Welcome to the Deep Dive, the place where we
take the sources you shared and synthesize the
complex, messy truth. And today, we are taking
a long, deep look into the poetic chaos of the
Doors. Specifically, we're focusing on the engine
of their sound. Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, and
Robbie Krieger. Morrison, I mean, as the front
man, he really defined the rebellious, intellectual,
and... utterly volatile spirit of the 1960s counterculture.
Yeah, even now, what, more than five decades
after his death at 27, he is still the prototypical
rock star. He's surly, sensual, deeply literary,
and just profoundly mysterious. But that's the
thing, right? The standard narrative, that whole
Lizard King myth, it just... fails to capture
the extraordinary intellectual and musical complexity
that made the Doors so unique. Absolutely. So
our mission today is to go far beyond that persona.
We've synthesized a comprehensive stack of biographical
and critical sources to unpack the real complexity
of Morrison's life. We're talking his military
background, his literary roots, that volatile
persona you mentioned. And crucially, the foundational
roles of his co -founders, Ray Manzarek and Robbie
Krieger, and of course, drummer John Densmore.
The context here is just so important. This was
the project born out of cinematic and philosophical
ambition in Los Angeles. Right. Not a garage.
Not a garage at all. They fused high literature
with hard rock, which led to six. highly successful
studio albums in just five years from 1967 to
1971. It's an incredible run. Their place in
music history is just undeniable. I mean, Rolling
Stone ranked them 41st among the greatest artists
of all time. We're really looking at how this
one volatile element, Morrison, was both contained
and amplified by this extraordinarily skilled,
philosophically grounded musical architecture.
Okay, let's unpack that genesis then. The fact
that the band started in the lecture halls of
UCLA and not a smoky club, that tells you almost
everything you need to know. It absolutely does.
The intellectual core of the band was forged
right there. Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek, the
primary architects, they met while both were
attending the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and
Television, and they graduated together in 1965.
And Mansrick's journey to UCLA is often just
glossed over, but it highlights just how educated
this group really was. He didn't start in the
arts. No, not at all. He initially went to law
school. He studied economics at DePaul University
in Chicago. He even organized a concert there
with giants like Sonny Rollins and Dave Brubeck.
So he was already deep in the world of complex
music. Exactly. It was only later that he switched
paths and enrolled in UCLA's film program, eventually
getting an MFA in cinematography. background
gave him this unique kind of discipline. So if
Manzarek represented that disciplined analytical
mind, what the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche
would call the Apollonian principle. than morrison
was pure dionysian chaos absolutely but and this
is key morrison was also intensely intellectual
he had a reported iq of 149 in high school and
he was a voracious reader from a really young
age his final college work was in cinematography
studying figures like antonin artud and this
blend of highbrow academia and rock music is
just so critical let's dig into the authors who
truly shaped his style because this isn't just
surface level poetry we're talking about No,
his influences were dense and demanding. He was
steeped in the French existentialists, the entire
pantheon of beat writers, you know, Kerouac,
Ginsburg, Burroughs, and crucially, the French
symbolist poets like Arthur Rimbaud and Charles
Baudelaire. And what did he take from them? What
was the through line? They all emphasized raw
emotion, subjectivity, and just... breaking free
of poetic convention. It was about getting to
a deeper truth. But the conceptual foundation,
the one that really provides the ultimate lens
to view Morrison's entire persona, has to be
Nietzsche. Absolutely. Morrison was obsessed
with Nietzsche's views on aesthetics and morality,
particularly that tension between the Apollonian
and the Dionysian. Right. The Apollonian being
logic, order, control. Everything his military
father would have valued. And the Dionysian represents
passion, chaos, intuition, and, you know, the
destruction of all limits. And this philosophical
framework, this tension between order and chaos,
it really did infuse his entire performance art.
You see that Apollonius structure in Manzarek's
precise academic approach to music. And then
the pure, unadulterated Dionysian release in
Morrison's stage persona. He was literally carrying
these dense, heady ideas onto the stage and acting
them out in real time. Which brings us to that
mythical chance meeting on Venice Beach in mid
-1965, just 40 days after they graduated. It's
an amazing story. Manzarek found Morrison looking,
well, highly bohemian. Sources paint this picture
of him living on canned beans and LSD for months,
just subsisting on the edge. It's a moment of
pure serendipity. Manzarek convinces Morrison
to sing some rough lyrics he'd been working on.
These were raw versions of songs like Moonlight
Drive, My Eyes Have Seen You, and Summer's Almost
Gone. And Manzarek instantly recognized the quality.
He called the lyrics cool and spooky and realized
immediately he had found rock group material.
Manzarek was already in a band at the time, right?
Yeah, he was playing with his brothers in a group
called Rick and the Ravens. But the true musical
constellation, the Final Doors lineup, that didn't
lock into place until they brought in Robbie
Krieger on guitar and John Densmore on drums.
And here we get this fascinating counterpoint
to Morrison's philosophical chaos. Manzarek,
Krieger, and Densmore all met at transcendental
meditation lectures. Given by a Maharishi, Mahesh
Yogi, no less. Wow. This is a critical insight
that's often overlooked, and it speaks directly
to the inherent tensions within the group. Densmore
famously said, there wouldn't be any doors without
Maharishi. So the unifying spiritual element,
this pursuit of inner peace and cosmic order,
was shared by three quarters of the band. It's
that Apollonian structure again, working to stabilize
the collective. Right, but the sources are very
clear that Morrison was not involved in those
particular meditation classes. So while the band's
rhythmic and harmonic foundation was built on
a search for spiritual order, the vocalist was
seeking the exact opposite. Philosophical liberation
through chaos and transgression. This split is
the absolute core of their creative tension.
Did the spiritual grounding of the other three
create the necessary stability for Morrison's
Dionysian performance art to thrive? I mean,
it must have. The intellectual, the cinematic,
and the spiritual currents were all pulling at
once. Which naturally dictates the choice of
the band name. They drew it from Aldous Huxley's
influential 1954 book, The Doors of Perception.
And Huxley's title was itself a direct reference
to a quote from William Blake's 1790 work, The
Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Which reads, If
the doors of perception were cleansed, everything
would appear to man as it is. Infinite. Exactly.
This name immediately cemented their intellectual
and psychedelic identity. They weren't just a
rock band. They were promising a spiritual and
perceptual shift using the medium of rock and
roll. OK, we have to turn to Jim Morrison himself,
the myth and the man, because the persona he
adopted was so profoundly shaped by his deeply
complicated upbringing. Right. He was the child
of a U .S. Navy officer, George Stephen Morrison,
who later became a rear admiral. And notably,
he was the commander of U .S. Naval Forces during
the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident. That's a serious
military background. It was a semi -nomadic existence,
typical of a high -ranking military family, always
moving between bases. The structure was rigid,
controlled, demanding. And a key piece of biographical
detail about his youth involves the disciplinary
style his parents used, which they called dressing
down. And this dressing down was essentially
psychological punishment instead of physical,
right? Designed to enforce control and submission.
That's it. The sources indicate it was a highly
intense, controlled environment. Instead of,
you know, spanking, his parents would use this
military -style discipline, relentlessly yelling
at and berating the children until they were
reduced to tears and acknowledged their failings.
It's hard to imagine a more direct psychological
catalyst for the man who had spent his adult
life seeking total chaotic freedom on stage.
the Dionysian Rebellion, as a direct response
to the Apollonian military rigidity. And that
context makes the seminal, defining moment he
always returned to even more loaded. The 1947
New Mexico car crash when he was just three or
four years old. Morrison described this incident
as the single most formative event of his life,
a primal trauma. He claimed that the spirits
or ghosts of injured, dead Indians leaped into
his soul. He said he was like a sponge. ready
to sit there and absorb it. And that trauma was
the wellspring for so much of his lyrical imagery.
The shamans, the lizards, the snakes, the desert.
It's a constant return to that moment. But the
mythology around Jim is immediately complicated
by the conflicting family accounts. Right. Precisely.
His father said they simply drove past an accident
that made an impression on him, which is a massive
minimization of the spiritual experience Jim
described. And his sister believed his version
was dramatically exaggerated for effect. This
highlights a crucial theme. Jim Morrison didn't
just sing about his life. He actively manufactured
and mythologized it. And that myth -making extended
to his family. The estrangement was deep. He
broke off almost all contact after UCLA. At the
height of his fame, he falsely claimed his family
was dead or that he was an only child. Why? I
mean, what was his justification for that? He
later said he did it to protect his father's
Navy career from the scandal associated with
the Lizard King and to keep his life completely
separate. But how much of that lifelong persona
of rebellion do you think was a conscious reaction
to the rigidity and explicit dismissal from his
admiral father? It's hard to separate the two.
Admiral Morrison was famously unsupportive of
his son's career. He viewed it as a disgrace.
There's that letter, right? Yes. In a staggering
1970 letter to the Florida Probation and Parole
Commission, his father admitted that he had previously
strongly advised him to give up any idea of singing.
because of what I consider to be a complete lack
of talent in this direction. Wow. That's brutal.
Brutal. That public dismissal from the ultimate
authority figure surely fueled the rebellion,
turning every chaotic performance into an act
of defiance against the Apollonian order his
father represented. This feeds directly into
the idea of the duality of Jim Morrison, the
poet versus the rock star, which producer Paul
A. Rothschild famously described as a classic
Jekyll and Hyde personality. Rothschild's observation
is essential. He said when Jim was sober, he
was Checkle, the most erudite, balanced, friendly
kind of guy. He was Mr. America. The UCLA film
student. The reader. Exactly. But once the alcohol
hit, he'd turn into a maniac pure hide, the Dionysian
destroyer. The rock star persona became a vessel
for his escalating destructive urges. But his
dedication to high art was absolutely genuine.
He wasn't just performing the role of an intellectual.
He was one. Oh, completely. His literary pursuits
were non -negotiable. He self -published two
volumes of poetry during his lifetime, The Lord's
Notes on Vision and The New Creatures. The style
of this poetry was deeply influenced by the symbolists'
surreal, often stream of consciousness, dealing
in fragmented images and cinematic structure.
Right. One line from The Lords describes his
goal as breaking through the language screen,
trying to express what couldn't be logically
said. And those posthumous collections, Wilderness
and The American Knight, they became instant
bestsellers. Which confirms that the poet was
as much a commercial force as the singer. And
we have to loop back to his film background.
He didn't just study cinema, he made his own
experimental work. In 1969, he financed and starred
in the experimental film HWI, An American Pastoral.
It was pure arthouse, a 50 -minute piece where
Morrison plays a hitchhiker who murders another
man and steals his car. It was an exercise in
cinematic cruelty. Which directly reflects his
academic interest in Anton and Our Toad. It does.
Okay. For the listener who hasn't delved into
20th century French theater, what does Artaud's
theater of cruelty actually entail and how did
it influence Morrison on stage? Artaud's core
concept was that theater shouldn't just entertain
or reflect reality. It should shock the audience,
assault their senses, and bypass rationality
to get to primal truths. It was designed to make
the audience deeply uncomfortable. And Morrison
took that theoretical violence and applied it
to a rock performance. Exactly. crowds, screamed
obscenities, or tried to break down the barrier
between performer and audience, he was enacting
Artaud's philosophy. He was using the stage as
a laboratory for cruelty and transgression. That
focus on visual poetry and transgression leads
us right to his physical image. In 1966, he adopted
that iconic black leather look that defined the
early Doors era. The black leather was crucial
to his identity as a shamanistic performer. There
are competing origin theories. Some say he was
influenced by the Velvet Underground's Gerard
Malanga. Others point to Marlon Brando in The
Fugitive Kind. The mysterious antihero. Right.
And the biography No One Here Gets Out Alive
even links the image to historical figures like
Alexander the Great. A mythic warrior poet. And
regardless of where it came from, that look popularized
leather pants as stereotyped rock star apparel.
I mean, that legacy runs right through to U2's
Bono using them for his fly alter ego decades
later. But by 1969, the persona shifted again.
There was weight gain, a full beard, and more
casual clothes. The jeans and slacks look. He
was refuting from that manufactured sexual idol
status, trying to shed the lizard king for the
more reflective American poet. His personal life
was just as fraught and contradictory as his
public image, marked by many serious relationships,
casual encounters, and a truly staggering 37
paternity actions pending against him at the
time of his death. It's unbelievable. The key
romantic tension really revolved around two women.
First, Mary Werbelow, his first love from 1962
to 1965. Mansrick said she held a deep place
in his soul. She did. And it's fascinating to
learn that the epic 10 -minute track, The End,
actually began as a short, innocent goodbye love
song intended for her, before Morrison added
the now infamous Oedipal section later on. And
then there was Pamela Corson. The tumultuous,
open relationship that spanned his entire adult
life from 1965 until his death in 1971. Despite
all the chaos and infidelities, she was named
the sole heir in his will. Manzarek called Pamela
Jim's other half, the only person who could complement
his bizarreness. And crucially, she constantly
encouraged his poetry, reinforcing his intellectual
side and validating the poet, not just the sexualized
rock idol. Their connection, despite its instability,
remained the central pillar of his emotional
life. But we also have to note the high -profile
and sometimes violent encounters that showed
how his drinking and Dionysian impulses could
be truly destructive. Like the alleged hand -fasting
ceremony with rock critic Patricia Keneally.
Right. While a spiritual commitment was made,
Keneally later admitted she doubted how seriously
he took the ritual, suggesting it was just another
performance for him. And of course, the notorious
encounter with Janis Joplin. David Crosby told
the story of Morrison treating Joplin cruelly
at a party, which ended abruptly when she retaliated
by hitting him over the head with a bottle of
whiskey. That moment just encapsulates the problem.
Alcohol fueled this destructive, cruel behavior
that contrasted so sharply with the sensitive,
insightful poet. Joplin thereafter referred to
Morrison as that asshole, which highlights how
his increasing dependency blurred the line between
philosophical chaos and just simple, ugly aggression.
Right. When we talk about The Door's music, Morrison's
chaotic energy is the lightning bolt, but the
band's sonic architecture, the very thing that
allowed that chaos to be recorded and organized,
was built by Ray Manzarek and Robbie Krieger.
They deserve incredible credit for creating a
sound that was instantly recognizable, despite
their very unusual lineup. The unusual lineup
being the defining characteristic. The absence
of a permanent, dedicated bass guitarist in live
performances. Manzarek's keyboard work was absolutely
critical. I mean, he had to essentially play
two instruments at the same time. So tell us
about that signature instrumentation. How did
he fill that bass void live, technically speaking?
Live, he was a spectacle of coordination. His
signature psychedelic sound came from the Vox
Continental combo organ, which he played with
his right hand for the main melodies and leads.
But simultaneously, his left hand was playing
the crucial bass lines on a Fender Rhodes piano
keyboard bass. Right underneath the box. Exactly.
He was functioning as both keyboardist and bassist.
That's a highly sophisticated technique, essentially
acting as two musicians at once. And he modernized
that setup later on, didn't he? He did. He later
used a Gibson G -101 for his main parts and critically
introduced the Moogie synthesizer on their second
album, Strange Days. Okay, that fact that they
used the Moog is often mentioned but rarely explained
in context. Why did they use it and what specific
sound did it create that advanced their psychedelic
ambitions? The Moog was brand new technology
at the time. and The Doors were among the first
rock groups to embrace it. They weren't using
it for typical pop melodies. They used it to
create specific, atmospheric sounds unique to
Strange Days, electronic whooshes, deep resonant
textures, and sonic distortion. So it defined
the album's unsettling mood. Completely. Think
of the title track, Strange Days, where the Moog
adds this ethereal, almost alien quality, pushing
them further into that philosophical space of
altered perception. That explains why the record
sounds so full. But here's the paradox I want
to explore. If the band prided itself on being
a unified four -piece, how do they rationalize
bringing in external studio musicians for their
defining recorded sound? That's the deepest contradiction
in their musical architecture. The sources explained
that while Manzarek's keyboard bass was ingenious
live, it often lacked the articulation, the sharp
definition and attack needed for the final studio
fidelity. So they needed a real bass for the
records. Right. Session bassists were used for
the majority of studio recordings to add that
necessary depth and precision. The most notable
was Douglas Lubon. who played on three albums.
They also used guys like Jerry Sheff and Leland
Sklar. Highly respected studio players. It was
a compromise the band made to achieve maximum
sonic impact on vinyl, even if it compromised
their self -image as a tight quartet. And Manzarek
wasn't just the rhythmic backbone, he was an
integral vocal presence too. Absolutely. He was
the regular backing vocalist, providing the necessary
counterpoint to Morrison's baritone. But he also
sang lead when Morrison was unavailable, like
on the live Muddy Waters cover, Close to You,
and the bluesy, playful You Need Meat, Don't
Go No Further. Okay, moving to Robbie Krieger.
He is perhaps the most underrated element in
the band's success. The accidental songwriter
who wrote or co -wrote so many of their biggest
hits. And he wasn't a traditional rock musician.
Krieger was self -taught, which is crucial. He
began on a ukulele that he detuned to mimic a
guitar, illustrating this natural, untutored
approach to sound. His style was this magnificent
melting pot. Right. Influenced heavily by sophisticated
jazz guitarists like Wes Montgomery and the raw
power. of electric blues masters like Albert
King. But the truly unique element was his immersion
in classical Spanish music. He was a deep student
of flamenco guitar. You can really hear that
in tracks like Spanish Caravan. That complex,
syncopated rhythm and passionate melodicism is
all over their work. He also had a distinctive
technique. frequently using a bottleneck slide
or a fingerstyle approach on his electric guitar,
which added this raw blues texture to even their
most psychedelic tracks. And the power of his
songwriting is just undeniable. We are talking
about staples like Light My Fire, Love Me Two
Times, Touch Me, Love Her Madly. This runs completely
counter to the general narrative that Jim Morrison
was the sole creative force. It fundamentally
reshapes the narrative. While Morrison provided
the vast majority of the lyrics and vocal melodies,
the other band members and Krieger most often
contributed the core, chords, rhythm, and harmonic
structure. He wrote the music for Light My Fire.
He wrote the music and suggested the title phrase.
He was providing the foundational musical structure
that allowed Morrison's poetry to take flight.
And just like Manzarek and Densmore, Krieger
shared that deep non -rock influence. Both he
and Densmore famously studied under the celebrated
Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar. That shared study
in Indian classical music speaks volumes. It
wasn't just a casual interest. It was a commitment
to exploring consciousness and sound beyond the
conventional Western rock format. It was the
necessary Apollonian order. The order that enabled
the Dionysian chaos. We shift now to the whirlwind
period of peak success and ensuing crisis, starting
with their debut, The Doors, in 1967. They signed
with Elektra Records and the album was an instant
game changer. It was a rapid ascent. The single
Light My Fire, co -written by Krieger, became
their first number one hit on the Billboard Hot
100 in mid -1967. They went from opening for
acts like Simon and Garfunkel to national headliners
almost overnight. And that success led directly
to the national scrutiny and the infamous Ed
Sullivan show scandal in September 1967. This
is Pure R. Toad's Theater of Cruelty meets network
television censorship. The censors demanded a
lyric change, insisting that the line, girl,
we couldn't get much higher, be altered to, girl,
we couldn't get much better, due to perceived
drug references. But Morrison, the ultimate provocateur,
sang the original line anyway on live national
television. Accounts slightly conflict on that.
Some suggest it was a clear act of defiance.
Others, including Manzarek, have suggested it
was nerves and that Morrison simply forgot the
forced alteration. Either way, the result was
the same. The result was the same. Ed Sullivan
was livid, refused to shake their hands, and
canceled six planned subsequent bookings. Morrison's
defiant reply to the producer was the perfect
rock star, quote, Hey man, so what? We just did
The Sullivan Show. Their next albums followed
quickly, Strange Days in 67 and then Waiting
for the Sun in 68, which featured their second
number one hit. Waiting for the Sun became their
first and only U .S. number one album. The hit
was Hello, I Love You, an older demo song they
resurrected. Interestingly, that single sparked
a copyright infringement concern from the publisher
of the Kinks all day and all of the night. Because
of the musical similarity. It's undeniable. The
publisher ultimately chose not to sue, but it
shows how quickly the band was pulling material
from their old portfolio to meet demand. And
the controversies just kept escalating, culminating
in the New Haven arrest in December 1967, which
truly cemented Morrison's image. as the untamed
shaman. This was a bizarre escalating confrontation.
Before the show, Morrison and a woman were found
making out in a shower stall backstage by a police
officer who failed to recognize him. When ordered
to leave, Morrison's mocking reply was, eat me.
He was promptly maced. And he did not let it
go. No. He took the stage late. But instead of
singing, he launched into this obscenity -filled
improvised story about the little man in blue
who had maced him. Which led New Haven police
to arrest him on stage for indecency and public
obscenity. He was let off stage mid -performance,
becoming the first rock performer ever arrested
during a show. It solidified his identity as
the ultimate provocateur. By the time they approached
their fourth album, The Soft Parade, in 1969,
Morrison's descent into alcoholism was becoming
a real crippling problem. He was increasingly
difficult, late, drunk, and unreliable. The making
of The Soft Parade was a struggle marked by internal
conflict. producer Paul Rothschild suggested
the radical departure of bringing in brass and
string arrangements a true Apollonian attempt
to impose musical order right And while Manzarek
and Densmore liked the idea, Morrison resisted
viewing the arrangements as antithetical to their
raw sound. And this resistance fractured the
band's previous collaborative structure. It did.
This album was the first time individual songwriting
credit was given for each member, rather than
the unified The Doors. This was specifically
due to Morrison's reluctance to sing the lyrics
of Robbie Krieger's song, Tell All the People.
Despite the critical attacks and internal friction,
it was still a major commercial hit. which illustrates
the strength of their fan base. But the real
crisis, the incident that ended their ability
to tour freely, arrived three months later with
the infamous Miami Dinner Key Auditorium incident
in March 1969. This was the most consequential
performance of their career. The venue was a
massive, non -air -conditioned seaplane hangar,
dangerously overcrowded, 12 ,000 people packed
into a 7 ,000 -capacity facility on a suffocatingly
hot night. Morrison was visibly drunk and arrived
over an hour late to a restless, overheated crowd.
And he used the stage to taunt them. Drawing
directly from his theater of cruelty studies,
he shouted obscenities, things like, you want
to see my cock? And challenged the audience,
what are you going to do about it? This erratic
confrontational behavior led to six arrest warrants
being issued for indecent exposure and public
obscenity. It's crucial to remember the band
members' denial of that core charge. Yes, all
surviving members and their road manager have
vehemently denied the allegation that Morrison
exposed himself. Manzarek called it a mass religious
hallucination. Arguing the context created an
atmosphere where people thought they saw what
they were led to believe. Regardless, the consequences
were immediate and severe. Canceled concerts,
public outrage, and a 16 -day trial that concluded
in October 1970 with a conviction. Morrison was
sentenced to six months in jail and a $500 fine,
a conviction he immediately appealed. And the
trial gave him this moment of jarring self -awareness
about the judicial system. He said, if I hadn't
had unlimited funds, I'd be in jail right now.
A moment of clarity about the list. limits of
his Dionysian freedom. Right. It took until 2010
for Florida Governor Charlie Crist to issue a
complete posthumous pardon. The Miami incident
was the low point, but it spurred the band's
creative return. They desperately needed to reconnect
with the music. That led to Morrison Hotel in
1970 and L .A. Woman in 1971, where they returned
to their blues rock roots. Morrison Hotel was
a significant return to form a raw blues rock
sound that critics immediately praised as their
ballsiest and best album to date. And L .A. Woman
became their swan song with Morrison. This album
was recorded in a garage -like setting after
their longtime producer Paul Rothschild quit.
Infamously calling one of the tracks cocktail
lounge music. Yeah. So engineer Bruce Botnick
stepped up to co -produce, fostering a looser,
bluesier atmosphere. LA Woman produced two monster
hits, Love Her Madly and the darkly atmospheric
Riders on the Storm. And the title track famously
features Morrison chanting the anagram of his
name, Mr. Mojo Risen. A final moment of self
-mythologizing. But the volatility was relentless.
Their last performance with Jim Morrison was
on December 12, 1970 at the Warehouse in New
Orleans. And that show ended with an alleged
onstage breakdown. Morrison started slamming
the microphone stand until the stage platform
was completely destroyed, then just refused to
perform. After that, the surviving members mutually
agreed that live performing had become too dangerous
and unpredictable. They decided to stop touring,
as Morrison was ready to retreat from the stage
and focus entirely on poetry. And that leads
us to the final, mysterious chapter, The End
of the King. After finishing L .A. Woman, Morrison
announced he was taking a sabbatical in March
1971 to join Pamela Cresson in Paris. He took
up residency at an apartment on Rue Butreille
in Le Marais. It was intended as a spiritual
and creative cleansing. He described going on
long walks, attempting to live a quieter life.
He shaved his beard, lost weight. He was trying
to reinvent himself as a full -time poet. He
was still connected to the band, but the focus
had clearly shifted. John Densmore was the last
band member to speak to him by phone, asking
about L .A. Woman's commercial performance. Then,
on July 3, 1971, Corson found him dead in the
bathtub of their apartment. He was only 27. The
official cause of death was listed as heart failure.
But because French law didn't require an autopsy,
The exact cause of death remains perpetually
disputed, fueling every subsequent conspiracy
theory and ensuring his mythology endures. The
official account provided by Corazon was never
fully accepted. No. Several key figures have
offered conflicting accounts. Singer Marianne
Faithfull and nightclub manager Sam Burnett both
claimed his death was due to an accidental heroin
overdose at the nightclub itself. Burnett claimed
his body was moved. He did. He claimed that Morrison's
body was removed by drug dealers and returned
to the apartment to cover up the incident and
avoid a police inquiry. And the secrecy surrounding
the event just amplified all the speculation.
It did. His friend, the influential French film
director Agnes Varda, was instrumental in hiding
the incident from the public for several days.
This secrecy extended to his burial on July 7,
1971, at Père Lachaise Cemetery. Varda confirmed
she was one of only four mourners who attended
the private service. And the secret burial and
sudden death cemented his inclusion in the notorious
27 Club. His death came within two years of Brian
Jones, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin. This clustering
of deaths solidified the urban legend, connecting
Morrison to this idea of a doomed generation
of artists pushing too hard. Adding a final layer
of literary intrigue are the writings recovered
after his death, specifically the Paris Journal.
Right. The journal contains poetry and this allegorical
foretelling of a man grieving and abandoning
his belongings due to a police investigation
into a death connected to the Chinese opium trade.
It's eerie. It's very eerie. The recovered writings
emphasize that even in death, Morrison was still
the poet, writing himself into a dark. ambiguous
narrative. The mystery surrounding his death
naturally draws us to the final resting place.
His grave site at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris
has become one of the most visited literary and
rock pilgrimages in the world. The site is constantly
monitored due to vandalism, but the famous headstone
placed by his father in 1990 remains. It features
that cryptic Greek inscription. Hagasa. the Tagetes.
Typically translated as true to his own spirit
or according to his own demon. It's the final
message from the Apollonian father to the Dionysian
son, acknowledging his wild, untamed nature.
And adding another radiant historical footnote,
the original marble bust placed on his grave,
which was stolen in 1988, was recently recovered
by Paris police in May of this year while investigating
an unrelated matter. It's remarkable how his
story still generates news decades later. So
what became of the doors after 1971? The remaining
members kept trying to make music together, initially
rejecting the idea of replacing Morrison with
someone like Iggy Pop, who would have been a
natural choice given his similar confrontational
performance style. But they attempted to continue
as a trio. Krieger and Manzarek took over lead
vocal duties. A major challenge. A huge challenge.
They released two albums, Other Voices in 1971
and Full Circle in 1972, featuring increased
elements of funk and jazz. And how did the public
respond to The Doors without their frontman?
Well, neither album reached the top ten, unlike
all six of their records with Morrison. The magic,
the lightning bolt of the Dionysian chaos was
gone. The band eventually disbanded in 1973.
The Apollonian structure couldn't hold the weight
of the name without the destructive genius at
its center. Perfect way to put it. But the ghost
of Morrison brought them back together for one
highly successful project in 1978. That was the
remarkable An American Prayer. The trio took
Morrison's previously recorded spoken word poetry
from sessions in 1969 and his 27th birthday and
meticulously set it to new music. A fascinating
hybrid of rock and performance art. And it was
a huge commercial success. It achieved platinum
status. demonstrating the market's enduring appetite
for Morrison's words. Looking at Morrison's broader
legacy, he fundamentally set the benchmark for
the rock star persona. He absolutely codified
the prototype, the surly, sexy, scandalous, intellectual
anti -hero. His look, particularly the early
black leather, became the standardized attire
for rock rebellion. And his influence permeated
the underground, specifically the post -punk
and gothic scenes. His voice, that deep, heavy
baritone. served as a direct prototype for the
gothic rock sound. He influenced a long line
of vocalists, from Iggy Pop, whose song The Passager,
this is based on one of Morrison's poems, to
Patti Smith, and the dark, introspective vocalists
of the late 70s and 80s like Ian Curtis of Joy
Division and Suzy Sue. You can hear The Door's
influence directly connecting to the grunge era
too, can't you? Definitely. Critics noted that
The Door is pre -saged gothic rock due to the
violence and darkness in their early work. This
translated directly to grunge vocalists like
Eddie Vedder, Layne Staley, and Scott Weiland,
who inherited that blend of poetic introspection
and raw, often anguished stage presence. Let's
track the later careers of Manzarek and Krieger.
They were anything but idle after 1973. No, Robbie
Krieger initially formed the Butts Band with
John Densmore. He later pivoted heavily into
jazz fusion, showcasing his foundational training.
He continues to record and tour to this day.
And Manzarek became an accomplished producer,
which is often overlooked. His legacy outside
the doors is substantial, particularly in the
punk scene. He produced the first four albums
for the seminal Los Angeles punk band X. Two
of those albums are on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest
Albums of All Time. He was also a successful
author. He was. He wrote his memoir, Light My
Fire, and a novel, The Poet in Exile, which explored
the persistent rumor that Morrison faked his
death. The two surviving instrumentalists continued
to collaborate, though they ran into significant
legal turbulence with John Densmore and the Morrison
estate. Their reunion started in the early 2000s,
initially as The Doors of the 21st Century. But
legal challenges over the name's commercial use
forced them to change it multiple times, eventually
settling on Manzarek Krieger. Yet they remained
open to new artistic partnerships crossing massive
genre boundaries. They did. They worked with
electronic music producer Skrillex on the track
Breaking a Sweat. in 2012 and with rapper tech
n9 on strange 2013 using samples of morrison's
vocals it showed they were still committed to
pushing the boundaries of sound finally we can't
ignore oliver stone's 1991 biopic the doors which
successfully brought the band to a new generation
of fans cementing their legacy it was a massive
commercial success and val kilmer earned immense
praise for his portrayal some band members even
admitted they sometimes couldn't distinguish
kilmer's voice from morrison's however the film
itself was heavily criticized by the surviving
band members and those who knew Jim well. That
was the key critique. Mansrick was particularly
outspoken, claiming the movie depicted a fictionalized
Jimbo Morrison the drunk and failed to capture
the sensitive poet, the humor, or the intellectual
rigor. It focused solely on the Dionysian destructive
side. Without capturing the Apollonian genius.
David Crosby, a contemporary, recorded a song
about the film with the telling lyric, and I
have seen that movie and it wasn't like that.
So we have synthesized the story of this volatile
convergence, a band built on the shared foundation
of film school, philosophy, flamenco, and Eastern
spirituality. What is the ultimate takeaway for
you, the listener? The core tension of the Doors
narratives is that spectacular creative collision
of high art and profound destructive chaos. You
had Jim Morrison steeped in Artaud, Rimbaud,
and Nietzsche -pure Dionysian fire colliding
with Manzarek's polymath keyboard skills and
Krieger's genre -bending musicality. The Apollonian
structure. Exactly. They distilled the entire
intellectual and counterculture energy of the
1960s, the philosophy, the film, the poetry,
the rebellion, and packaged it into this raw,
unpredictable rock music format. It was a fusion
so intense, so reliant on a personality that
broke every limit that it became unsustainable
and ultimately fractured its creators. The enduring
power of their music is absolutely inseparable
from the drama of Morrison's self -created persona.
They needed the instability, but the instability
eventually consumed the engine of the chaos.
And that leads to our final provocative thought
for you to consider. The Doors officially disbanded
in 1973, yet their biggest commercial hits and
sales surges occurred. after Morrison's death,
with An American Prayer in 1978, and again with
the Oliver Stone film revival in 1991. So the
question becomes... How much of The Door's massive,
ongoing legacy is built solely on the incredible
music recorded between 1967 and 1971, and how
much is truly cemented by the eternal, unresolved
mystery of the brilliant, tragic poet who died
young and became an indestructible myth? It's
the question that continues to break on through
the other side of rock history. Thank you for
joining us for this deep dive.