The Immortal Influence of Jim Morrison

Jim Morrison in Concert

Since seeing the newly restored version of “The Doors,” I’ve been on a deep dive into the band’s music, interviews, reviews and concert footage. I was a child during The Doors’ heyday and clearly remember first hearing “Light My Fire” on the radio: it was thrilling, a song like no other. I was particularly impressed by the second verse: “The time to hesitate is through/No time to wallow in the mire/Try now we can only lose/And our love become a funeral pyre.” Though I didn’t know then that these lines were Jim Morrison’s contribution to Robby Krieger’s first-ever song, I recognized that rhyming mire and pyre with fire was genius.

Later I would learn why The Doors’ music sounded so different from other bands’. The bass lines played by Ray Manzarek’s keyboard instead of a bass guitar were one reason. Robby Krieger’s bottleneck, pick-less guitar playing and flamenco background were others. John Densmore’s jazz influences set him apart from other rock drummers.  Finally, the Latin, jazz and blues roots of all three musicians came through in The Doors’ sound.

Then there’s Jim Morrison, frontman for the ages. If no other band has successfully imitated The Doors, it’s safe to say that most rock singers have tried to imitate Morrison, whose wild, immersive performances set a high bar. In Tom DiCillo’s 2009 documentary “When You’re Strange” (Netflix), there’s stunning sequence at the 22 minute mark: footage (set to “Love Me Two Times”) in which Morrison leaps, writhes and flails his way through a series of increasingly chaotic concerts. Timeless in his leather pants, boots and Dionysian curls, Morrison fearlessly connects with his audiences, fighting his way through police lines to hold them in his thrall. Ray Manzarek often compared him to a shaman, and there is a touch of the divine in his Native American-inspired movements and trance-like writhing. Though he considered himself a writer first and foremost, Jim Morrison understood stagecraft as few other singers have. His all-out performances, enabled by copious drinking and drugging, no doubt contributed to his death at 27.

Then there’s his voice, a doomy baritone that was much-criticized in the band’s heyday but which seemed, even to the childhood me, perfect for songs that were often in minor key. Both Morrison and the rest of The Doors worried that he wasn’t a good enough singer, and his purported lack of musical talent led his father, Rear Admiral George S. Morrison, to write a disparaging letter that caused a permanent rift between them. Yet from 1970s onward,  his vocal influence is everywhere in rock. Iggy Pop, Ian Curtis, Ian McCulloch, Dave Gahan and Trent Rezner are just a few of the singers who owe Jim Morrison an enormous debt. And don’t get me started about his leather pants.

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