Jim Morrison: A door yet and still open!
A year of the 40th anniversary of The Doors’ arrival on the rock scene and another one of the birth of Jim Morrison, the rock poet –whose decadent existence led his persona to grave. Suddenly flashing memories came about paying my respects to him at his shrine –into what turned his burial plot.
The day before I rushed to cemetery –jumping onto the train to Pére Lachaise station; but this was already closed when I arrived there. Obviously I was late. My friend with whom I went did not understand the reason for which I took him there, and even more when we bumped into a shopkeeper who was Arab -the same nationality as my mate who was asked by him the why we wasted time coming over an addicted’s grave (both of them didn’t know that “the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom”).
So, the following morning I woke up early to head for Pére Lachaise –before going on touring by Paris with my friend. And this time I went on my own. I came into the cemetery through a side-door, and I walked around by the thick wall –on the cobblestone- leading myself to the centre –where I supposed that the main entrance was located- when I ran into a guardian who seeing me uttered – in his thick accent- the surname: “Morrison”. He approached me signaling the way to get to his tomb and also slipped a map of the place.
Just at the main gate, I took the right lane, which got steeper and steeper, until his grave. Already there what I got was a small rectangle of cement in the ground (well, I never expected to have Jim coming back from death to recite his poetry). But I thought if all that was the standing about the Electric Shaman –yet I was by myself. So there was no more? Perhaps, what drew me to Pére Lachaise was the mystery around his death, the myth in which he turned out, or just to be part of the pilgrimage of fans to his grave –and this could be appreciated as some guys joined me later.
After some minutes there and a couple of snaps, I went out of the gate. And there was left the king lizard.
I wasted my time at Pére Lachaise? I don’t think so. In fact, turned out to be real what once his band mates wrote in their web page that Jim was gone but he had left his spirit, his music and his poetry –and a lasting influence. And his legacy was not just words and music; I would also add to it his bizarre but philosophical live performances.
What made a southern boy pretend or assume an attitude of that of a shaman? A possible answer would be: the eternal search of transcendence.
Was he living out his myth? The one of that an American Indian shaman went into his soul? Or the myth turned on him? The one in which he would got after his death? Anyway he turned in one myth. He got himself a kind of shaman. And this was evident at any live performance.
A The Doors’ concert was like a séance. He conducted it as a ritual being he its high priest and the audience his disciple. The shaman would jump on one-leg around –in one circle as if he were at a camp fire. A live performance was a religious experience. A ceremony sometimes turned into Artaud’s theater of cruelty.
A theatrical experience that stirred the senses out of their easiness and drove them into consciousness about the dark side. The shaman –who thought of being a king lizard at this theatre of confrontation- always wanted to have response from the audience, so he encouraged their members to sing, shout, or do what they pleased putting the microphone before their mouths –at this point the mike cord was no longer a snake in which it had turned moment previous.
All this was a communion where the senses were purified. A trip. Perhaps, he followed what William Blake lucubrated: “if the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite!”
So the concerts became ritual-like performances where the shaman or the king lizard turned himself into a medicine man or sometimes a Christ-like being crucifying himself –as he did at the Seattle Pop Festival- who would satisfy the necessity of the audience who went into the theatre. (Are the nowadays bands’ performances the same? Their lead singers become a sort of shaman? Or all that is just a mere gig?).
He was an integral artist (who was livid when the rest of the band who sold the rights of ‘Light My Fire’ to a commercial). He did not have a wallet; he kept his driving license and his American Express card amid two pieces of folded cardboard –in fact, he was a shaman in the real world. A poet who thought that success should not avoid the artist from his pure creative drive. He expanded his mind in such a way that this brought him into his true role in this existence. However, as he defined: “the shaman is not really interested in defining his role in society.”
Maybe, this article is to bring Jim back from a presumed death: oblivion. Or just as a Rolling Stone writer said: “It is the need today for kids –perhaps of all us- to have and ideal who isn’t squeaky clean.” He exercises influence in the new generations. His image has lasted until today. And, above all, his poetry, his words and his music. He is a door yet. And this is still open.
Further information about Oliver Frances' Books visit:
http://www.thelittlefrenchebooks.com/
The day before I rushed to cemetery –jumping onto the train to Pére Lachaise station; but this was already closed when I arrived there. Obviously I was late. My friend with whom I went did not understand the reason for which I took him there, and even more when we bumped into a shopkeeper who was Arab -the same nationality as my mate who was asked by him the why we wasted time coming over an addicted’s grave (both of them didn’t know that “the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom”).
So, the following morning I woke up early to head for Pére Lachaise –before going on touring by Paris with my friend. And this time I went on my own. I came into the cemetery through a side-door, and I walked around by the thick wall –on the cobblestone- leading myself to the centre –where I supposed that the main entrance was located- when I ran into a guardian who seeing me uttered – in his thick accent- the surname: “Morrison”. He approached me signaling the way to get to his tomb and also slipped a map of the place.
Just at the main gate, I took the right lane, which got steeper and steeper, until his grave. Already there what I got was a small rectangle of cement in the ground (well, I never expected to have Jim coming back from death to recite his poetry). But I thought if all that was the standing about the Electric Shaman –yet I was by myself. So there was no more? Perhaps, what drew me to Pére Lachaise was the mystery around his death, the myth in which he turned out, or just to be part of the pilgrimage of fans to his grave –and this could be appreciated as some guys joined me later.
After some minutes there and a couple of snaps, I went out of the gate. And there was left the king lizard.
I wasted my time at Pére Lachaise? I don’t think so. In fact, turned out to be real what once his band mates wrote in their web page that Jim was gone but he had left his spirit, his music and his poetry –and a lasting influence. And his legacy was not just words and music; I would also add to it his bizarre but philosophical live performances.
What made a southern boy pretend or assume an attitude of that of a shaman? A possible answer would be: the eternal search of transcendence.
Was he living out his myth? The one of that an American Indian shaman went into his soul? Or the myth turned on him? The one in which he would got after his death? Anyway he turned in one myth. He got himself a kind of shaman. And this was evident at any live performance.
A The Doors’ concert was like a séance. He conducted it as a ritual being he its high priest and the audience his disciple. The shaman would jump on one-leg around –in one circle as if he were at a camp fire. A live performance was a religious experience. A ceremony sometimes turned into Artaud’s theater of cruelty.
A theatrical experience that stirred the senses out of their easiness and drove them into consciousness about the dark side. The shaman –who thought of being a king lizard at this theatre of confrontation- always wanted to have response from the audience, so he encouraged their members to sing, shout, or do what they pleased putting the microphone before their mouths –at this point the mike cord was no longer a snake in which it had turned moment previous.
All this was a communion where the senses were purified. A trip. Perhaps, he followed what William Blake lucubrated: “if the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite!”
So the concerts became ritual-like performances where the shaman or the king lizard turned himself into a medicine man or sometimes a Christ-like being crucifying himself –as he did at the Seattle Pop Festival- who would satisfy the necessity of the audience who went into the theatre. (Are the nowadays bands’ performances the same? Their lead singers become a sort of shaman? Or all that is just a mere gig?).
He was an integral artist (who was livid when the rest of the band who sold the rights of ‘Light My Fire’ to a commercial). He did not have a wallet; he kept his driving license and his American Express card amid two pieces of folded cardboard –in fact, he was a shaman in the real world. A poet who thought that success should not avoid the artist from his pure creative drive. He expanded his mind in such a way that this brought him into his true role in this existence. However, as he defined: “the shaman is not really interested in defining his role in society.”
Maybe, this article is to bring Jim back from a presumed death: oblivion. Or just as a Rolling Stone writer said: “It is the need today for kids –perhaps of all us- to have and ideal who isn’t squeaky clean.” He exercises influence in the new generations. His image has lasted until today. And, above all, his poetry, his words and his music. He is a door yet. And this is still open.
Further information about Oliver Frances' Books visit:
http://www.thelittlefrenchebooks.com/
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