HE IS revered as a singer, a poet, the
idol of a generation and a member of the "27 Club" of rock musicians whose lives
were cut short in their prime.
Jim Morrison, the lead singer of The Doors
and a thinker whose work drew on influences from the poet William Blake and
Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World, to Native American culture, was found
dead in his Paris apartment in 1971 before his mesmeric hold on his fans could
lose its grip.
Next month a leather-bound notebook
offering a window into his thoughts in the last few weeks of his life is
expected to fetch up to US$300,000 ($327,000) when it is sold at auction in Los
Angeles.
In more than 100 pages of jottings that
are part philosophy and part poetry, Morrison appears to have been heavily
influenced by his experiments with LSD, heroin and cocaine.
"Sometimes I feel as if there's a vast
guerrilla war going on for the mind of man, com. against com., cap. x cap.,
artist x artist. And the stakes are huge," he wrote on the opening page. "Will
we spoil the best secrets of life or will we help to free a new kind of
man?"
He added: "Click click click click click!
Click! Click! Faces slide by, lightening slides and water flashes, applauded by
apes who find themselves after the war."
Another note reads: "Womb vision. Internal
vision. Cycloptic middle eye."
One passage contemplates the role of
cinema in society: "Cinema is best when it is not painting, sculpture, theatre,
or language, but an erotic science. Cinema is occupied w/ exorcising demons and
assuring man of his reality by multiplication and hugeness. Films are
collections of dead pictures which are given artificial
insemination."
The musician's last entry reads: "Art is a
compromise, a vast midland, it attempts to rejoin subject and obj. by revealing
w/ pure eye, but can suspend the separation of perceived and perceives . Beauty
is therefore an absolute, rooted in disinterested perception - objects devoid of
all purpose and meaning."
Morrison filled the notebook after moving
to join his girlfriend, Pamela Courson, in France after The Doors finished
recording their final album, L.A. Woman. The book was left to The Doors'
manager, Bill Siddons, after Morrison's death. In 1984, Siddons gave it to
Graham Nash, guitarist with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, another of his
clients, who has now decided to sell it.
Morrison's recordings of songs such as
Riders on the Storm, Light My Fire and The End became the soundtrack to a
generation that came of age during the tail end of the Vietnam
War.
The cause of his death is disputed,
because the French authorities did not request an autopsy. His girlfriend
claimed he had been drinking and had taken an overdose of heroin, but others
believe he was the victim of heart failure or an asthma attack. Courson died of
a heroin overdose four years after Morrison, also aged 27.
Other rock musicians
who died at the age of 27 include Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain and
Amy Winehouse.
Joe Maddalena, of Profiles in History,
which is auctioning the notebook on December 18, said: "Jim Morrison was a very
troubled soul, and in the months leading up to his death he became more and more
wrapped up in his own strange, philosophical thoughts.
"He was obsessed with an idea that society
was full of emotional vampires that sucked his creativity from him. He was
lonely, frustrated and in a very, very dark place.
"The writings in his notebook are bizarre,
and without having him here to explain them it's hard to know what any of them
mean, but in terms of rock'n'roll memorabilia,this is up there with the
best.
by: Simon de Bruxelles
Picture: Joel Brodsky, Morrison Hotel
Gallery
With many thanks to The
Australian
An earlier post about Jim Morrison who has been further immortalised by having a lizard named after him - very appropriately too.
An earlier post about Jim Morrison who has been further immortalised by having a lizard named after him - very appropriately too.
I enjoyed the movie about The Doors. I thought Val Kilmer did a superb job as Jim Morrison.
Kilmer did most, if not all, of the singing as well - extraordinary!
I was disappointed he didn't get an Academy Award for this movie, not even a nomination.
He deserved it!
However the competition was tough. That year several Oscars went to Kevin Costner's movie,"Dances With Wolves" - which is also a great movie. Hard choice!
Trailers From Hell's take on "The Doors"
Trailers From Hell's take on "The Doors"
