Posted on 12/03/2021 5:13:12 PM PST by nickcarraway
Doors guitarist Robby Krieger says late bandmate Jim Morrison welcomed syphilis, arguing that he didn't fear going crazy.
The potentially fatal sexually transmitted disease’s symptoms can include the loss of mental faculties, and has long been connected to the lives of 18th and 19th century artists. But the development of modern antibiotics means that it's no longer usually lethal.
“I think Jim believed that life could be boring and that a lot of people were just going through the motions, so he would try to freak them out,” Krieger tells the Guardian. “He would do anything to add to the craziness. Most people would be scared if they contracted a potentially lethal STD, but Jim was excited to feel close to all those disease-ridden 19th century poets and painters he idealized.
“He wanted to let it go untreated,” Krieger added, “so he could experience what it was really like to go insane.”
Morrison’s other extreme antics included grabbing the steering wheel of a car and swerving into traffic, claiming he was God and threatening to expel Krieger from the universe, the guitarist said in his recent memoir, Set the Night on Fire: Living, Dying and Playing Guitar with the Doors. He says Morrison also suffered from an apparent Oedipus complex.
“I think Jim had some real mental issues – manic depression, or whatever,” Krieger said. “Whenever the press would ask about his family, he would say that they were dead. His mom was weird, she was very bossy but he was fixated on her.”
Krieger went on to say that many of the stories told about the Doors frontman were fabrications, suggesting that some were promoted by their late keyboardist Ray Manzarek, but that Morrison’s personality was remarkable enough.
“When people saw us play, they knew that this wasn’t just a show,” Krieger said. “To me, what happened to the Doors was pretty damn cool just the way it was. This wasn’t a story that needed to be hyped.”
Krieger, Densmore and Manzarek were outstanding musicians. Morrison was lucky to have them put up with his bullshate- they were a short lived but iconic LA band
Demonic
“Robby Krieger Says Jim Morrison Wanted to Experience Insanity”
Was he married?
“The sixties could best be understood as the prolonged tantrum of privlidged, white, pampered narcissists crazed with drugs. Never represented a majority but they were the children of the elite in business, academia, the media, entertainment and cultural institutions. The boys were all terrified of being sent to Vietnam.”
And the surviving scum are in control of our tattered country now.
Thank you. That totally makes sense, and I appreciate the details in regard to how he did it. The Fender Rhodes has a fabled history of its own, just like the Hammond B3.
Well said !
He was part brilliant, part insane, part showman- the Lizard King, Mr. Mojo Risin'.
Doors music has gotten better over the years. I enjoy revisiting Riders, LA Woman, Crystal, Alabama, Love Street, Wasp, Hyacinth House. Jim's deep lyrics and Ray's flowing keyboard are a combination nobody else could duplicate.
Read in one of the Jim Morrison biographies that in 1965 after graduation from UCLA, not long before Jim met up with Ray Manzarak, he visited his Navy Admiral dad on the aircraft carrier his dad commanded. Story goes his dad was NOT impressed with his son Jim’s long hair and had him marched down to the ship’s barber shop for a haircut under military guard! LOL
Nope I’m with you there.
I’ll take it two steps further.
Hello I love you is a total rip off of All Day and All of the Night (most people would agree).
But also - I find their whole approach pretty much a copy of the Animals. Organ as lead instrument. Dark, menacing lead singer, similar type of songs. I think the Animals actually did it better.
A self destructive rock star, more the rule than the exception, especially back in those days.
It seems a fair amount of people today are choosing madness over love, peace and happiness and certainly over the eternal love of Jesus Christ. I wonder why that is ?
Bump
You’re not the only one.
The Hammond B3 sound is really all about the cabinet.
Yes, you are the only one. The Doors were and are great.
“Whenever the press would ask about his family, he would say that they were dead. His mom was weird, she was very bossy but he was fixated on her.”
Thats because his father was commander in the navy fighting in Vietnam. He did it out of respect for his father if anything.
The real interesting story is when Jim’s girlfriend Pamala Coursin died a few years later. Jim left everything to her in his will. When she died, the Coursin family inherited Morrisons estate. Everything, Morrisons family sued to get a piece of the action and had no real standing, so effectively and legally screwed. Pam’s mother and father graciously offered to split the estate with the Morrison family when they legally didn’t have to. Today worth millions.
The also hold up:
Roadhouse Blues
Moonlight Drive
The Crystal Ship
Spanish Caravan
Light My Fire
Soul Kitchen
I thought it was a show. I mean, a heck of a show!
How could it have been anything else?
Let me tell you about Texas radio and the big beat. Out here on the perimeter there are no stars.....
The Doors were, and still are, great.
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