Jim Morrison's Lyrics

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What do you they mean to you? Do you have favorites? Usually, I don't care or even know lyrics - I'm listening to the music of the vocal, but Jim Morrison is one who I pay attention to.. My favorite is Roger Waters and John Lennon, and I guess Jim would be my #3 by default. Unique. Great vocals and I'll add his timing, which was impeccable. He could rap with the best of them, know when to pause. I think he came up with great phrases, or thinks that would flow so well. Sometimes its the hisses he makes, screams, little things that accentuate and make the song better, more palatable, more alive. "Alive, she cried"

The first song I heard was "Break On Through", which for me in middle-school was important to hear. You can interpret it in a million ways, but I think its safe to say the song has non-conformity on its mind.. "You know the day destroys the night, night divides the day" - pretty cool after I thought about it. I know the story behind the edit, but I love the "She get…. She get"….. "Found an island in your arms, a country in your eyes, arms that chained us, eyes that lied" - again, I love it.

The title "Soul Kitchen" is another cool one. "Warm my mind near your gentle stove"

"Twentieth Century Fox" is another great double-meaning title. Very clever.
"The End" is one of my favorite songs period. It's all interesting. I really love the plea, "Of everything that stands…. THE END…. No safety or surprise… THE END…. I'll never look into your eyes (lovely pause)… again. I really feel it every time I hear it, and I've been a die-hard Doors fan for about the length of Jim's entire life!

"Strange days have found us. Strange days have tracked us down" - can't explain why I love it. Maybe because its not conventional, as opposed to 'Some lady have found us".

"People are stranger, when you're a stranger" - so true!

Whatever he says in "Roadhouse Blues" is cool as hell. I'm going to listen to it now, lol.

"The Changeling" is another cool title, and just a cool story.

"Cars Hiss By My Windows" and "L'America" are unique titles. "Hello, I love you"

"Cops in cars, the topless bars, never saw a woman……. so alone"… "Motel money murder madness", nice alliteration, "let's change the mood from glad to sadness".. That entire song is a beautiful metaphor for Los Angeles, as if it were a woman. "Lucky little lady" (more alliteration).

"Cancel my subscription to the resurrection, send my credentials to the house of detention" - I loved it before I ever thought of the meanings.

"Waiting for you to……. end my song"

"All our lives we sweat and save, building for a shallow grave" (another great title "The Soft Parade")

"Breakfast where the news is read.. Television, children fed. Unborn living, living dead.. Bullet strikes the helmet's head"

"Five to One" - I think its all great.

I love "Peace Frog".. Cool title, and I love the story behind it from the poem "Abortion Stories" and how it related with his life (Patricia Kennealy). I love how on one vocal track, he sings, "She came" at the beginning of every line. Repeating "Blood in the streets ________" mentioning Chicago (shortly after the convention), or a self-reference to New Haven where he was arrested on stage (for having the guts to stand up to those who wronged him).

"The WASP (Texas Radio & The Big Beat) - interesting how the evolution of this song came to be. Again, great rhythm, great song, fascinating imagery.

I think its cool how he starts, "Wild Child" with a salutary "Hi!".. and even the ending line "Remember when we were in Africa" is memorable and has something to do with the song, even if Robby thought it was the dumbest thing he ever heard, and said so in the studio which you can witness on video.


Never liked "Horse Latitudes", but hey, he wrote it in school.




There are no experts. Music gives a feeling, but words are more concrete. We all have different lives, so one set of lyrics mean something totally different to the next person, but which "expert" can tell you how a poem speaks to you. **** them.

It seems nowadays the band and especially Jim Morrison are judged by their FANS, usually the extreme things being said.



"Cops in cars, the topless bars, never saw a woman……. so alone"… "Motel money murder madness", nice alliteration, "let's change the mood from glad to sadness".. That entire song is a beautiful metaphor for Los Angeles, as if it were a woman. "Lucky little lady" (more alliteration).
@matt72582 Wow, I'm surprised that nobody has commented on your thread. That was a very interesting read. At one time (my teen years) I was really interested in The Doors and thought Jim Morrison was one of the coolest figures in Rock and Roll history. I even got the book No One Here Gets Out Alive by Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman and loved it. When the movie by Oliver Stone The Doors came out, I loved it and thought it followed almost every story beat of the book, but it was not credited in the movie, only the screenplay by Randall Jahnson and Oliver Stone. Keyboardist Ray Manzarek reportedly refused to be involved in the film, but the other two Doors gave advice, especially to their actor counterparts in the film. But all the surviving Doors are said to have not liked the movie, especially its portrayal of Morrison as drunk all the time. Manzarek said it was, "Jim with a bottle all the time. It was ridiculous . . . It was not about Jim Morrison. It was about Jimbo Morrison, the drunk. God, where was the sensitive poet and the funny guy? The guy I knew was not on that screen."

Anyway, the truth of the man and the myth seem to have been mixed up since his death. That's why I love the music and the lyrics. But I'm like you---I tend to listen to music and vocals first before I concentrate on lyrics but Morrison's lyrics really catch you.

Where you say:
I know the story behind the edit, but I love the "She get…. She get"….. "Found an island in your arms, a country in your eyes, arms that chained us, eyes that lied" - again, I love it.
I had no idea for the longest time that the song was edited. I just thought that Morrison was being sly by singing "She get...She get" and not telling us the rest. Then I bought the CD Legacy: Absolute Best and was blown away to find out that "She Get...." also has the word "high!" following. Never knew they cut anything out. What a revelation!

Also about the metaphor for Los Angeles---I always thought it had a double meaning in also referring to his red-haired love, Pamela Courson, with "I see your hair is burning, hills are filled with fire. If they say I never loved you, you know they are a liar." So much to enjoy from his poetry/lyrics that I've barely begun to scratch the surface of, even after having listened to them from the 70s to this day.

Anyway, nice topic!
__________________
"Miss Jean Louise, Mr. Arthur Radley."



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@matt72582 Wow, I'm surprised that nobody has commented on your thread. That was a very interesting read. At one time (my teen years) I was really interested in The Doors and thought Jim Morrison was one of the coolest figures in Rock and Roll history. I even got the book No One Here Gets Out Alive by Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman and loved it. When the movie by Oliver Stone The Doors came out, I loved it and thought it followed almost every story beat of the book, but it was not credited in the movie, only the screenplay by Randall Jahnson and Oliver Stone. Keyboardist Ray Manzarek reportedly refused to be involved in the film, but the other two Doors gave advice, especially to their actor counterparts in the film. But all the surviving Doors are said to have not liked the movie, especially its portrayal of Morrison as drunk all the time. Manzarek said it was, "Jim with a bottle all the time. It was ridiculous . . . It was not about Jim Morrison. It was about Jimbo Morrison, the drunk. God, where was the sensitive poet and the funny guy? The guy I knew was not on that screen."

Anyway, the truth of the man and the myth seem to have been mixed up since his death. That's why I love the music and the lyrics. But I'm like you---I tend to listen to music and vocals first before I concentrate on lyrics but Morrison's lyrics really catch you.

Where you say:


I had no idea for the longest time that the song was edited. I just thought that Morrison was being sly by singing "She get...She get" and not telling us the rest. Then I bought the CD Legacy: Absolute Best and was blown away to find out that "She Get...." also has the word "high!" following. Never knew they cut anything out. What a revelation!

Also about the metaphor for Los Angeles---I always thought it had a double meaning in also referring to his red-haired love, Pamela Courson, with "I see your hair is burning, hills are filled with fire. If they say I never loved you, you know they are a liar." So much to enjoy from his poetry/lyrics that I've barely begun to scratch the surface of, even after having listened to them from the 70s to this day.

Anyway, nice topic!

First off, thanks!



"L.A. Woman" definitely has double (or more) meanings. The city, the west, Pam, and even the actual fires of California, and at that time, fire (and smoke) from the Vietnam protests.



I actually had a lot more to add the next day, but I saw that no one responded, and I didn't want to bump it up.


When I was in middle school, I read also read "No One Here Gets Out Alive". It's sensationalized, definitely not the best book, but its not as bad as I thought it would be. I think Oliver Stone's "The Doors" is awful. I tried watching again a few months ago, and it was such garbage. Besides the complete inaccuracy, it's just not a good fiction. I sometimes think that Oliver Stone takes the great topics (The Doors, JFK, Snowden) and distorts them, which discredits them. Anytime I mention the name Jim Morrison or Jim Garrison, they reference the movie. This authoritarian art-form is the most influential in my opinion. Throughout my many travels overseas, and even though many people were bright, they saw countries by what they saw in movies, even as they'd preface by saying, "I know it's just Hollywood, but I could never imagine America being ....."


I've been a fan of The Doors/Jim Morrison for almost as long as Jim was alive. If you want to check out his archives (many interviews, articles and newspaper clippings from 67-71 mostly), and a true discussion, check out my board - the link is down below on my signature. I've posted every concert I got my hands on, and even if YouTube removes it, I keep a hard file. There's a great book by Greg Shaw that might be on there, that documents their entire touring/studio career, which makes a great companion with the shows, since the audio is sometimes hard to make out. If you sign up (which you don't have to do) you get to read an automatic introductory letter about not being like other sites that love to speculate and spread garbage


I've read 16 books on Jim Morrison and have 3 more on my couch and book shelf I plan on reading soon. I think the best ones are "Friends Gathered Together" (which is on my site, with a few other books) and "Summer With Morrison" (the author worked on "Apocalypse Now" and I've never heard a bad word from him, and has been reference by Ray, etc) that takes place in the summer of '65, when Jim was homeless, living on a roof-top, losing a ton of weight while his diet consisted of nothing but LSD and baked beans. Lots of movie talk, philosophy talk, and a peruse of Jim's perusing/peeping-tom behavior. The author/friend spies on him a few times, to see where Jim would go, what he would do... There's some good books about his time in DC and Clearwater, Florida where a lot of his classmates mention him. The last two books I read were about John Lennon, and I've always seen similarities. To me, they were some of the funniest people I've ever heard. Despite my obsession with stand-up comedy (laughter, really), I can't think of a dozen I have liked, and with each successive rank, there's a big drop-off, from Mort Sahl to Bill Hicks to George Carlin to Bill Burr and a few others.. I won't spoil some funny Jim stuff, but there's a sub-category on that site solely about Jim's humor. Sometimes I'll think of an instance or two and laugh my head off. Nothing beats hysterical laughter -- the ultimate high, although I had the best summer of my life last year, ONLY because I took LSD every Saturday, listened to music (a lot of Doors), and did a lot of live chatting.



"I'm proud to be a part of this number" is another cool line by Jim in "The Soft Parade". An intellectual can muse on about the metaphysics



Thanks for all the info, @matt72582! Very cool. Well, thanks for telling me what you thought about No One Here Gets Out Alive and The Doors movie. I've read the book and seen the movie only once, so I don't have a lot of info other than what I've stated about Jim's life.

I agree with your assessment about Oliver Stone and the way he sensationalizes everything. The only movie of his that I trust to be halfway true is Platoon and that's because the guy actually fought in Vietnam. But, being a writer and a director, he definitely put his "artistic" touch on the film. I mean, I love the movie for what it is, not necessarily as the ultimate truth about what happened in Stone's life. I really don't trust him to tell the straight truth about history. I read an interview with him in Rolling Stone magazine (which I used to subscribe to) where he said that history can be whatever we want it to be, that it's fluid, and changes all the time, so he puts his own spin on history, no matter if it's already confirmed as truth elsewhere---he's gonna write it his way. He believes that history is what you want it to be. That's probably why I didn't really enjoy movies of his like JFK and how he presented practically everyone involved in a conspiracy.

I can remember in the early 80s where a local Rock station (when Rock and Roll was still being churned out and not just garbage "called" Rock and Roll) where they had Ray Manzarek hosting The Doors music and talking about Jim Morrison's life, and even Ray had his own spin, but it was a cool, positive spin about Jim, and how Riders on the Storm was the last song they recorded as a group with Jim before his death and how, in Ray's words, the song had this "eerie, death-like, quality" to it. And I remembered Ray talking about rumors about Jim possibly faking his own death and saying he wasn't sure about that but if there was anyone who could pull it off it would be Jim. So Ray, at least in that show I heard of him talking, had his own narrative where he appeared to like keeping Jim's legend alive, although, like I said, in a more positive, entertaining way.

I'll definitely check out that link. Thanks!



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Thanks for all the info, @matt72582! Very cool. Well, thanks for telling me what you thought about No One Here Gets Out Alive and The Doors movie. I've read the book and seen the movie only once, so I don't have a lot of info other than what I've stated about Jim's life.

I agree with your assessment about Oliver Stone and the way he sensationalizes everything. The only movie of his that I trust to be halfway true is Platoon and that's because the guy actually fought in Vietnam. But, being a writer and a director, he definitely put his "artistic" touch on the film. I mean, I love the movie for what it is, not necessarily as the ultimate truth about what happened in Stone's life. I really don't trust him to tell the straight truth about history. I read an interview with him in Rolling Stone magazine (which I used to subscribe to) where he said that history can be whatever we want it to be, that it's fluid, and changes all the time, so he puts his own spin on history, no matter if it's already confirmed as truth elsewhere---he's gonna write it his way. He believes that history is what you want it to be. That's probably why I didn't really enjoy movies of his like JFK and how he presented practically everyone involved in a conspiracy.

I can remember in the early 80s where a local Rock station (when Rock and Roll was still being churned out and not just garbage "called" Rock and Roll) where they had Ray Manzarek hosting The Doors music and talking about Jim Morrison's life, and even Ray had his own spin, but it was a cool, positive spin about Jim, and how Riders on the Storm was the last song they recorded as a group with Jim before his death and how, in Ray's words, the song had this "eerie, death-like, quality" to it. And I remembered Ray talking about rumors about Jim possibly faking his own death and saying he wasn't sure about that but if there was anyone who could pull it off it would be Jim. So Ray, at least in that show I heard of him talking, had his own narrative where he appeared to like keeping Jim's legend alive, although, like I said, in a more positive, entertaining way.

I'll definitely check out that link. Thanks!

You're welcome... The one thing that Stone actually does seem to do a good job with was "The Untold History of the United States".


Ray probably said that to keep The Doors' interest going, and was always the one who cared about money. I was surprised that Ray put that in his book, where during a band rehearsal/meeting, Jim says, "Ray, I know you. You only care about money"... Speaking of books, I'd read Densmore's book (which I think is better), but I'd read Ray's. John has two books, and I uploaded one of them on that site. The last book I'd ever read is Kennealy's.



I've been a fan of The Doors/Jim Morrison for almost as long as Jim was alive. If you want to check out his archives , and a true discussion, check out my board - the link is down below on my signature. I've posted every concert I got my hands on, and even if YouTube removes it, I keep a hard file. There's a great book by Greg Shaw that might be on there, that documents their entire touring/studio career, which makes a great companion with the shows, since the audio is sometimes hard to make out. I also pay attention to the soundtrack of every movie, I have an interest in the soundtracks of my favorite movies, it reminds me of the emotions when watching that movie.



matt72582's Avatar
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I've been a fan of The Doors/Jim Morrison for almost as long as Jim was alive. If you want to check out his archives , and a true discussion, check out my board - the link is down below on my signature. I've posted every concert I got my hands on, and even if YouTube removes it, I keep a hard file. There's a great book by Greg Shaw that might be on there, that documents their entire touring/studio career, which makes a great companion with the shows, since the audio is sometimes hard to make out. I also pay attention to the soundtrack of every movie, I have an interest in the soundtracks of my favorite movies, it reminds me of the emotions when watching that movie.

Is this some kind of joke? I posted that same thing (with the exception of the last sentence) on another site. You've been here for 3 months and this is your first post, and you tell us your signature is this supposed Jim Morrison site, which it is not.



“No one here gets out alive” - Jim Morrison



I've been listening to The Doors Legacy: The Absolute Best CD lately while driving and enjoying it. I find myself listening to the second CD more, which picks up with the Soft Parade period on through to their last music, plus the live version of Gloria and the studio-recorded Celebration of the Lizard.

I used to read all songwriting credits on LPs and then CDs, to see who wrote what and I could swear that on The Doors, the first album, it said that Robby Krieger wrote Light My Fire, but on the Legacy CD it says "The Doors" as the songwriters. And on Touch Me it lists Robby Krieger as the sole writer. I wonder if the remaining Doors (Ray was still alive when this CD was released) fixed the mix-up or it was a mix-up? On my CD, Bruce Botnick engineered and remastered it and it says "Compilation Produced for Release by The Doors and David McLees." Do you know if they corrected credits earlier than this compilation or if maybe my memory isn't as good as I thought?

As for their albums, I only had Absolutely Live, which had Break on Through #2, where Morrison sang "Dead cats, dead rats, think you're an aristocrat,
Crap, that's crap." I always got a kick out of that for some reason. The other albums I had were Soft Parade and the compilation LP Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine, but my brother had all the other studio albums so I listened to them whenever I could, as he had moved away to college and I only saw him in the summertime.

I read a review of The Doors Legacy CD on Amazon and one guy, while raving about how great it is (which it is) says about The End: "which is here uncensored with the late Jim Morrison letting out a barrage of "F bombs." Nope, it's the same The End from their debut album, so I don't know what he's talking about.

I've always wondered about Tell All the People, which I love, where Morrison sings the lyrics,
"Follow me across the sea,
where milky babies seem to be
Molded, flowing revelry
With the one that set them free"
What in the heck is he singing about? I mean, I love the song but I'm clueless as to what he's saying here.

My favorite Doors song has to be Peace Frog. I know this might not be most fans' favorite song of choice, but I really love this one. Everybody is hitting on all cylinders here, starting with the crunching guitar of Robbie, then the bass kicking in (I assume that was session bass player Lonnie Mack and not Ray playing the bass part on his keys), then Ray on the keys, then Jim of course. His lyrics are very descriptive and visual here (well, with he and Ray being film students, ya know), with the main visual being blood. But I know he's referring to certain events, like "Blood in the streets in the town of Chicago," which I assumed to be about the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention with clashes between the protestors and the police. "Blood stains the roofs and the palm trees of Venice" Venice, of course being where everything started for The Doors and where Jim and Ray lived for a time. "Blood in the streets of the town of New Haven" I've heard, is referring to Jim getting maced by a cop and later arrested after he talked about it onstage, which I've seen the famous footage of. Going to the Song Facts website, I found out I was wrong about Chicago, at least according to Song Facts. Here's the link:

https://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-doors/peace-frog

Anyway, just a few things I've been thinking about while listening to the CD.



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I've been listening to The Doors Legacy: The Absolute Best CD lately while driving and enjoying it. I find myself listening to the second CD more, which picks up with the Soft Parade period on through to their last music, plus the live version of Gloria and the studio-recorded Celebration of the Lizard.

I used to read all songwriting credits on LPs and then CDs, to see who wrote what and I could swear that on The Doors, the first album, it said that Robby Krieger wrote Light My Fire, but on the Legacy CD it says "The Doors" as the songwriters. And on Touch Me it lists Robby Krieger as the sole writer. I wonder if the remaining Doors (Ray was still alive when this CD was released) fixed the mix-up or it was a mix-up? On my CD, Bruce Botnick engineered and remastered it and it says "Compilation Produced for Release by The Doors and David McLees." Do you know if they corrected credits earlier than this compilation or if maybe my memory isn't as good as I thought?

As for their albums, I only had Absolutely Live, which had Break on Through #2, where Morrison sang "Dead cats, dead rats, think you're an aristocrat,
Crap, that's crap." I always got a kick out of that for some reason. The other albums I had were Soft Parade and the compilation LP Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine, but my brother had all the other studio albums so I listened to them whenever I could, as he had moved away to college and I only saw him in the summertime.

I read a review of The Doors Legacy CD on Amazon and one guy, while raving about how great it is (which it is) says about The End: "which is here uncensored with the late Jim Morrison letting out a barrage of "F bombs." Nope, it's the same The End from their debut album, so I don't know what he's talking about.

I've always wondered about Tell All the People, which I love, where Morrison sings the lyrics,
"Follow me across the sea,
where milky babies seem to be
Molded, flowing revelry
With the one that set them free"
What in the heck is he singing about? I mean, I love the song but I'm clueless as to what he's saying here.

My favorite Doors song has to be Peace Frog. I know this might not be most fans' favorite song of choice, but I really love this one. Everybody is hitting on all cylinders here, starting with the crunching guitar of Robbie, then the bass kicking in (I assume that was session bass player Lonnie Mack and not Ray playing the bass part on his keys), then Ray on the keys, then Jim of course. His lyrics are very descriptive and visual here (well, with he and Ray being film students, ya know), with the main visual being blood. But I know he's referring to certain events, like "Blood in the streets in the town of Chicago," which I assumed to be about the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention with clashes between the protestors and the police. "Blood stains the roofs and the palm trees of Venice" Venice, of course being where everything started for The Doors and where Jim and Ray lived for a time. "Blood in the streets of the town of New Haven" I've heard, is referring to Jim getting maced by a cop and later arrested after he talked about it onstage, which I've seen the famous footage of. Going to the Song Facts website, I found out I was wrong about Chicago, at least according to Song Facts. Here's the link:

https://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-doors/peace-frog

Anyway, just a few things I've been thinking about while listening to the CD.

I can answer your questions, and I'll only use references from The Doors and avoid random fans or books... On the first three albums, even though Jim wrote 90% of the songs, he thought everyone should get credit (publishing royalties) and that it would be attributed to The Doors. By "The Soft Parade", Robby started writing more, and Jim says (Rolling Stone article) that "Tell All The People" was a dumb song. Robby said Jim didn't want to sing the line, "Get your guns" and didn't want the message of "Follow me", but Robby wouldn't budge. Robby did write most of "Light My Fire" (Jim wrote the last couplet) and Robby wrote all "Touch Me". You can actually tell who wrote what. Jim's songs don't have horns -- Wild Child, The Soft Parade, Shaman's Blues, Easy Ride, Do It.


"Peace Frog" is the earliest disco song I have heard. The disco drum beat (constant bass drum), double-time on the hi-hat, funky bass and guitar from one of Jim's poems (Abortion Stories).. On bass, it might actually be Ray Napolitano, although Lonnie played bass on that album.



Thanks for the info, @matt72582! No idea about the line in Tell All the People about the "milky babies?" Since Robby wrote it, I guess we'll have to wait until he releases his book. I've heard that he has one coming out this fall---is this true?



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Thanks for the info, @matt72582! No idea about the line in Tell All the People about the "milky babies?" Since Robby wrote it, I guess we'll have to wait until he releases his book. I've heard that he has one coming out this fall---is this true?



Yes, this September I believe.. I actually just got The Jim Morrison Collection, even though I'm not interested in reading poetry, and really got it for notebook stuff, but have only skimmed it.


Robby doesn't seem to have much of an ego, but he seems to have memory problems. And it's been 56 years since The Doors started, and I doubt most guys think "I better keep a journal just in case we become the biggest thing in the world!".. For example, he has given at least three stories how he got his black eye (after performing on either PBS or The Smothers Brothers Show), but I hope he kept some notes along the way. I listen to a lot of interviews (or reading on newspapers.com which has over 100 years of articles), and it's surprising how many times one person can give contradictory information. Too many times people (even authors) will reference some 2nd or 3rd hand information as truth. I've also read an interview, then years later, find the original source, the audio interview, and it's telling what they extrapolate, and what they omit. But of course, there's always the financial bias, so the narrative is "Jim was performing nude", despite not a single picture showing anything remotely close, even though there were hundreds of photos taken, and finally, there is audio of the Miami show, which is pretty fascinating to listen to.


Here's a link of a ton of real-time articles, interviews, etc., about The Doors, and Jim Morrison specifically. There's a lot of historical revisionism, while I like to hear what was being said in 1967 - a fresh, primal reaction.


Reminds me Rolling Stone magazine. They would say how Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin was a fad, and would be "done" in a year.. Of course, a few years later, after no one could doubt their excellence, they'd hire a different writer to say how great they were. It seems happens in every industry but there aren't enough people who want to pinpoint the inaccuracies.