity of his ejaculation. The pills and booze were melting together in his brain, obliterating his will to power and replacing it with a will to pleasure. Andy’s world was a pill-head scene. Amphetamine uppers and barbiturate downers. They were plentiful and constantly proffered. And they were loved by Andy’s minions. There was pot, of course. There was pot everywhere in those days. But this was an alcohol-and-pill scene. And that was not a combination that opened the doors of perception. The holographic universe did not exist on pills and booze. It was strictly body pleasure. Now, God knows, I love my body pleasure, too, but this was too much. The denizens of this pleasure dome had gone too far. They were intoxicants without enlightenment. Inebriates without vision, much as today’s crack-meth-bonehead speed freaks and narcoleptic heroin hounds are dope addicts without a clue.
At the Factory it was all pleasure without consequences. An ultimately enervating pleasure that could only weaken and debilitate. This was not a Nietzschean romp in joy and light and passion. The Factory did not leave its partygoers strong and clean and infused with enthusiasm for life, for the beauty and passion of nature. For the divine warmth and radiance of the sun. There was no desire on the part of the denizens to begin the world again, to create the new Garden of Eden, to transcend ordinary reality, to enter the New Age. The debauchery itself was enough. It was not liberating, as such intoxication should be. It didn’t open the doors of perception. It did not break through the walls of the Judeo-Christian-Muslim myth into freedom. It did not charge the psyche with energy. It was merely an end in itself. The pleasure was the end and no other action was needed. No other action was necessary, or even desirable. It was the realm of the cynic, the ironist. A realm of sophistication, of knowledge, of worldliness…but without the sun. It was perpetual pleasure and perpetual darkness.
The door to the foil room opened and Andy’s head peeked in.
“Oh, you’re finished,” Andy lisped. “I was hoping I could watch.”
“Andy, you always vant to vatch,” Nico boomed at him.
“Too late, blondie,” Jim laughed. “You’ll have to wait till next time. And even then I don’t think I’ll let you watch.”
“Oh, please, Jim. I won’t be in the way,” Andy begged.
“Well…I don’t know. You’d have to sit in the corner.”
“I will.”
“And you’d have to not say a word.”
Andy’s eyes were beginning to brighten. Maybe he was actually going to be allowed to watch.
“I’ll be real quiet, Jim. I won’t even breathe.”
Jim laughed. “Breathing is okay, Andy. I don’t want you to suffocate yourself. But you’d have to beg.”
“I can beg, Jim. I will…if that’s what you want.”
“On your knees?”
“Of course, if that’s what you want.”
“That’s what I want, Andy. And I want you to practice.”
Andy grinned. “I know how to beg on my knees, Jim. I’m a Catholic.”
Jim laughed. “So was Ray. You’ll have to meet him.”
“I’d like to.”
Nico spoke. “The blond von? Vith the glasses?”
Jim nodded. “Yeah. The organ player.”
“I vould play his organ.”
Jim patted his Valkyrie. “His girl is here, Nico. He’s practically married.”
“So vhat?” the blond beastie said.
“Are you coming back tomorrow, Jim?” Andy drooled.
Jim’s demeanor changed. He looked at Andy, hard and mean. The game belonged to him now. He rose above the miasma of the pills and the booze and snarled, “Get on your knees, Andy.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Now!” Jim barked.
Andy dropped to the floor like a shot. He became the Catholic supplicant.
“Now beg,” Jim demanded.
“Now?” Andy queried.
“Fuckin’ beg, Andy!”
“Oh, please, Jim, let me watch. I’ll be good. I’ll be quiet. I’ll do anything you say.”
Jim laughed. “Hey, you’re good at this, Andy.”
Andy smiled. “I’ll do anything, Jim.”
“Do more,” Jim snarled.
“Please, Jim,” Andy whined. “Let me watch, please.”
Jim stood, zipped up his pants, kissed Nico on the cheek, and walked to the silver foil door.
“Please, Jim…”
Jim glanced down at the kneeling Andy, whose eyes were cast up to heaven, looking entreatingly into Jim’s.
Jim smiled back at Andy. Slyly, a sadisti
c glint flashing behind his eyes. “Fuck no, Andy.” And he was gone.
Anyway, that’s the way he told it to me.
We finished mixing the album, finished the gig at Ondine, Jim finished his debauch at the Factory, and we were gone. Back to the golden coast. Back to the light-infused soma land that we all loved. It felt good to enter the warmth again. The air of California enfolds you, rather than slaps you in the face like New York air. But, man, we had a good time. Everybody grew up. We even realized our pant legs were cut too high. Brad Pierce, owner of Ondine, once asked us, “Are you guys worried about a flood in here?” What the fuck was that supposed to mean? “Of course not,” we said. He laughed. “Then why are your cuffs cut so high up?” And they were. About two inches above our ankles. Bumpkin style. “I’ve got to teach you guys how to dress,” he said. “We’re going down to Le Dernier Cri and get you cowpokes some threads.”
We bought four suits at the hippest men’s boutique in the Village. God, we looked good. Mod style, cool cut, long pants, a break in the cuff. Four very cool Miles Davis guys. I loved it. I still dress that way. Issey Miyake and Rei Kawakubo. Jim burned a hole in his jacket with a cigarette and threw the whole damned suit away within a week. John and Robby were simply too embarrassed to dress up. They were California guys and could only be comfortable in casual clothes. They rarely wore their duds. Brad Pierce never got through to them. Nor did the world of fashion. Jim, of course, didn’t need a boutique of French fashion, he was going hell-bent for leather. And it worked. Man, did it work!
Now, some people say Jim saw Gerard Malanga in a pair of leather pants at Andy’s Factory. Others say Gerard Malanga copied Jim Morrison’s entire persona, including the leather pants. Who knows? I personally never saw or met Gerard M. I was never even in the Factory. But in Oliver Stone’s movie The Doors, Oliver most erroneously has all four Doors at Andy’s loft. He wrongly portrays Jim as asking us to stay with him because he fears something untoward is going to happen to him. Jim’s afraid it’s going to be a life-altering night. And he wants our support. But Oliver has us abandon Jim. Oliver “Bonehead” Stone has us turn away as Jim is entreating us to stay with him. To help him. Jesus Christ, Oliver, do you think I’d leave Jim if he asked me to stay with him? Do you think I’d abandon my friend in a time of need? Do you think I’d walk away from a friend who was entreating me for help? But you would, wouldn’t you, Oliver? You’d walk away from anybody. Your pleasure and power above all things…right, dude? So get your facts straight out. Grow up and see it like it really is, you fascist. Anything for a plot point, ehh, Oliver?
There, I feel better now. I had something stuck in my spleen.
the doors hits the street
In January 1967 the album was released to the public. It took its time building momentum. The first single, “Break on Through,” was getting some airplay in L.A. Probably because we were constantly on the phones calling the AM and FM rock stations to request that “boss tune from the Doors, ‘Break on Through.’” At the behest of the record company, we acted like teenagers, requesting our latest “fave rave,” disguising our voices, acting silly, and calling over and over from Elektra’s office. Billy James watched us with a shit-eating grin. It was his idea and he liked it. We had all our friends and Jim’s groupies calling, too. And it worked, sort of. “Break on Through” made it to number twenty-five on the top local AM station, KRLA. One had to have AM play in those days. AM ruled the airwaves. FM was hip, eclectic. But very underground…and in three years it would rule. And I never even heard the thing on the radio. I was always listening to the right stations at the wrong time. Or is that the wrong station at the wrong time? Damn it, you want to hear your song on the radio and I was always missing it. And the only song the radio would play was your single. Nobody played album cuts. It simply wasn’t done. It was singles only. Consequently, the only Doors song I could hope to hear on the radio was “Break on Through” until Elektra released a new single. And that was going to be…“Light My Fire.”
Here’s how it happened. Elektra was getting requests from all over the country for “Light My Fire.” Radio was calling, saying, “Give us the single!” At home, a local D.J. friend of ours—Dave Diamond—told us in the last week of January (he knew before anybody), “‘Light My Fire’ is your hit, guys. Get it out.” The only problem was that it was six minutes and fifty seconds long. Singles had to be three minutes. Code, gospel, written in stone…three minutes. Never, anathema, blasphemy, never almost seven minutes. Not from a new group, anyway. “Who do you guys think you are, Bob Dylan?” He had “Like a Rolling Stone.” It was long. FM played it. “But you guys aren’t Bob Dylan. He’s famous, and you’re not. And we demand three minutes.”
Shit. Everyone wanted “Light My Fire” and it was too long. And “Break on Through” had run its course…it never broke through. It made it to 106 on the Billboard National Hot 100–101 to 110 was called bubbling under. We made it to only a low simmer on the Hot 100. We needed a hit. We needed some chart action. We needed national airplay. We needed “Light My Fire.”
Sure, we were developing a following. We were getting gigs, lots of gigs. Up and down the state and in L.A. We had money to pay the rent. Dorothy and I had moved into an apartment on Sycamore in Hollywood, around the corner from Grauman’s Chinese Theater. A nice, cozy little apartment in the middle of the Hollywood freak show. For an evening’s entertainment we would walk down Hollywood Boulevard to Vine Street and come back up to Sycamore on the other side of the street. What a show! Especially with a touch of cannabis intoxication. Hippies, gypsies, weirdoes, freaks, tourists, and prostitutes prowled the Boulevard. It was a most eclectic promenade. We passed metaphysical bookstores, strip joints, Musso and Frank’s restaurant (since 1914), movie palaces—the Egyptian and the Pantages—Frederick’s of Hollywood’s crotchless panties store, taco stands, a “British Invasion” imported record store, the Hollywood Wax Museum of stars and horror, Pickwick’s huge and great bookstore, Greek gyros and hummus stands, Indian food, pizza parlors, hamburger joints, the Church of Scientology building with free tests on their tin can engram meter—“just walk in, folks”—DeVoss clothing store for mod threads, boot shops with the latest winkle pickers, and cool chicks’ shops with English fashions and go-go shimmy fringe dresses (not unlike the outfits from the Roaring Twenties). It was a circus. It was almost New York. We loved it.
But the Doors still needed a hit single. And one day in April, Paul Rothchild called all of us and said, “Guys, I’m going to do an edit.” He was going to cut and paste—before computers and the digital realm this was an incredibly difficult and laborious task; it was like surgery, an actual cutting of the tape and splicing of the desired sections back together again. But the hardest part was making the decision of where to cut, what to save, and what to toss away. Fortunately, we had a brilliant producer in Paul and had confidence in his instincts. They wouldn’t fail him…or so we hoped. After all, he was going to attempt a quadruple-bypass open-heart surgery on “Light My Fire.” He was going to cut and slash almost seven minutes of music down to three. I envisioned hundreds of cuts to do a Reader’s Digest condensation. Little slits. A measure or two here, a phrase there. Bits and pieces being excised to maintain the integrity of the composition and yet achieve the necessary radio running length. Frankly, I didn’t see how it could be done. I could imagine Paul Rothchild and Bruce Botnick laboring over the cutting block for a month.
Two days later Paul called us and said he had it! “What?!” was our response. “How does it sound?”
“I’m not going to say a word,” Paul said. “Come down this afternoon and we’ll play it for you. I want you guys to be the judge.”
And at two o’clock we all arrived at Sunset Sound ready to attend the results of the surgery.
“How did you make all those edits in just a couple of days?” I asked Paul.
He grinned. “I’m not saying anything until you hear it. You don’t expect me to give away my hard-earned pr
ofessional secrets, do you, Ray?”
He was a sly devil. Always was.
“Now I want all of you to sit down and pretend you’re listening to the radio,” Paul said. He loved creating a mind scene, a psychic scenario for us to enter into, and he was good at it. It usually worked. “You’ve never heard a song called “Light My Fire.” You’re just digging the radio and the groovy tunes that keep coming. You don’t know anything about the Doors, never heard of them. You’re seventeen and you’re in Cleveland.”
“Oh, no, not Cleveland,” Jim joked. We all laughed. “Sentence me to Devil’s Island for twenty years but don’t tell me I’m living in Cleveland…please.”
“Sorry, Jim. Cleveland it is,” said Paul. “And you’re seventeen. You don’t know shit from Shinola. You’ve got no brains and a perpetual hard-on…and, and this is the important part, you buy singles.”
“Duhh…okay…play the song.” Jim went teenage.
“All right,” Paul continued. “So the radio says to you in your permanent state of sexual fantasy, ‘Here’s a new song by a new group called the Doors. They call it “Light My Fire.”’”
And he pointed at Bruce, who hit the play button on the two-track. And out it came on those great Sunset Sound speakers. Big and full and fat and very crisp on the top end. Man, hearing your own music in a studio playback setting…it is sweet. So the organ intro hits and then Jim starts to sing and the entire first verse and chorus go by and there are no cuts! Into the second verse and still no cuts. What’s going on here? I thought. Where are the edits? The second chorus, no cuts. Now the beginning of the solos. We vamp a bit and just before I begin my solo—BAM!—we’re at the end of the solos and the cartwheel organ intro repeats itself and Jim begins to sing the third verse. The solos were gone! The best part of the song—the true raison d’ětre of the piece—was gone! No Ray, no Robby. No mystical, trance-inducing, Coltranesque soloing. No Bach-like interweaving of guitar and organ. No sexual simulation building to an aural orgasm. No fuck, no solo. Shit!