Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Parushi Ruhil
Amit Singh
M.A. English, 1st Semester
Poetry Course
20th November 2014
Analysing Jim Morrison’s Lyrics through Psychoanalysis and Placing them in the Socio
Cultural Setting.
This paper is about how childhood experiences shaped Jim Morrison’s adult life and how the
past experiences combined with the 1960s Political and Social scene led him into writing
lyrics which are considered revolutionary even today. Though the lyrics initially were written
collectively by the band The Doors, but later Jim Morrison took over. The Doors became Jim
Morrison and The Doors, instead of The Doors whose Lead singer was Jim Morrison. Also,
the space given to the students in 21st century to discuss the poems of Jim Morrison and Bob
Dylan, speak volumes about how far the Literature has come and how the definition of poetry
has expanded. Psychoanalytical approach which is applied in this paper to the lyrics is
important because Psychoanalysis gives importance to the childhood experiences which
becomes one of the few reasons for problems that Morrison faced in his adult life and
communicated through his songs.
Eliot in his essay Tradition and Individual Talent (1919) wrote about the relationship between
a poet and the literary tradition which precedes the poet. For Eliot the ‘historical sense’ was
extremely important for this sense gave meaning to the literary work. Later on, Eliot gives the
theory of Impersonal Theory of poetry which leads to depersonalisation of the poet/artist from
the creation because “the mature poet is viewed as a medium, through which tradition is
channelled and elaborated”1 . On the surface Jim Morrison seem to defy all the characteristics
of a good poet, but when one takes away the Euro Centrism from Eliot, Morrison seem to be
working somewhere around the lines of a tradition (Ancient Indian Tradition) , and carrying
forward the Collective Unconscious which Carl Jung explains as “ a part of the unconscious
mind, expressed in humanity and all life forms with nervous systems, and describes how the
structure of the psyche autonomously organizes experience”2 . A lot of songs talk about the
taboo of Incest, a fear present in various myths and communities all over the world. An
interesting fact is that Morrison considered himself a Shaman, who according to Merriam
Webster is “ priest or priestess who uses magic for the purpose of curing the sick, divining the
hidden, and
1
"Tradition and the Individual Talent Wikipedia, the free ..." 2007. 20 Nov. 2014
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tradition_and_the_Individual_Talent>
2
"Collective unconscious Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." 2003. 20 Nov. 2014
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_unconscious>
controlling events”3 . The Wise Old man of various cultures. The Wise Old Man is also the term
used by Carl Jung for the collective unconscious. Jim Morrison the Wise Old Man of the 20th
Century?
Obviously taking out Europe from Eliot is unfair and acceptance of Jim Morrison as a poet is
really a portrayal of the changes that have come in the perception of the world audience of
poetry. But two important facts are 1) Jim Morrison is not a part of The Canon but of Popular
Culture, 2) He was not really considered a poet in his lifetime, which is thought as a reason for
his suicide. He could not break free from the image of a rockstar which led him into
depression and then suicide.
Eliot also becomes important as The Beat Movement rejected his strict objectivity, because
they believed in writing about their own world, America, their realities, and not follow the
European Tradition. Jim Morrison was part of this Beat movement.
The Beat Movement was an American social and literary movement which originated in
1950s and “Beat poets sought to liberate poetry from academic preciosity and bring it back to
the streets”4 . Though there was an Economic Boom after the World War 2 and the middle
class of America seemed to be very prosperous, but at the same time, this comfortable group
had their youth in Universities, and this youth was far from being comfortable. “The origins of
the Beat Generation can be traced to Columbia University and the meeting of Kerouac,
Ginsberg, Lucien Carr, Hal Chase and others. Though the beats are usually regarded as
antiacademic, many of their ideas were formed in response to professors like Lionel Trilling
and Mark Van Doren. Classmates Carr and Ginsberg discussed the need for a "New Vision"
(a term borrowed from Arthur Rimbaud), to counteract what they perceived as their teachers'
conservative, formalistic literary ideals. Central elements of "Beat" culture included rejection of
received standards, innovations in style, use of illegal drugs, alternative sexualities, an
interest in religion, a rejection of materialism, and explicit portrayals of the human condition”.5
The origins of The Beat generation started in the Columbia University, origins of The Door
was in UCLA . The band which was named The Doors was conceived during the summer of
1965, when Ray Manzerak ran into Jim Morrison on Venice Beach, where Morrison sang to
Manzerak the lyrics from a song that would later came to be called as Moonlight Drive
Let’s swim to the moon
Let’s climb through the tide
Penetrate the evening
That the city sleeps to hide.
The interesting thing about these lyrics is the imagery, the explicit imagery of freedom,
freedom even from the perception of the so called real world, freedom from the physical world
3
"Shaman MerriamWebster Online." 2006. 20 Nov. 2014
<http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/shaman>
4
"Beat movement Encyclopedia Britannica." 2008. 20 Nov. 2014
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/57467/Beatmovement>
5
"Beat Generation Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." 2003. 20 Nov. 2014
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_Generation>
and entering into the metaphysical. Penetrating the dark world which the civilization is living
through every single second but refuses to accept, acknowledge. Vietnam War!
After Morrison received his Bachelor’s Degree in Cinematography from UCLA, he wanted to
go to New York to work in films and make a living but he never really went, for he discovered
he had been classified as 1A after graduation and he could be drafted any moment for the
military service. And Morrison had no Romantic ideas about Army for his father was in navy
and Morrison had problematic relationship with his parents.
Between childhood, boyhood,
adolescence
& manhood (maturity) there
should be sharp lines drawn w/
Tests, deaths, feats, rites
stories, songs, & judgements
(Power 6 )
Jim Douglas Morrison was born on 8 December 1943. His father was in U.S. Navy and Jim
was given the middle name Douglas after Douglas MacArthur, “the flamboyant and
controversial World War 2 general.” It was expected that Jim will continue with the military
tradition once he grows up. (Break On Through Life and Death of Jim Morrison (2006),
Riordon and Pronchnicky, pg 25).
Enlightenment in a gun
To kill childhood, innocence
in an instant (POWER)
Morrison’s parents had moved and changed homes four times before he was four years old.
There were insecurities and emotional difficulties for the mother as well as for the children as
they rarely saw their father who was in The War.
Men who go out on ships
To escape sin & the mire of cities (POWER)
So after college he was not ready to go into the War, the violence with which he could relate
his disturbed childhood to.
Also, this was the condition of isolated four year old child living in a family disturbed by the
War when ‘the most important moment’ of Jim Morrison’s life took place. In Jim’s own words :
“It was the first time I discovered Death…..Me and my mother and father and my grandmother
and grandfather were driving through the desert at dawn. A truckload of
Indian workers had hit another car or something there were Indians scattered all over the
highway, bleeding to death…………….it was the first time I tasted fear…..and I do think, at
that moment, the soul or the ghost of those dead Indiansmaybe one or two of ‘em were just
running around , freaking out, and just leaped into my soul, and I was like a sponge ready to
just sit there and absorb it…...And they are still in there”. This incident worked on various
6
"Poetry Pages The Poetry of Jim Morrison Huddersfield One." 20 Nov. 2014
<http://www.huddersfield1.co.uk/poetry/morrisonpoetry.htm>
levels. The fascination for death after this moment never left him, psychologically it left him
disturbed and he found escape in poetry and films and music and “lower level” ventures of
alcoholism and drugs. This incident did something more profound, on a spiritual level he
thought he was possessed by the spirit of a shaman (Break On Through Life and Death of
Jim Morrison (2006), Riordon and Pronchnicky, pg 27).
Indians scattered on dawn's highway bleeding
Ghosts crowd the young child's fragile eggshell mind.7
Past Experiences play an important role in the Psychoanalysis because they have the ability
to decide the individual’s perception towards life and his/her behaviour. So the Quasi Shaman
qualities that are observed in Jim Morrison is because his behaviour was ruled by the Indian’s
incident and also by the books he read. He had read all the classics, had a copy of Howl by
Allen Ginsberg in Class 8, he was fascinated by the works of Kafka and Nietzsche, especially
by the concept of Superman, which in itself is like the concept and personality of a Shaman. It
seems that the incident which had a huge impact on a four year old Morrison kept repeating
itself through various means in the life of adult Morrison as well. Or maybe he was
intentionally looking for information or any piece of information through which he could justify
the presence of his desires (Id) of creating a spectacle, just like the Old Wise Man in various
cultures, by appropriating the idea through the means of Literature. But it would be too
simplistic to say that his problems were the result of the conflict between Id and Superego,
nevertheless this conflict is present and is expressed in various lyrics, which Morrison wrote
under the influence of Alcohol.
I know what you want
you want ecstasy
Desires and Dreams
In The Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley writes “When, for whatever reason, men and
women fail to transcend themselves by means of worship, good works, and spiritual
exercises, they are apt to resort to religion’s chemical surrogates, i.e. alcohol and pills”8 . He
further says “That humanity at large will ever be able to dispense with Artificial Paradises
seems very unlikely. Most men and women lead lives at the worst so painful, at the best so
monotonous, poor and limited that the urge to escape, the longing to transcend themselves if
only for a few moments, is and always has been one of the principal appetites of the soul. Art
and religion, carnivals and saturnalia, dancing and listening to oratory – all these have served,
in H. G. Wells’ phrase, as Doors in the Wall”. Alcohol and Drugs play an important role in the
Beat Generation, for it it through these substance that writers could really understand the free
circulating thoughts and write down the experiences. The outside reality of consumerism was
so much different than the reality of this young generation for whom the “holy” structures on
which the whole mankind was based on, like religion and humanity, had been shattered by
7
"Jim Morrison Dawn's Highway YouTube." 2010. 20 Nov. 2014
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBja9KY3WxQ>
8
LONG, J. "DRUGS AND THE "BEATS" John Long." 2005.
<http://www.johnlong.com/downloads/beatschap.pdf>
the realities of War, the Real War. It was difficult coming to term with such truth, perceptions.
To fight the conditioning, one had to break the walls that the hollow moral and values had
created in the mind, this shattering down of walls happened through the use of Drugs and
Alcohol. Then the Id and Ego and Superego clashed, leading to the creation of Art.
Regret for wasted nights
and wasted years
I pissed it all away
American Music
Jim Morrison also considered himself an entertainer, his performances were catharsis like, he
created a spectacle, almost like a circus, which puts the human emotions out there for
everyone to see, puts the clown, jester in a vulnerable position.
A natural leader, a poet,
a Shaman, w/the
soul of a clown (THE CONNECTORS)9
Contra Jogulatores Obloquentes? Dario Fo, in 1997 gave his Nobel Prize speech on Jesters
who defame and insult. The speech in a way explained the condition of Morrison. Dario Fo
said “It's important that you talk among yourselves while we drink, because if you try to hear
the gurgle gurgle gurgle the water makes as we swallow we'll choke on it and start coughing.
So instead you can exchange niceties like “Oh, what a lovely evening it is, isn't it?”10 What Fo
is doing, is bringing the pretence of the world, right in front of them, in their faces, so it
becomes almost impossible to ignore the realities, the reality of the storyteller, the jester, the
clown.
Breakfast where the news is read
Television children fed
Unborn living, living, dead
Bullet strikes the helmet's head
And it's all over
For the unknown soldier
This excerpt is from the song ‘The Unknown Soldier’ (1968) which is self explanatory. The
idea of relentless consumerism and violence is portrayed in such a stark manner that it
becomes impossible to ignore the condition which the song portrays.
Night is drawing near
Shadows of the evening crawl across the years
Ya walk across the floor with a flower in your hand
Trying to tell me no one understands
Trade in your hours for a handful dimes
Gonna' make it, baby, in our prime
9
"http://www.doors.com/ 20100723T23:06:4907:00 monthly ..." 2011. 20 Nov. 2014
<http://www.doors.com/sitemap.xml>
10
"Dario Fo Nobel Lecture Nobelprize.org." 2011. 20 Nov. 2014
<http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1997/folecture.html>
In ‘Five to One’ again the imagery of War and graveyard, the impossibility of communication
when the language itself loses its meaning, and of selling of souls for a construct such as
commerce and war, makes Morrison impossible to ignore.
The Beats exposed themselves against the stated values of the time and sexuality in 1950s
and 60s was much discussed. “Allen Ginsberg openly mentioned homosexuality in his
poems. The Beats approved of homosexual relationship and homosexual experiences, not
only on their literary works but also in the form of action. For an instance, Allen Ginsberg was
an active member of the Beats who participated in the sexual rights movements. The places
where the Beats emerged and developed such as bars in New York and San Francisco also
has been a significant icon for the sexual rights movements.”11
Jim Morrison and The Doors did not experiment with the songs on homosexuality. But the
sexuality itself becomes problematic in some of the lyrics.
Father, yes son, I want to kill you
Mother, I want to, fuck you
The Oedipus complex which was never resolved because of the conditions of the family was
expressed in the song ‘This is the End’. A more problematic song is Alabama Song which
originally was published by Bertolt Brecht. Jim Morrison, changed the second verse from:
"Show us the way to the next pretty boy" to "Show me the way to the next little girl". And the
theme of ‘little girl’ recurs in many songs of The Doors
I think that you know what to do, girl
Sure that you know what to do
You're lost, little girl
You're lost, little girl
You're lost. (The Lost Little Girl)
The crystal ship is being filled
A thousand girls, a thousand thrills (Crystal Ship)
Don't ya love her madly
Want to be her daddy (Love her Madly)
She holds her head so high, like a statue in the sky
Her arms are wicked, and her legs are long
Do you hope to pluck this dusky jewel? (Hello I love you)
And this remains the problem with the band and with Jim Morrison. He throughout his career
objectified women and portrayed them as ‘little girls’, the vulnerable beings. And it is not Jim
Morrison alone, but Kerouac in his novel On The Road writes about Mary Lou “awfully dumb
11
"Sexuality in the Beat Generation | Queer Studies at SFC." 2013. 20 Nov. 2014
<https://qssfc.wordpress.com/2012autumn/sexualityinthebeatgeneration/>
and capable of doing horrible things.”, “decided the thing to do was to have Marylou make
breakfast and sweep the floor.” The ever present Objectification of the women in the Beat
Movement makes the entire movement hostile to women characters and women in general.
Jim Morrison, represented the decade in which people started believing that only love and
music could set them free. Naming the band The Doors on William Blake’s verse “If the
doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man
has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.” portrays the
disillusionment of the middle class youth with the extremely consumerist society and therefore
the need to go back to the traditions ( Shaman. According to Morrison, the first Shaman
invented sex.) The Vietnam War was very unpopular in the country and he forged being a
homosexual to keep out of Military. The Romantic perception of the War was anyway
shattered with the Two World Wars. The Chaos ruled the minds of the Beat Generation, the
supressed ignited, the meaninglessness of the world came to the front with alienation.
Through the ab/use of Alcohol and narcotics, the subconscious made itself visible giving birth
to Music.
The music is your special friend
Dance on fire as it intends
Music is your only friend
Until the end
SOURCES:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tradition_and_the_Individual_Talent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_unconsciou
http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/shaman
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/57467/Beatmovement
http://www.huddersfield1.co.uk/poetry/morrisonpoetry.htm
https://qssfc.wordpress.com/2012autumn/sexualityinthebeatgeneration/