Lord Jim Mythos of a Rock Icon Table of Contents Prologue: So What? pp. 4-6 1) Lord Jim: Prelude pp. 7-8 2) Some Preliminary Definitions pp. 9-10 3) Lord Jim/The Beginning of the Morrison Myth pp. 11-16 4) Morrison as Media Manipulator/Mythmaker pp. 17-21 5) The Morrison Story pp. 18-24 6) The Morrison Mythos pp. 25-26 7) The Mythic Concert pp. 27-29 8) Jim Morrison’s Oedipal Complex pp. 30-36 9) The Rock Star as World Savior pp. 37-39 10) Morrison and Elvis: Rock ‘n’ Roll Mythology pp. 40-44 11) Trickster, Clown (Bozo), and Holy Fool pp. 45-50 12) The Lords of Rock and Euhemerism pp. 51-53 13) The Function of Myth in a Desacralized World: Eliade and Campbell pp. 54- 55 14) This is the End, Beautiful Friend pp. 56-60 15) Appendix A: The Gospel According to James D. Morrison pp. 61-64 15) Appendix B: Remember When We Were in Africa?/ pp. 65-71 The L.A. Woman Phenomenon 16) Appendix C: Paper Proposal pp. 72-73 Prologue: So What? Unfortunately, though I knew this would happen, it seems to me necessary to begin with a few words on why you should take the following seriously at all. An academic paper on rock and roll mythology? Aren’t rock stars all young delinquents, little more evolved than cavemen, who damage many an ear drum as they get paid buckets of money, dying after a few years of this from drug overdoses? What could a serious scholar ever possibly find useful or interesting here? Well, to some extent the stereotype holds true, just as most if not all stereotypes have a grain of truth to them; yet it is my studied belief that usually the rock artists who make the big time are sincere, intelligent, talented, and have a social conscience. In fact, I would go so far as to say that they are some of society’s most fascinating and creative individuals, so much so that their apotheosis – during their life or after it – seems justified, or at the very least understandable. I believe that Jim Morrison is one such artist. And I am not alone. The wealth of books and articles alone on Morrison and the Doors in the last three decades – more than what has been written even about other dead rock stars – is indicative of a collective fascination (in Otto’s sense of fascinans). I hate to have to do this but here we go: Intellectually, Jim Morrison was a genius, with an IQ of 149 and apparently almost an obsession with the written word. As he was growing up, though he certainly had friends and did many of the things that kids do, he was very much a loner who would spend a great deal of time reading, writing, and thinking. He is perhaps one of the few rock superstars who earned a college degree (from the UCLA film school; Mick Jagger is another, from the London School of Business), and in addition to film, he was also somewhat of an accomplished painter and actor. Though it has been claimed he lived an overly self-indulgent, even hedonistic and nihilistic life after he became famous, the truth is that he had spent the first 22 years of his life preparing and disciplining himself to become who he became. Even during his wild rock star period, he was sober and self-disciplined enough to produce some brilliant music and poetry. And as you will see, there was method to his madness. As he wrote, playing a Clown Jesus, “Forgive me Father for I know what I do.” As far as a justification for this project from a mythological standpoint, Morrison was variously identified with Dionysus, Adonis, Alexander the Great, Shiva, Enyalios, Narcissus, Eros, kouros, Christ, a shaman, an avatar, a king, a trickster, a holy fool, etc. – not just by fans, but even by mainstream journalists (Albert Goldman called him “a surf-born Dionysus, a hippie Adonis”), not to mention some of his fellow musicians. And Morrison, at first at least, gave them every reason to make such identifications. He was a great mythographer of his own soul, singing his and the Doors personal mythology nightly on stage. As David Dalton wrote of the Doors’ original (and very understated and unoriginal) marquee heading “Doors – Band From Venice”: It might just as honestly have said: THE DOORS PERFORMING THE GOLDEN BOUGH NIGHTLY! LIVE! ON STAGE! See the Fisher King draw rain out of an industrial sky! Oedipus, Theseus and the Minotaur, Alexander the Great, the Unknown Soldier, the Ancient Snake, Endless Night, ladies and gentlemen, see them all right here. Cabellero existencialista, Jeem! Morrison himself had intended as much. In his poem, “An American Prayer, he wrote”: Let’s reinvent the gods, all the myths of the ages Celebrate symbols from deep elder forests Nietzsche had put in the mouth of Zarathustra the proclamation: “Dead are all the gods.” Morrison resurrected them all and made them live once again in his on- staging conjuring and in his words, though they were different now -- old wine in a new skin. Jim Morrison was a legend in his own time, nay even a god for some, and his deification continues posthumously. Some don’t even think he ever really died, just as disciples of divine and semi-divine religious figures like Moses, Jesus, Apollonius of Tyana, etc., refuse to believe that such great souls could ever really die and must have ascended transfigured or in some chariot of fire. The abiding images and phantoms of Morrison continue to chide us with Twain’s famous quip: “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” In a word, then, Morrison’s life and legend is an excellent example of a modern myth in the making that not only warrants careful examination, but which indeed should be studied by all those who would get at what myth is, where it comes from, and what is its ultimate value. Lord Jim:Prelude [Note: I present here the following quotes, however tongue-in-cheek they may be, because I think they will prepare you for the analysis that follows.] 1) Danny Sugerman, co-author of the first biography of Jim Morrison’s, No One Here Gets Out Alive, writes in the foreword: “I just wanted to say I think Jim Morrison was a modern-day god. Oh hell, at least a lord.” 2) Jerry Hopkins, co-author with Sugerman, later wrote: “We heard incredible stories about his catching dragon flies on the wing in his mouth and eating them, and sticking pins into the pupils of his eyes. ‘I am the Lizard King,’ he said. ‘I can do anything!’ We believed it and he came to believe it, too, for a while.” (Lizard King, 12) 3) Robby Krieger, the Doors guitarist speaking after Morrison’s death of why the rest of the band succeeded with Morrison at its helm, but not without: “[when we were together] it was like the band with the voice of God up front.” (Sundling, 17; in Oliver Stone’s movie, Krieger says it was like playing with Dionysus.) 4) Ray Manzarek, the Doors keyboardist and greatest promoter/mythmeister: “Jim was able to dive into himself and find the fauve, the wild beast, and actually become the free-spirited animal. That Dionysian wild man. He had the courage to embrace that ancient god and enter into a partnership with the bearer of the grapes, the passionate one. Jim had the courage, and very few do. And that embrace was not evil, was not harmful to others, and was certainly not the devil. It was joy!” (Manzarek, 130) 5) Someone has designed a t-shirt showing Morrison as the six-armed Shiva, who some consider the Hindu Dionysus. 6) Dalton (p. 92): “…Jim already knew what he wanted to be. It was an image he had meditated on since adolescence. Before his first photo sessions with Joel Brodsky for Vogue, Jim went to see Hollywood hair wizard Jay Sebring and told him to “make me look like Alexander the Great” (what a line) showing a page torn from a history book. Alexander, another usurper, also needed an image that would connect him with the occult power of the cosmos; and though it’s not known what he said to his hairdresser, all portrayals of him are based on images of Helios, the sun god…” 7) Yasue Kuwahara, analyzing Morrison’s “apocalyptic vision of America,” writes: “Wrapping himself in black leather suits, designing his hair after the statue of Alexander the Great and hanging a cross around his neck, Morrison looked like the reincarnation of an ancient demigod in the early days of his career…Later in his career, however, he stopped wearing the black suits, grew hair and a beard, and, using a lighting device, projected a cross on the back wall of the stage. Morrison thus began to assume the image of Christ, as the picture taken during a concert in Miami clearly shows. Holding a lamb, Morrison made clear in this picture his identification with Christ, while his black glasses indicated the sharp line Morrison drew between them. The change in his appearance also shows that Morrison had begun to see himself as a king who was to replace God in a new society.” (Rocco, 101) 8) Kuwahara again: “…Morrison raises himself to the equal of God with one phrase, “Mr. Mojo Rising” [sic], which refers to his resurrection…By singing about his own resurrection, Morrison identifies himself with Christ and thus assumes God’s power.