Jim said as a kid, he was traveling with his family across some stretch of hot desert when they came across a brutal fatal accident involving some Indians from a local tribe..
As they slowly drove past all the death and vehicle carnage on the hot asphalt, he felt the soul of an Indian enter his body...
Probably why he used war paint and slammed whiskey as much as he did....I think I’ll have a shot...or two.
Jim said as a kid, he was traveling with his family across some stretch of hot desert when they came across a brutal fatal accident involving some Indians from a local tribe..He may or may not have felt the soul of an Indian enter his body, but he was deeply affected by seeing that accident. His parents remembered him in tears over it and finding him inconsolable over what he saw.As they slowly drove past all the death and vehicle carnage on the hot asphalt, he felt the soul of an Indian enter his body...
Probably why he used war paint and slammed whiskey as much as he did....I think I’ll have a shot...or two.
This was the incident he later referenced in the lyrics to the Morrison Hotel song "Peace Frog." When the three surviving Doors put music to the poems that became the posthumous An American Prayer, that segment of "Peace Frog" was dubbed to his poem "Dawn's Highway/Newborn Awakening," with the "Peace Frog" segment bridging the two portions of that piece.
Indian, indian what did you die for?
Indian says, nothing at all.
Gently they stir, gently rise
The dead are newborn awakening
With ravaged limbs and wet souls
Gently they sigh in rapt funeral amazement
Who called these dead to dance?
Was it the young woman learning to play the ghost song on her baby grand?
Was it the wilderness children?
Was it the ghost god himself, stuttering, cheering, chatting blindly?
I called you up to anoint the earth
I called you to announce sadness falling like burned skin
I called you to wish you well
To glory in self like a new monster
And now i call you to pray.