This website is based on an extensive essay about the life, work and poetry of the Doors singer/songwriter Jim Morrison. Back in the days when I was in the final class of school (that was in 2002) I had to write a 20 pages paper and I had choosen Jim Morrison as topic, yeah we had a lot of freedom in school. The teacher gave me 12 out of 15 points, though it could have been better if I hadn’t been so Morrison-alike (aka drunk as can be) back then. What you read here is a corrected and improved version of the paper which I might extend one day to include things like the references to the beatlits like Kerouac. When moving it into the blog I removed most of the footnotes that pointed into literature, so have a look at the originals for the footnotes. I’m reworking the whole paper but you may download the old, original PDF and use it alongside the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
Preface
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. ... The end of laughter and soft lies, The end of nights we tried to die. This is the end.
From the song “The End”. See The Doors – Lyrics 1965-1971 p. 18ff.
When I think of my most favorite song, I remember these powerful lines, sung by the young Jim Morrison, a powerful man looking like Alexander the Great with his long hair. When he stood on stage, one foot at the micro-phone’s base the other aside, right hand at the micro-phone’s head, the left hand on the stand or at the mic, his eyes closed most of the time and his voice telling us about his visions, dreams and thoughts. As Ray Manzarek once put it, Jim was the reborn Greek god Dionysus, a modern-day shaman full of feelings, spontaneity, dance and music (See The Doors – In Their Own Words p. 89.) With their music and rhythms the band helped Jim to get on his trip, to open himself.