Hi JDF,

I started this thread to discuss all of Jim Morrison's metaphors. I began the topic with The End, which is still open for discussion, but seems to have ran it's course. As such, any suggestions for a new song to discuss are welcome and much appreciated.

~Sincerely, Sheri




This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes...again

Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need...of some...stranger's hand
In a...desperate land

Lost in a Roman...wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah

There's danger on the edge of town
Ride the King's highway, baby
Weird scenes inside the gold mine
Ride the highway west, baby

Ride the snake, ride the snake
To the lake, the ancient lake, baby
The snake is long, seven miles
Ride the snake...he's old, and his skin is cold

The west is the best
The west is the best
Get here, and we'll do the rest

The blue bus is callin' us
The blue bus is callin' us
Driver, where you taken' us

The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on
He took a face from the ancient gallery
And he walked on down the hall
He went into the room where his sister lived, and...then he
Paid a visit to his brother, and then he
He walked on down the hall, and
And he came to a door...and he looked inside
Father, yes son, I want to kill you
Mother...I want to...fuck you

C'mon baby, take a chance with us
C'mon baby, take a chance with us
C'mon baby, take a chance with us
And meet me at the back of the blue bus
Doin' a blue rock
On a blue bus
Doin' a blue rock
C'mon, yeah

Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

It hurts to set you free
But you'll never follow me
The end of laughter and soft lies
The end of nights we tried to die

This is the end

The Blue Bus Is Callin' Us
Driver, Where You Takin' Us

Good one, Darkstar! That bus line has been running since 1928, so Jim probably would have been familiar with it when they were all living at the beach in the early days, and Santa Monica is pretty far west - i.e, the west is best. Sounds a bit like he might be trying to get someone to come and join him there. The snake could be another form of transportation - trains tend to snake across the country - to bring this visitor to him.

Hi darkstar,


Jim may have used the blue bus as a metaphor though, as Sally said, for a journey. Perhaps even a journey of the mind?


~Sheri

The snake is the freeway at night with all the tail lights and head lights, it appears to move and undulate like a snake.

It's interesting how he breaks the entire poem into three parts - I think they might have started as three separate works, and then he put them together. The blue bus and riding the snake definitely move the listener from one scenario to another.

Hi Sheri:

I knew when I posted that image of the "Blue Bus" schedule it probably wouldn't be enough of an explaination. To me "The End"can mean anything as it depends on each persons view of the piece or it could run parallel to an event in a person's life.

Can you recall Francis Ford Coppola's use of the song as a soundtrack to his "Apocalypse Now"? Guess Coppola had his reason for incorporating the song into the film.

Apocalypse Now
Opening Sequence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU0DxJVWhGw

Apocalypse Now
Ending Sequence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGTe1vF679U

There are many interpretations out there as "The End" can hold a different meaning for different people.

I look at "The End" as the ending of something, like an end in a chapter to ones life. For example, from childhood years, to those of a teenager and from teenager to adult. A journey...you could say that life is a journey. I think we can agree that life's lessons are interpreded differently by each individual person.

“While the transport of the Dionysiac state, with its suspension of all of the ordinary barriers of existence, lasts, it carries with it a Lethean element in which everything that has been experienced by the individual is drowned. This chasm of oblivion separates the quotidian reality from the Dionysiac. But a soon as the quotidian reality enters consciousness once more it is viewed with loathing, and the consequence is an ascetic, abulic state of mind. In this sense Dionysiac man might be said to resemble Hamlet: both have looked deeply into the true nature of things, they have understood and are now loath to act. They realize that no action of theirs can work any change in the eternal condition of things, and they regard the imputation as ludicrous or debasing that they should set right the time which is out joint. Understanding kills action, for in order to act we require the veil of illusion….What, both in the case of Hamlet and of Dionysiac man, overbalances any motive leading to action, is not reflection but understanding, the apprehension of truth and its terror. Now no comfort any longer avails, desire reaches beyond the transcendental world, beyond the gods themselves, and existence, together with its gulling reflection in the gods and an immortal Beyond, is denied. The truth once seen, man is aware everywhere of the ghastly absurdity of existence.” (P.51)

“Oedipus, his father’s murderer, his mother’s lover, solver of the Sphnix’s riddle! What is the meaning of his triple fate?…the same man who solved the riddle of nature (the ambiguous Sphinx) must also, as murderer of his father and husband of his mother, break the consecrated tables of the natural order. It is as though the myth whispered to us that wisdom, and especially Dionysiac wisdom, is an unnatural crime and that whoever, in pride of knowledge, hurls nature into the abyss of destruction. Must himself experience nature’s disintegration.” (P.61)

Friedrich Nietzsche – The Birth Of Tragedy



THE DOORS THEIR ARTISTIC VISION
(Manuscript Edition)
By Doug Shundling with Diana Maniak
“A critical rendering of The Doors’ six original albums portraying their vision of America and life”

Page 32-37

Living doesn’t allow absolute freedom, a human condition which leads Morrison to search constantly for sanctuary. Yet he won’t trust a relationship of love, and life’s traditional sanctuaries no longer offer security. So he symbolically turns to “The End” as his only friend: “This is the end, beautiful friend. / This is the end, my only friend, the end.”

Richard Walls of Creem magazine wrote in retrospect that “The End” remains an audacious combination of impeccable musicianship, (some of Densmore’s finest moments), genuine poetry, and psychedelic bullshit” (p.48). Richard Goldstein was one of the first to write praises for the song in a review in the New York Magazine:

“The End builds to a realization of mood rather than a sequence of events. “The End” begins with visions of collapsing peace and harmony, and ends with violent death. The entire song revolves around a theme of travel, but this journey is both physical and spiritual (p.211).

John Densmore offered this:

The song was loosely based on classical Indian ragas, so the first two-thirds were very subdued. Then it built from the double time to the turbulent finale, with the tempo increasing to a musical orgasm. If you can be patient enough to let the hypnotic droning sound of the first half take you, then your imagination gets wildly fulfilled at the climax. (p.122)

Yet, as Goldstein also would write:

There is, of course, a danger in so academic an interpretation of a song like, “The End”. Its whole value is its freedom to imply. Morrison’s delivery tells us to approach first, and search later. (p.21)

Producer Paul Rothchild repeatedly offers this interpretation of the song that presented theatre to him for the first time:

Kill the father means kill all of the those things in yourself which are instilled in you and are not of yourself, they are alien concepts, they must die. Fuck the mother means get back to the essence, what is the reality, it can’t lie to you. (That) is the same thing the classic (Oedipal story) says, which is precisely what the song is about, “The End.” The end of alien concepts (Jahn. P.46).

In a 1969 Rolling Stone interview with Jerry Hopkins, to the question “Just what does this song mean to you?” Morrison replied:

Every time I hear that song, it means something else to me. I really don’t know what I was trying to say. It just started out as a simple goodbye to a kind of childhood. I think it’s sufficiently complex and universal in its imagery that it could be almost anything you want it to be. (p.18)

The song, like the song, “When The Music’s Over”, which would close out the second album, was honed out over many nights at the Whisky A Go Go, and the night when Morrison added the Oedipal section was the night the group was fired. Morrison added in the Hopkins interview that those two songs “were kind of constantly changing to free form pieces but once we put them on record, they just kind of stopped. They were kind of at the height of their effect anyway, so it didn’t really matter. (p.171)

Pichaske would echo Morrison’s view, stating that “The End” is probably better music than poetry, better theater than music, an amorphous form from which particular performance moved him, a script to be interpreted and reinterpreted with much room for adlibbing. (p.78)

In “The End”, Morrison still is searching for the other side:

Can you picture what will be,
So limitless and free,
Desp’rately in need
Of some strangers hand
In a desperate land.

Desperation leads one to take the hand of a stranger, and for Morrison, this statement is “the end”. He is desperate, for he is “Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain/and all the children are insane/waiting for the summer rain.” Western civilization, built on the ancient foundations of Rome, has estranged her children with a life which is crazy, but it may be just as insane waiting for Nature’s purifying summer rain in this Roman wilderness of civilization.

The ensuing image of “There’s danger on the edge of town” heightens the need to take a chance by going to the edges of the world of man. Once there, Morrison moves into journey motifs, expressing his need to seek freedom:

“Ride the king’s highway,” “Ride the snake…to the ancient lake,” “the west is the best/get here and we’ll do the rest,” The blue bus is calling us.” The archetypal image of the “west” (the end of a journey) and the Biblical symbol of the “snake” (the agent responsible for the expulsion from Eden) add to the growing undertone of death – and life’s duality, the “snake” suggesting its often “ancient lake.”

The mood shifts to a calm, eerie look at archetypal evil in man as we take a journey down a hall in a place no longer a sanctuary, the home:

The killer awoke before dawn,
He put his boots on,
He took a face from the ancient gallery,
And he walked on down the hall.

Putting the killer’s actions into a realistic and practical setting (awaking before dawn and putting boots on). Morrison then deviously makes the transition to the philosophical level with the human archetype of taking a “face from the ancient gallery,” an action that was literally done on the ancient Greek stage. But the calmness of the mask is shattered by the emotional release when the killer completes his journey: “Father?/Yes, Son?/I want to kill you” and “mother, I want to…(and a good ol’Morrison orgasmic scream).”

Bootlegs offer a more lucid, less censored version of the obvious. In order to truly cut the ties to the past, Morrison symbolically severs, or conquers, ties with the parentage.

After this, the music and Morrison move out on the edge of tension of being alive: “Come on baby, take a chance with us.” Take a chance to ride the king’s highway, to journey to the end of the night, to break on through to the other side, to swim in mystery, to take a moonlight drive. Pischaske, would see Morrison urging “a bus ride to the subconscious and to oblivion, to self knowledge and mythic terrots, to fucking and killing brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers” (p.78)

Morrison is coaxing his “baby” to take a chance on “the blue bus” the color image suggestive of the blues tradition The Doors drew heavily upon, but a journey The Doors had only begun, evident in response to a still quite young, and not as reflective John Densmore when asked what “blue bus” implied”

I never even tried to think of what in the hell the “blue bus” means. It’s just there. I can see where someone who wasn’t familiar with this music would want to say, “Now what does that damned “blue bus” thing mean?” You can tell them that if the guys in the band don’t even know what it means, they don’t have to worry about it. (Powledge, p.90)

Taking a chance of living isn’t going to be an “easy ride” evident in the disquieting cacophonic climax of music after Morrison’s chanting of “blue bus.”

But in the end, there is resignation:

It hurts to set you free
But you’ll never follow me.
The End of laughter and soft lies,
The end of nights we tried to die.
This is the end.

Morrison, constantly searching for sanctuary, symbolically finds it by setting free the one sure companion of life he now recognizes – death, “the end.” His searching through life’s “laughter and soft lies” has ended, and the double connotative meaning of “soft lies” underscores how the false conformity to a superficial life makes sanctuary in love (or sex) impossible. His searching through the nights to die in an attempt to be alive, to reach “realms of bliss” “realms of light” to reach the “bright midnight”. But “The End” is neither his “love” nor the “other side”; it is just “a friend”, the stranger’s hand he needs in this desperate land. Since the other explored attempts have fallen short of the ultimate freedom, “the end” is the last avenue to travel in order to break through to the other side.

I must say Darkstar that's a very tight and insightful look at The End,well researched and educational no matter what the song really meant to Jim Morrison.The song echoes truths and hides in shadows a life we all live and a new form of language especially created to the culled ears of the new generations,I don't think Morrison himself could explain the magic that is behind the song but it is a masterpiece and it's stronger than dirt.

I agree, Doug Shundling did an excellent job with his explaination but there are other interpretations of the song too. Shundling referenced Nietzsche, a German Philosopher of whom Morrisons' lyrics reflecteded upon time and time again in his earlier works.

Jim read Niezsche, Rimbaud, Joyce, Kafka and Camus, (among others) in high school. I would have never understood the meanings of those books if I had attempted to read them in high school but Jim absorbed the information and comprehended it. How did he put, a child's head is blowing in the breeze....like a sponge absorbing liquid. I read "The Birth Of Tragedy" when I was 23 and it was a difficult read.

I borrowed a copy of "The Lizard King Was Here - The Life & Times of Jim Morrison in Alexandria, Virginia"
by Mark Opsasnick. I really enjoyed reading this book and I have to say it was insightful as it answered alot of questions. I grew up in Alexandria, Virginia on the same streets Jim did and reading this book was really interesting to me.

Check This Out:

Page 157

Jim Merrill

“He had tons of books over there in his basement room and I’d go over there and look at them and I didn’t have a clue as to what most of that stuff meant. Morrison devoured that stuff when he was a teenager and he was in another world and you have to wonder how that affected him. The whole point is that he was so far advanced in terms of literature he took in and he really seemed to become what he read sometimes.”

Nietzsche:

“The Birth Of Tragedy” (1872) – The primary theme of which was the recognition of the interplay between two primary artistic impulses, the Apollonian and the Dionysiac, in what he considered to be the highest form of art, Greek tragedy. Nietzsche in contrasting the two elements, explained Apollonian thought as emphasizing discreet limitation, self control and freedom from all extravagant urges, while the Dionysiac state emphasized physical intoxication and celebrated the eternal desire of existence. Nietzsche’s conclusion was that European culture had been heavily dominated by Apollonian thought since the time of Socrates and had suffered as a result. As a solution he encouraged a fill release of Dionysian thought and activity that emphasized artistic creativity, a celebration of human existence and a search for truth.

In “Beyond Good and Evil” (1886) & “On The Genealogy Of Morals” (1887), Nietzsche divided up his loosely connected philosophical rants into 9 chapters dealing with a number of topics including the religious nature, morals, virtues, and nobility of man. His basic blueprint included the pronouncement of a new kind of philosopher that would emerge in the future, a free spirit compelled to find the greatness of man and determined with overcoming conventional morality through a life promoting system of thought based on the individual’s will to power and profound faith in opposite values.

“The philosopher will betray something of his own ideal when he posits: He shall be greatest who can be loneliest, the most concealed, the most deviant, the human being beyond good and evil, the master of his virtues, he that is over rich in will.” And “Whatever is profound loves masks…Might not nothing less than the opposite be the proper disguise for the shame of a god?” “All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses” “Poets treat their experiences shamelessly; they exploit them.” “Measure is alien to us…our thrill is the thrill of the infinite, the unmeasured” “We reach our bliss only when we are most – in danger.”

“On The Genealogy Of Morals” was Nietzsche’s critique of all the moral values and was divided into three separate essays that questioned the very intrinsic worth of such ideas: “Good and Evil, Good and Bad;” “Guilt Bad Conscience and Related Matters,” and “What Do Ascetic Ideals Mean?” His first essay delved into how the terms “good” and “bad” acquired their meaning, the second put forth the basic notion that “guilt” and “bad conscience” were created as natural inclination by man out of a need for self torture, and the third essay stated that ascetic ideals function as a way for man to give meaning to his will, even if it represents a will to nothingness.

“Man would sooner have the void for his purpose than be void of purpose.”

Rimbaud: Letter From The Seer #2 (written to Paul Demeny on May 15 1871)
“The poet makes himself a seer by a long, gigantic and rational derangement of all the senses.”

Page 164

Many Doors fans have cited this philosophical proclamation as Morrisons’ inspiration for a life of intoxication after his rock star persona had been cemented. Morrison was also no doubt enamored with Rimbaud’s romantic life adventures which courted the unknown.

James Joyce - Ulysses (1922)

Chronicled events of three main characters on a single day, June 16 1904. Many intellectuals hailed it as the greatest book of the 20th century. Many other claimed it was indecipherable. One character, Stephen Dedalus, a young, self loathing intellectual who disliked everyone and everything around him, argued incessantly about art and literature, and ended up on a drunken bridge in a brothel.

Dubliners 1907
A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man 1916
Exiles 1918
Finnegan’s Wake 1939

Franza Kafka – “Kafka’s Diary” 1910-1923

Voluminous entries by the author on his friends, associates, and fellow writers, along with details on his various observations, dreams and personal conflicts, and anxieties. Kafka was born in Prague and throughout his life was torn between feelings of love and resentment for his parents. He also cited for his belief that sex was repulsive, an odd situation and a devotee of one night stands. Best of all Kafka’s peculiar feelings towards his own creations, as he wanted all of his life’s writings burned upon his death ( a request that was ignored.)

Albert Camus – Novelist 1913-1960

He relocated to Paris France during WWII. He worked for COMBAT ( a resistance network concerned with intelligence and sabotage), editing the organizations newspaper and formulating his own person philosophy. Camus’ work featured his recurring doctrine of the absurd – a belief that life is meaningless because of the inevitability of death and that it is impossible for man to make rational sense of his own existence.

Camus Works In Morrison’ bookcase:

The Stranger 1942
The Plague 1947
The Fall 1956 (which one a Nobel prize of literature in 1957 as an influential work on human rights)

Page 166

Plutarch of Chaeronea (Greek Historian) - The Lives Of Nobel Grecians A.D. 100

James T. Farrell – Stud’s Lonigan Triogoly
1. Young Lonigan 1932
2. The Young Manhood Of Studs Lonigan 1934
3. Judgment Day 1935

Norman O. Brown – Life Against Death 1959
Provided a history of the human race based on Freudian concepts.

Colin Wilson – The Outsider 1956

A work that advanced the notion that the well being of society can be evaluated by how it treats it’s outcasts.

French Poets, Essayists and Novelists

Antonin Artaud
Charles Baudelaire
Honore de Balzac
Louis Ferdinard Celine
Jean Cocteau
Jean Baptiste Moliere
Jean Genet
Jean Paul Sarte

Brendan Behan (Irish Playwright and Novelist)
William Blake (British Poet/Artist)
Aldous Huxley (British Writer)

American Poets

T.S. Eliot
Kenneth Patchen
Kenneth Rexroth

Jack Kerouac
1. The Town and The City 1950
2. On The Road 1957
3. Dharma Bums 1958
4. The Subterraneans 1958
5. Doctor Sax 1959

Kerouac’s “The Town & The City”
The real significance of The Town & The City for Jim Morrison fans was the stunning character portrayal of Francis Martin, who was the second son of the family and was introduced as being fifteen as the story began in 1935. A careful reading of Kerouac’s descriptions of Francis through out the entire work revealed what must be considered a possible blueprint for the personality and life interests of Jim Morrison himself, as the similarities between the two were downright eerie! As the story opened Francis was described as having a sullen and sour manner in high school – he preferred keeping to himself and spent most of his time reading and staring out his bedroom window. Although dour, gloomy, and aloof he displayed brilliance in his schoolwork, was curiously respected by his peers and family members, and was well aware of the power of his own secretiveness. His own mother described him as a “strange boy” and explained to family members that he was his own boss and that his siblings just didn’t understand him. As he worked his way through school, he displayed poetic tendencies and an air of discontent ness, and embarked on solitary walks at midnight. He spent time at the local library reading biographies and French novels and believed he was the only person in town to understand the meaning of life and death. As he left for Harvard he counted among his favorite writers Franz Kafka, James Joyce, and Aldous Huxley. In one of the book’s more striking passages, Francis returned to his house in Galloway and reflected back on his life, remembering himself as a child given to long solitudes during which time he imagined himself as several different entities including a hero, a warrior and a god. In the books final stages, Francis cut off communication with his parents, gravitated towards Greenwich Village (where he explored the neighborhoods bookstores), championed Balzac and Nietzsche, and in the end relocated to Paris, France.’

The notion of Francis Martin, as presented in the pages of Kerouacs’ first novel, served as a model for Jim Morrison’s existence can be presented with great believability. Morrison undoubtly was absorbing every literary morsel the Beat Generation artists offered and may have consciously or unconsciously adopted the mannerisms, behavior, and attitudes of his favorite fictional characters.

Corso – Gasoline 1958

William Burroughs – The Naked Lunch 1959

John Clellon – “Go” 1952

Jim also made his first film, (Super 8) while living in Alexandria, it was called "Pinman." The first time Jim receited poetry in front of an audience was at a place in D.C. called, "Coffee and Confusion". The choice for his first recital was "Horse Lattitudes."

i'm looking foward to reading the lizard king was here,interesting.The comprehensive list you compiled is an excellent source of reading and study for anyone wanting to learn.I've been through all the books mostly in my 20's and I only found James Joyce to be almost impossible to get.Beyond good and Evil I can never get enough of.Thanks again for this wonderful collection of literature that influenced Morrison and others,it's epic in scope.Best TS

I think you'll enjoy, "The Lizard King Was Here." I learned a lot from it. I had only one disappointment and a selfish one at that, there was no mention of Jim visiting the Remey Crypts behind Pohick Church. Until I read this book I had "assumed" that the Crypts would have attracted Morrison like it did so many other teenagers of his generations and a couple of generations after him.

The book list represents only a small portion of the literature that Morrison read during his short time in Alexandria. You look at Jim's choice of classes at Florida State and then becoming a part of the film department at UCLA followed by the circumstances surrounding his life after graduation from college it all adds up to a very complex personality.

As you know most of his best work was written in Venice Beach prior to the formation of The Doors. A lot of his early work was written under the influence of LSD, with was a legal substance at that time. His thought patterns at this time must have been amplified to the point where the literature he had absorbed came out in different forms. Of course this is my personal opinion, but this is my comprehension of the subject.

I did notice that Jim changed his explainations of how he came up with the more free form pieces like "The End" and "When The Music's Over." The bootlegs have extended versions of these songs and Jim would make additions and subtractions to the original lyrics. The addition and subtraction of certain lyrics in live performance enabled different interpretations.

What follows is a poem that Jim wrote during his time at Venice Beach, (pre-Doors era) it's titled Angel Flight and he came out of a surviving notebook known as 'The Green Song Book" circa 1965.

Angel Flight

The hiss
of the viper is heard in the land

What's
happening, here

What's going on

What's happening,
hey

What's going on

What are these people

Walking
thru the room

These strange youths I hope it's
over soon

The garden of earthly
delights You're going too far out

Well we're almost there
now I see the stair (now)

Get on your
feet They're friends to greet

We're right on time Just
yours and mine (break)

Get Ready, Ready,
Ready As we drive on Drive on Drive on

Drive
on Drive on I'm lost

It's too late Go
back

Go back Too fast Too fast I'm gone So
long Good bye Don't cry

The night will come &
close your eyes

Note: After the line "till we
get inside" at the same margin and intended to be a
part of "Angel Flight" but later edited out are these
four lines:

Keep on drivin, till we break thru, break
thru, break on thru to the other side, our bodies
gather & divide.


Work out
fast!
Work out fast Now work out fast

We're so
close

We're so close

Get in line
Collect your
time We have to climb

We have to climb I'll
help you now

I'll help you now I see the
lights

I see the lights We're got to

Keep on
moving
Keep on moving

Get in stride Keep on
moving Till we get inside


We gotta break on thru to the other
side (The day begins the day night destroys the
night)

You know the day/destroys the (day) night & the
night/divides the (night) day

We tried to run/(I) we tried
to hide

We/gotta break on thru to the
other side

We/gotta break on thru/to the other
side (band)

We chased/our pleasures here

We dug/our treasures
there

Can you still recall/the times we
cried

We/gotta break on thru/to the other side

I
found an island/in your arms I found a country/in
your eyes

Arms that chained us/eyes that lied

We
/gotta break on thru To the other side

We/gotta
break on thru/ To the other side

We made the
scene/from (day to day) week to week(week to week)

From
day to day/(year) hour to (year) hour

We/gotta
break on thru/To the other side

We/gotta break
on thru/to the other side


In 1968 John Carpenter of the L.A. Free Press asked Jim about "The End":

JC: How did the ending of The End come about? Is the Whisky a Go-Go story true?

JM: I used to have this magic formula, like, to break into the subconscious. I would lay there and say over and over “Fuck the mother, kill the father. Fuck the mother, kill the father”. You can really get into your head just repeating that slogan over and over. Just saying it can be the thing...

That mantra can never become meaningless. It's too basic and can never become just words, 'cause as long as you're saying it, you can never be unconscious. That all came from up here.

JC: That really shook the Whisky audience up when you did it. Have you ever really gotten through to an audience like the first time you went over and got mobbed and all?

JM: Not like the thing that's in my mind. I think the day that thing happens it will be all over. The End. Where would you go from there? If everyone, even for a split second, became one. They could never come back. No, I don't think it could ever happen, not like it is in my head.

May 27, 1970 Tony Thomas asked Jim about his poetry:


TT: What would you say in this writing that would be worthwhile?
Would it be philosophical?

Jim: You know, philosophy doesn't interest me as much as it used to.
I think the day I finally was forced to realize that no one in the
world really knows any more about what's going on than any other
person, I kind of lost interest in philosophy as a study of ideas,
but philosophy appreciated from the standpoint of how men in the past
have used words, have used language. That's why for me poetry is the
ultimate art form, because what defines us as human beings is
language. The way we talk is the way we think, and the way we think
is the way we act, and the way we act is what we are. And so I
appreciate philosophy these days from the standpoint of poetry, the
use of one word next to another word next to another word. So,
philosophy is semantics, I guess.

I think its important to mention that there is no right or wrong interpretations of Morrison's lyrics. I believe each and every person has their interpretation. Some my be similar while others are completely different. The universal themes are relevent and unique to each individual person.

EDITED for BOC addition.

For example take the song, "Don't Fear The Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult. Some people say this song is about ghosts and shades and being pulled to the otherside, some say it reminded them of the "Halloween" movie (1978) when Michael Myers is chasing the girls in their car and some would say, they saw BOC in concert and this is the song that stands out above all others during the performance. The song reminds me of something else, being in the Remey Crypts, with the stagnation of smells, mold and mildew, bats, rats, dark, candle lite, statues, coffins, vaults, marble and ceiling to floor bricks.

Wow man!!

Thank you so much darkstar! This is awesome.. just what I was looking for. My thoughts on The End, have developed since I was 15, and there is something I feel, on the subconscious level going on within me over this thread, this song, this process/journey that is this song.

When I was 15, I was taken by the fact, one that everyone has noticed, the song works on an orgasmic level. For me, "Ride The Snake", was seduction at the deepest level of our being, the snake being an enormous phallic symbol, inviting me to ride "the beast" which is in the nature of all living creatures. Joining myself to this liberation of the creature, through orgasm, and ultimately climax, le petite mort, the infrequently explored connection of life to death.

I had an experience that does verify this interpretation as well, even if this meaning was mainly a subconscious one, in that the artists themselves may not have know what they were acting out and why. But I can achieve great climax with my mind, just chanting the mantra, Ride The Snake, Ride The Snake, Ride The Snake, Ride The Snake. Culminating in a pounding, thrilling universal release in The End, which lifts the consciousness above this life, a breaking of the universal hymen.

Call me kinky if you must, but I found this to be a very liberating process throughout my life. Though, it takes your subconscious on a journey into death as well. My dreams, after having this release, are surprisingly, trying to allow me to further accept death. I wont go into great personal detail over this, but suffice it to say, that this link and coming to this realization, helps you to cope and come to accept tragic loss; just how this works, I am not quite sure. The little mentioned connection between life and death, remains taboo in our culture, but coming to grips with the cycle of life/death leads to the cathartic experience that is The Doors.

No, no one is really going to act out Jim Morrison's "Kill the Father, fuck the Mother" mantra, this is as stated above, a disassociation one must make from their parents, to grow apart from their upbringing, and into their own human being. Also as stated, the cathartic process of writing goes hand in hand. This topic is bringing me to a subject, that I have been pushing away, trying to cover over, a topic which has not healed in my soul, the death of my much beloved Father, who died a terrible death of lung cancer, and I, being his care giver, experienced an enormously painful weight on my shoulders, whose actual death, I was not there for, not having the courage to watch the process in it's finality.

Often guilt ties remain for sex and death, which leads to a psychologically disturbed mind. The breaking of these ties is the "Break On Through" experience for me and is an ongoing discovery; as is writing poetry. In the writing of symbolism, we find truths about ourselves, our viewpoints, our lives, and our loves, which we can try to work through, take what has been internalized and sort of ejaculate it. This ejaculate, can be at times, vomitous, removing from ourselves the poisons that have infected our souls, and thereby had kept us chained, in a form of self torment; and, other times the release can be a positive one, a creative one such as transcendental sexual poetry.

To conclude my overview of The End, which contains many, rich levels of symbolism that I have not even begun to touch on yet; The End is about the life process, a life and death struggle, a journey that we are all on together, one that connects us all, and through it, we have hope to transcend those things which keep us bound. The process culminates in a dual release of a massive spiritual orgasm, of a massive seven mile long snake. the snake being a symbol of the world, and of mankind.

PHALLIC>>> MANKIND>>> THE WORLD>>> THE UNIVERSE>>>CREATION>>>REBIRTH>>>PHALLIC>>

The great circle of life and death, whose ride is never ending;

The End is only The Beginning.



~Sheri Lynne

If the other two sections had not been added, this would have been simply a song about the end of a relationship:

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

The end of our elaborate plans
The end of everything that stands
The end
No safety or surprise
The end
Ill never look into your eyes again
This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

It hurts to set you free
But you'll never follow me
The end of laughter and soft lies
The end of nights we tried to die
This is the end

Universal themes being what they are can on some levels awaken people while others can feel contempt for the written word. You put forth a very interesting synopsis. Thank you for sharing your revelations. I'm sure Jim Morrison would be delighted with your discovery.

Aw, but Mews,

Poets don't do things haphazardly, they have reasons for connecting poems; there are links we make between poems sometimes, even if these are merely subconscious. The link for Jim Morrison to the relationship was the union of man and woman, of him and his partner through sex. Ultimately, this means he is binding this person, through the great circle to himself, forever, into the next life even.
A beautiful thing; the explosive element of "the end" of this relationship, came through, and after internalizing it, he developed an understanding for it as all a part of life and death.

~Sheri Lynne

Ha ha, thanks,

Like John Densmore said, Jim still talks to us (if you're willing to listen to him) he still brings deep revelations; only now, he himself is more fully aware than he was when on earth as Jim Morrison.

~Sheri

You make an excellent point. The end of a relationship? Yes. I think we can agree there are different kinds of relationships, Plutonic, Sexual, Parental, Aquaintances, Allies, Axis (and many more). I just see images of universal themes within the context of the words.

As a songwriter and published poet me own self, sometimes you fiddle with things and wonder why you're doing it. Jim addresses this specifically in his interview with Jane Scott:

"Jane then asked the underlying message of 'The End.' "I asked him about the apparent link with the Odeipus complex and the disturbing finale to that song. The violent ending unnerved me somewhat, and he told me the song didn't start out with that in mind. Jim said it was an improvisational "goodbye" song used to end their sets at the London Fog, a club that embraced their music early on. "It was on the Sunset Strip, and it became more serious as we performed it from night to night. There were new lyrics every time we played it. Something really wicked clicked every night we played the Whisky-A-Go-Go. The Doors were second on the bill - something powerful moved me the first night, it just happened. They fired us the next day." Morrison also told me about a new song called "When The Music's Over," (Strange Days releases in Nov 67), was an erotic sermon..a twelve and a half minute sermon on our lives. He called the first album a blueprint. He said the next release would be more elaborately produced and packaged a bit differently. "Morrison also described the knowns and the unknowns...a glimpse into reality. I don't know if I'm religious but I might want to start my own someday."

I love to hear Jim Morrison speak,

See, how he brings spiritulism into the mix? & the self-titled, "Erotic Sermon" of a concept, he perhaps partially was realizing, perhaps only on levels that could be enacted on the stage through shamanic trance. I basicaly covered the spiritual undertones of the writing of The End, and therefore of Jim Morrison himself, but I had one more thought which I had failed to mention, the line:

The end of nights we tried to die


Allow me to suggest, that he was not referencing suicide, but rather a concept that would be familiar to an avid reader of French poetry, that of le petite mort, "the little death" of an orgasm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_little_death

((PS: I added the complete lyrics to the beginning of the thread,
my bad, they should be here in their entirety.))


~Sheri

Here's a few Jim Morrison articles/interviews that may be of interest:

JIM MORRISON INTERVIEW
BY: ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE
JERRY HOPKINS
JULY 26 1969
http://forum.johndensmore.com/index.php?showtopic=2541

Jim Morrison: Ten Years Gone
By: Lizzie James
Creem Magazine - Special Ten Year Commemorative Edition
A Rock & Roll Tribute To The Doors
Summer 1981
http://forum.johndensmore.com/index.php?showtopic=2381

The Hunting Of The Lizard King
By Mick Farren
September 27 and October 4 1975
New Musical Express
http://forum.johndensmore.com/index.php?showtopic=2341

Death Cat Bounce - A Rock God's Last Stand
By: Dave Di Martino
Mojo Magazine Sept 2001
http://forum.johndensmore.com/index.php?showtopic=2345

I always thought that line referred to orgasm as well.

In the complete interview with Jane, he also mentions perhaps founding a religion. That was a provocative statement.

MOONLIGHT DRIVE – The Stories Behind Every Doors’ Song
BY: CHUCK CRISTAFULLI
1995

Page 38-39

Avid Rock fan Paul Body was a recent high school graduate who had been catching the Doors at the Whisky all summer, and he was there that night. When Morrison said, “Father? Yes, son, I want to kill you. Mother? I want to…fuck you!, my buddy and I looked at each other and asked, “Did he say what we think he said?” Body remembers that the crowd didn’t quite know what to make of the performance. “Quite a few people just couldn’t believe he’d really said it, and others just tried to pretend it wasn’t a big deal. The teenybopper scene had faded out, Dylan was on the charts, and I guess some people figured the next logical step was ‘Mother, I want to fuck you.”

This kind of logic escaped Whisky owner, Elmer Valentine who promptly fired the Doors after the show.

While Morrison may have created the Oedipal section of “The End” on stage that night, there is some evidence that he was already fascinated by the myth of Oedipus (who unknowingly killed his father, married his mother and then ashamedly plucked his own eyes out). In the winter of 1965, Judy Raphael was a UCLA film student and friend of Ray Manzarek. She was trying to get a term paper finished one night when she had a visit from Ray, Jim and their UCLA buddy John Debella.

“They’d all been drinking at the Lucky U and Jim had gotten himself doped up on somebody’s asthma medication. My paper was suppose to be about the history of documentary film, and all Jim kept saying was, ‘I think it should be about Oedipus – Kill the father, fuck the mother.’ He went off on that until I made them take him away. I never did get the paper done and I had to repeat the course.”

After the Whisky show, the Doors continued to play ‘The End” with the Oedipal section and, when it was time to record the song for the first album, it hadn’t lost any of it’s power to shock and transport listeners. But, Morrison who came to the first sessions for “The End” of a disorienting combination of LSD and alcohol, couldn’t focus enough to pull the vocals off.

“We tried and we couldn’t get it,” Rothchild told Crawdaddy in 1967. “Jim couldn’t do it. He wanted desperately to do it. His entire being was screaming ‘Kill the father, fuck the mother!’ He was very emotionally moved.”

The next day, however, Morrison was in peak form. “We took almost a whole day to set up the studio,” Rothchild told BAM in 1981, “Because it was a very complex piece to record. When we finally got the tape rolling, it was the most awe-inspiring thing I’d ever witnessed in a studio. It’s still one of the top musical events of my life. We were six minutes into it when I turned to Bruce (Botnick) and said, “Do you understand what’s happening here? This is one of the most important moments in recorded rock and roll.” When they were done, I had goose bumps from head to foot. It was magic. I went into the studio and told them that, and then I asked them to do it again, to make sure we got it. They did it again and it was equally brilliant. Afterwards, Ray said, “I don’t think we can do that any better.” I said, “You don’t have to. Between those two takes we have one of the best masters ever cut.” It turns out we used the front half of take one and the back half of take two.”

The recording of “The End” was a triumph, but it also proved to be emotionally taxing for Morrison. After the sessions, for reasons unknown, he snuck back into the Sunset Sound Recording Studios during the night and hosed down the room they’d recorded in with a fire extinguisher.

Billy James was one of the group that discovered the mess the next morning. “That was pretty disconcerting. It was pretty clear what had happened, and it was sad. But it didn’t surprise me to see that side of Jim. I never knew exactly what to expect from him, but I was never surprised by extremes.”

Many of the phases and images in “The End” remain as enigmatic as when Morrison first sang them, but Los Angeles native, poet, journalist and record producer Harvey Kubernick, can shed light on one piece of the puzzle. A teenage fan at the time The Doors was released, Kubernick went on to give college lectures on Jim Morrison’s poetry and has collaborated frequently with Ray Manzarek on various record projects over the last 20 years. Kubernick doesn’t know where the “ancient lake” is or what the “seven mile snake” looks like, but he does know about the “blue bus.”

“Back then, we all had a sense of regional pride when we heard Jim Morrison say, “Meet me at the back of the blue bus.’ We all knew that the blue bus was the bus that went down Pico Boulevard – the bus that took us to the beach for a quarter. I believe it was the Number 7. As young fans of the Doors’ music, we didn’t talk too much about Freud or Oedipus, but we got very excited every time Jim mentioned that blue bus.”

END.

Thanks for posting this Sara.

Your welcome.

Morrison was aware of L.Ron Hubbard as he was a close friend of Aldous Huxley's,L.Ron made statements in the 1940's about starting a religion and he did just that.Excellent book called "Huxley in Hollywood" takes a good look at Huxley and his intellectual circle.

Huxley and L.Ron Hubbard were friends.

That's a scary thought.

poetry is subjective i think jim let the ppl alone to interpret his writings

That's a true statement, but not as fun to read as my post! he he!

~Sheri

You know even in the world of poetry and metaphors the writer references real places in his or her experiences,"the ancient lake" in "The End" exists and more than likely will for a while unless our mindless global destruction swallows it up. The lake is clean and the reflections that spring from it are better than Monet on any old day.TS

I believe what Jim Morrison did very well was to teach us to express ourselves,to stand up and be what we are as individuals, to represent, regardless what a critic or competitor may say,putting it out there and letting it be,the Doors are a major part of this positive message and JDM vocalized it.

Oh my,

How did I miss this one! Yes, starting a new religion is now a common quip, tongue in cheek, but when he said it, it was revolutionary.

***Ok, now I will start the bids for a new song to discuss it's metaphor***

I never really thought beyond The End with this thread, but I imagined there were other uses of metaphor in his works, poetry is also fair game here, as this thread is for Jim Morrison's use of metaphor. We can even go beyond metaphor alone; any other poetic device is fair game here. How about his usage of the ampersand (&) or that witty w/ ??? My friend told me that Blake was known to use these devices at times. I've had fun working in the little bugger at times, though it can become a bad habit quick, making you feel funny writing 'and' out. It becomes like a tick.


So let's have some fun here, poets... come out of the poetry section and let's get to know each other.

(I promise not to bite, well, maybe I will nibble, a few licks? ok, I promise to be good.)

~Sheri

Morrison learned the phrase let's start a religion from L.Ron Hubbard,it was fairly big news when L.Ron first spoke those words.I'll check the news clipping,somewhere back in 1944.

In 1947 after a successful period in the Navy as an intelligence officer,L.Ron Hubbard was quoted as saying"If you want to make a million dollars then start a religion" and he did it.Morrison was tuned into all the information out there and digested a lot of it before he spewed it back out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-emQAsGMeQ

religious + spew... that Linda blair, what a doll >bleaaawk<

~Sheri

Getting back on track... we have here a link to

The Celebration of the Lizard


http://mama.indstate.edu/users/nizrael/lizard.html


Some metaphors in this poem are:

a beast caged in the heart of a city

why is that a metaphor, well, cause as you read you see it's actually a dude. Some of my favorite lines are also metaphors, why do I dig metaphor? It's visually stimulating, and I likes to be stimulated...my mind that is, my brain needs visual input or else I just read "blah blah blah.....blah blah blah"


...The sheets were hot dead prisons...

...The smooth hissing snakes of rain...


Now you should try this little game
Just close your eyes, forget your name
forget the world, forget the people
and we'll erect a different steeple.



Ah, we'll erect a different steeple. In the spoken version, he says erect with a purpose in his mind, drawing attention to this word for some reason, hmmm.




And the rain falls gently on the town
And over the heads of all of us

And in the labyrinth of streams beneath
Quiet unearthly presence of
Nervous hill dwellers in the gentle hills around
Reptiles abounding
Fossils, caves, cool air heights

Each house repeats a mold
Windows rolled
A beast car locked in against morning
All now sleeping
Rugs silent, mirrors vacant
Dust blind under the beds of lawful couples
Wound in sheets
And daughters, smug with semen
Eyes in their nipples

WAIT! There's been a slaughter here

Don't stop to speak or look around
Your gloves and fan are on the ground
We're getting out of town
We're going on the run
And you're the one I want to come!



Here, we see a town, perhaps the gutters are being compared to a labyrinth of streams, a car becomes a beast (JM liked beasts) and we take a peek inside one of these ordinary homes to view the carnage within the family unit. I do not get it exactly. Does anyone more astute want to give it a go? cause really >blink< what's he trying to say here?

By the way, has anyone else got the recorded version of this? I have it on WFTS, spoken by Jim Morrison. It's amazing spoken. The highlights he lets draw out really slow to great affect. It's much more of an interpretive piece, to be read loud, I think. Any other thoughts?


~Sheri

There was a poster on the other board who suggested that the lines

The snake was pale gold glazed & shrunken.
We were afraid to touch it.

was a reference to Jim's supposed STD problems, of course he had his head ripped off for suggesting it.

Oh man,

It may have only been an acid trip, sounds like one. Like my poem Forbidden Dragon, many thought was about something ahem, else. But it was a hallucination.

~Sheri

Thats possible, the piece has always had a very acidy quality to me. I know the 'Go Insane' section dates back to 1966, probably at the height of Jim's acid use.


i havent read that poem of yours, ill search for it right now.

*edit* i can see how one might reach that conclusion. lol

"We must not forget that the lizard and the snake are
identified with the unconscious and with the forces of evil. That
piece `Celebration of the Lizard' was kind of an invitation
to the dark forces. It's all done tongue-in-cheek. I don't think
people realize that. It's not to be taken seriously. It's like if
you play the villain in a Western it doesn't mean that that's you.
That's just an aspect that you keep for show. I don't really take that
seriously. That's supposed to be ironic."

Jim Morrison in an interview with Bob Courush of the Los Angeles Free Press 1970

Right

That was a cool twist, like the devil playing a trick on me. I like that it's meaning is somewhat obscure. For a while, I couldn't read it with someone else's mind, so I just kept seeing the dragon, then I left the poem for months, read it again, and saw that it looks like the dragon is a metaphor.

~Sheri

Great quote Sara, thanks..

That is true. My poetry is not always first person either. I have characters as well. I think though, that we may use these characters to express hidden aspects of ourselves, in which the psychologist comes along and reads it as Jim Morrison having had a strange experience as a child; of course, the psychologist would need to interview him, "Tell me about your Mother..."

I think that Jim Morrison may be trying to reveal the hidden aspects of our society, by continually contrasting and reflecting upon our commonly held beliefs about what is evil, and where evil is really lurking...

Case in point: the images of the brutal killer, and the "slaughter here", may have just been about an actual serial killer, and he was trying to understand how anyone could do such an act. What would his mindset have been at the time, etc., wherein, he came to the conclusion that the serial killer had to put on one boot at a time, just as we do. Each step of the killer, both his mundane and violent actions are proceeded one step at a time. This would also be the reason for lines such as the "nervous hill dwellers" ~ The entire thing could be symbolic of our society: Clean on the outside with perfect rows of houses, while inside our bedrooms, each of us a closet pervert while serial killers abound, are hidden away amongst us. Which people are the perves and killers?

"He took a face from the ancient gallery and walked on down the hall"

The invitation to the forces of evil is a scary thought, giving "ride the snake" a whole new meaning. >gulp< But good and evil is subjective, such as my poems about the characters in mass and confession try to show. Evil is allusive, fluid, changing. Some evils are pretty much stable, such as murder, though not as stable as you may think. Think of ancient rituals containing human sacrifice. I believe the ancient peoples accepted it as a way to continue the earth cycles and renew them with blood offerings. To the modern sensitivity that is abhorrent, to the ancient mind it was akin to Christ perhaps. Therefore, even an evil such as murder is subject to the current traditions of the people.

I tend to see many things on these levels. Like others in modern society, I view certain things through the eyes of the masses, such as murder and suicide and find them atrocious. In Japan, suicide is highly accepted and was once considered the only honorable thing to do. Same with the horrible honor killings of some Muslims, in their culture it is acceptable, much the same with suicide bombers being turned into martyrs for their faith. We as a western culture see these things and feel they have a warped sensitivity of good and evil, when in reality, they are merely warped from our accepted practices. Think of the hangings that used to be public events, while horrid to our modern thinking, were practiced not too long ago in the western world and were accepted then as good conquering evil, aka. justice, while now we see this as inhumane treatment of the criminal.

These sensibilities will continue to be altered, such as in Adous Huxley's Brave New World in which our traditional means of procreation, that of sexual intercourse, is seen in his future world as a vulgar and outmoded form of continuing the species. This is shocking to our current thinking, but think of this, only a mere fourty years ago, there was no "safe sex" rather the term in use was "free love".

My point: Evil is changeable, fluid. The lesson of the snake is that it sheds it's skin. Some cultures view this as a symbol of death and rebirth. The dragon in china, is the most auspicious creature. In my poems, for example, the demon is a common symbol of negative emotions:

"I drank the Blue Demon mixed with tears" ~Sheri

In the I-Ching, the dragon is representative of creation itself.

QUOTE (mewsical @ May 1 2009, 11:13 AM)

In the I-Ching, the dragon is representative of creation itself.

Thank you for that mews,

In Chinese Astrology, I am the Fire Dragon. Fire=rebirth, renewal; Dragon=creation. ~Sheri

Hiding in the background of this picture is my unicorn!

Hi Mews,

Sometimes thisis the way I work, I read something and it doesn't penetrate my mind, I am glazed over, and then one day, I read it again and it unfolds it's meanings. What we were saying, and your revelation to me, was inportant, I knew it was when I read it, it bounced atound in my mind, like a dormant seed, then finally I made the connection.

The snake being a symbol of renewal and rebirth, the dragon being creation. Of course, creation is both life and death. Most people only see the creation in life, while a new birth occurs at death as well. Even I have to remind myself of this. It's such a western thought to think of only life as creation. But for the good catholics, consider that Jesus knew this and was trying to reach us this.

We shall not die but be
Born again...

The bible speaks of reincarnation all the time. Elijah was supposed to "come again" and people questioned if Jesus may be Elijah returned to earth. I actually do know "good" theology as well, I just think people may have broadly missed the message of Jesus, ya think? So many mysteries, so many strong connections between the words of Christ and Buddah.


~Sheri

burroughs interpretation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMbx1f43Y9A

Jim Morrison speaks about the Celebration of the Lizard...

...and recites it as only he can, the scream, the growling intensity, oh yea!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6EnwYKNAiA...feature=related

And John Densmore is just out of this world on the drums, live!! Feel it!!


~Sheri