Amid the flower children of the 1960’s a single poet and singer rose above them all: James Douglas Morrison. Morrison’s short but influential career was littered with allusions to death. The life of Jim Morrison, the Lizard King, was shaped by death and his writing was a reflection of his love and longing for the grave.
Morrison’s life events had a direct effect on his work. At the age of four or five, Morrison recalls that he witnessed a traffic accident while his family crossed the desert. There had been a collision and there were bodies of dead and dying Indians scattered on the ground. Morrison would later relate that this was his first taste of death, but it certainly would not be the last. In later years, Morrison came to be much of a hitchhiker. He was constantly confronted with dangerous situations that put his life on the line; many times he would return home beaten or bruised. He never directly told anyone what had happened on his pilgrimages across the American highways, but his written works tell the story of what really happened in those strange days. Another very influential event in Morrison’s life was the Vietnam War. This war was the first to experience such strong antiwar sentiments. Morrison was a strong opponent of the war. He was heavily influenced by the violent images sent back from Vietnam. Morrison would watch news coverage and take notes on what he saw so that he could incorporate it into a new song or poem. Furthermore, the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. occurred during Morrison’s lifetime. Death was on the roam in the 1960’s, and Morrison was captivated by this beautiful monster.
Morrison’s haunting lyrics that he moaned into auditoriums as the lead singer of The Doors are the most obvious in their references to death. “Moonlight Drive”, a love song brimming with far out imagery, held a darker meaning to it. Throughout the song there is anticipation building as the two individuals get closer and closer together on their moonlight drive. However, as the song winds down, death intrudes on these simple love lyrics. As the song begins to fade we hear the lines, “Come on, baby, gonna [sic] take a little ride/ Down, down by the ocean side/ Gonna [sic] get real close/ Get real tight…” but then death appears and shatters the magic evening, “Baby gonna [sic] drown tonight/ Goin’ [sic] down, down, down” (Morrison, Strange). This dark message is barely audible on the album, but can be heard if carefully listened for. “Moonlight Drive” is in actuality not a love song, but a romantic suicide. Another water related death song is “Horse Latitudes”. This song comes from the same album and is filled with death. It depicts a scene where horses are thrown from a ship into the ocean and drowned. The vocabulary choice for this song consists mostly of words that have a darker stigma attached to them. Most interesting is the word choice used when describing the horses’ actual death by drowning. Morrison says, “heads bob up/ Poise/ Delicate/ Pause/ Consent/ In mute nostril agony/ Carefully refined/ And sealed over” (Morrison, Strange). This imagery creates a feeling of pain for the horses, but also makes their death seem beautiful in some strange way. Morrison’s beautification of such an agonizing death shows his respect and delight in death. “Riders on the Storm”, the closing track of L.A. Woman, touches on the subject of a “killer on the road”. This killer is a hitchhiker and is placed in this song as a direct result of Morrison’s days as a hitchhiker. The pinnacle of Morrison’s antiwar statements is “The Unknown Soldier”. This song describes the American family viewing horrific scenes of death and violence from Vietnam as well as the death of an unknown soldier representing any soldier in the war (Davis 211). Later this song was developed into a short film depicting the execution of a soldier who tried to desert during Vietnam. The song goes into the tragedy of the fallen soldier, “Make a grave for the unknown soldier/ Nestled in your hollow shoulder/ The unknown soldier” (Morrison, Waiting). The media coverage of the grotesque and brutal killings in the Vietnam War was fuel for Morrison’s dark lyrics. These ideas of dying soldiers are present in all of Morrison’s antiwar songs, including “Five to One”, where Morrison would scream into the audience, “No one here gets out alive” (Morrison, Waiting). Here, Morrison is foretelling the future of those condemned to Vietnam. Morrison’s life led his lyrics to become caked with death and doom.
