James Douglas Jim Morrison, born December 8, 1943, was the legendary songwriter, and poet, best commemorated as the lead singer of the Doors.
Morrison co-founded the Doors during the summer of 1965 in Venice, California. The band spent two years in obscurity until shooting to prominence with their #1 single in the United States, Light My Fire, taken from their self-titled debut album.
Morrison recorded a total of six studio albums with the Doors, all of which sold well and received critical acclaim. Though the Doors recorded two more albums after his death, the loss of Morrison was crippling to the band, and they disbanded in 1973.
In 1993, Morrison, as a member of the Doors, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Morrison developed an alcohol dependency during the 1960s which at times affected his performances on stage. He died at the age of 27 in Paris. As no autopsy was performed, the exact cause of Morrison’s death remains unknown to this day.
Raised a military brat, Morrison spent part of his childhood in San Diego, completed third grade at Fairfax County Elementary School Fairfax County, Virginia, and attended Charles H. Flato Elementary School in Kingsville, Texas while his father was stationed at NAS Kingsville in 1952. He continued at St. John’s Methodist School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and then Longfellow School Sixth Grade Graduation Program from San Diego, California.
In 1957, Morrison attended Alameda High School in Alameda, California for his freshman and first semester of his sophomore year
A voracious reader from an early age, Morrison was particularly inspired by the writings of several philosophers and poets. He was influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, whose views on aesthetics, morality, and the Apollonian and Dionysian duality would appear in his conversation, poetry and songs.
Morrison began writing in earnest during his adolescence. At UCLA he studied the related fields of theatre, film, and cinematography.
In 1962, he transferred to Florida State University (FSU) in Tallahassee, where he appeared in a school recruitment film.
While attending Florida State University, Morrison was arrested for a prank following a home football game.
He later got a discharge on vocational bail and found fame as he left his university and formed a Rock band called The Doors, a band that would go on to become his fondest legacy.
The Doors achieved national recognition after signing with Elektra Records in 1967. The single Light My Fire spent three weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in July/August 1967. This was a far cry from the Doors playing warm-up for Simon and Garfunkel and playing at a high school as they did in Connecticut that same year.
Morrison was climbing the stairs of fame and so his addiction to narcotics and marijuana. He drenched in fame was always imaged as a solitary rockstar who used to run on give no fuck policy for any media or public. He was arrested numerous times, one so when having sex at a public bathroom in his own concert auditorium.
As the legendary rockstar once spoke-
This world is funny. They bow when you’re powerful and make you bow the moment power fucks away. So why give a damn anyway.
Despite the circumferencing rumours, Jim Morrison always said that his intake of narcotic was not an addiction or attempt to gluconate what he has but this a way to subtle his own space and unleash his creative side.
I take drugs, narcotics, weed and many other things. I drink, I breath, I cough, I sneeze, I do beautiful ladies, I rock. But none questioned these. Why? Because you don’t get to judge. Why then judge at all?
Morrison’s most influences came from his take on society which he used to consider judgemental and indifferent to an individual’s space. Morrison was nevertheless also an exquisite lover and most of his nature of relationships being temporary yet serious.
Morrison’s first major love affair was with Mary Werbelow, whom he met on the beach in Florida. The relationship lasted several years, inspiring many of the songs on the first two Doors albums including the 11-minute ballad The End.
Morrison spent nearly the entirety of his adult life with Pamela Courson after meeting her while both attended university. In 1965, Judy Huddleston claimed she had a four-year on-and-off relationship with him that she chronicled in her book Love Him Madly: An Intimate Memoir of Jim Morrison and an out-of-print book called This is the End My Only Friend: Living & Dying with Jim Morrison, which was updated as Like He Was God.
Meanwhile, many people claimed their entanglements with Jim Morrison. At the time of Morrison’s death, there were multiple paternity actions pending against him, although no claims were made against his estate by any of the putative paternity claimants. Pamela Des Barres later said in her autobiography I’m with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie that Morrison turned out to be very much a one-woman man, referring to his relationship with Pamela Courson.
Morrison changed the way people saw the rock music. He introduced abstract to the genre and people found the rock not just banging heads and crying out loud. The symphony and emotions were induced and people couldn’t help but relate to what Jim Morrison was saying.
Morrison’s entire life was a rock-concert on a ballad stage. Due to his poetic lyrics, distinctive voice, wild personality, performances, and the dramatic circumstances surrounding his life and early death, Morrison is regarded by both music critics and fans as one of the most iconic and influential frontmen in rock music history. He never cared for what he was seen as and eventually due to his exotic poetry and stellar personality which is still unmatched in the wall of fame, he was the true symbol of free lifestyle.
As his one of his most popular lyrics read-
People are strange when you’re a stranger
Faces look ugly when you’re alone
Women seem wicked when you’re unwanted
Streets are uneven when you’re down
When you’re strange
Faces come out of the rain
When you’re strange
No one remembers your name
Morrison left the mortal world on July 3, 1971. Since his death, his fame has endured as one of the popular culture’s most rebellious and oft-displayed icons, representing the generation gap and youth counterculture. He was also well known for improvising spoken word poetry passages while the band played live.
Moreover, as of today, roughly 22 books are being written on the life of the ace rockstar. The runaway Hollywood hit The Doors was completely based on Jim Morrison’s life other affairs.
Morrison was ranked #47 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time, and number 22 on Classic Rock magazine’s 50 Greatest Singers in Rock. Ray Manzarek, who co-founded the Doors with him, said Morrison embodied hippie counterculture rebellion.
Morrison was sometimes referred to by other nicknames, such as Mr Mojo Risin, King of Orgasmic Rock and The Lizard King.
As he once said-
Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.
Whoever controls the media, controls the mind.
I am the lizard king. I can do anything.
And that shall he always remain!
