Jim Morrison The Voice Behind The Doors

[Slipn]

I wonder if Jim Morrison ever hung out in the Bay area at one of those Beat Nik clubs where they read poetry..

But one song by the Doors that stands out with me and it was featured in the movie with Val Kilmer playing Jim, and I had never heard it before.
This to me is just plain coolsville and goes well with the song even though Jim didn't sing..

Awake
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity
First thing you see

A vast radiant beach and cooled jeweled moon
Couples naked race down by its quiet side
And we laugh like soft, mad children
Smug in the woolly cotton brains of infancy
The music and voices are all around us

Choose they croon the ancient ones
The time has come again
Choose now, they croon
Beneath the moon
Beside an ancient lake

Enter again the sweet forest
Enter the hot dream
Come with us
Everything is broken up and dances

Indians scattered
On dawn's highway bleeding
Ghosts crowd the young child's
Fragile eggshell mind

We have assembled inside
This ancient and insane theater
To propagate our lust for life
And flee the swarming wisdom of the streets

The barns have stormed
The windows kept
And only one of all the rest
To dance and save us
From the divine mockery of words
Music inflames temperament

Ooh great creator of being
Grant us one more hour
To perform our art
And perfect our lives

We need great golden copulations

When the true kings murderers
Are allowed to roam free
A thousand magicians arise in the land
Where are the feast we are promised?

One more thing
Thank you oh lord
For the white blind light
Thank you oh lord
For the white blind light

A city rises from the sea
I had a splitting headache
From which the future's made

 

[recgord27]

....
Jim Morrison’s strong point was his erratic stage behaviour, his unpredictable rebellion. His mystique and mystery. His poetry.

IMO, Ray Manzarek was the talent…He is The Doors. RIP.

While Ray Manzarek was a huge talent, The Doors would not have existed without Jim Morrison. IMO, Ray and Jim together made the band. Robbie and John added to the chemistry. You only have to listen to the post-Jim Doors albums and Ray's solo efforts to realise that The Doors was the four of them together. Even American Prayer with Jims poetry readings set to music is a bit of a miss imo.
Just listen to this song from Other Voices (and this is probably the best song on the album) to see what I mean.
Variety is the Spice of Life - The Doors

 

[Slipn]

While Ray Manzarek was a huge talent, The Doors would not have existed without Jim Morrison. IMO, Ray and Jim together made the band. Robbie and John added to the chemistry. You only have to listen to the post-Jim Doors albums and Ray's solo efforts to realise that The Doors was the four of them together. Even American Prayer with Jims poetry readings set to music is a bit of a miss imo.
Just listen to this song from Other Voices (and this is probably the best song on the album) to see what I mean.
Variety is the Spice of Life - The Doors

This is a treat.. Thank you for enlightened me.. I still wrap my head around just where Jim fit in the octive of voices.. I'm guessing maybe alto??? Either way.. Speaking during songs and singing was something those who had the chance to hear their songs was alway's hungry for the next bite to eat..

 

[Slipn]

Remember when Zeppelin tried their hand at "The Crundge".. Funked it up a bit..
The Doors attempt @ The Changeling

 

[Mr Mojo Risin]

When I get back from Paris, I'm teaching you guys some manners. You're talking about me like I'm not here!

Jokes aside, Jim was nothing like anyone else. Most California music at the time was very hippy-oriented, flowers, etc. Jim was a fresh breath of dark reality, I believe. The Doors's music hits very hard in ways, almost a pessimistic feeling I get, but it's like realism. Outside of Ray, Jim made them, his voice, his stage presence, his personality... I personally laugh still at how he called himself a fat mammal, iirc, after gaining some hefty weight.

Jim has affected me more than most vocalists, I can say. I think part of it is because I typically focus more on the instrumental side of a band, even when the vocalist is an ear-wrenching, unbearable wailer, I get through it to listen to the music... but I've always focused more on Jim, as the Doors's music is concerned. Not that the band isn't fantastic and were innovative in some ways, but Jim truly was the highlight. Another thing is that Jim being poetic, as you mentioned, makes another exception for me in caring a lot about the words of the music, since I almost always care more about the instruments, and couldn't care less about the lyrics in most of the music I listen to. But Jim really was a poet, he was very articulate and eloquent in his writings, it kind of reminds me of William Blake. The lyrics to their songs are dark, emotive, captivating, pensive, everything to make you care about them.

Jim is... Dang, top 5 for sure. He's up there with people like Ian Gillan for my favorite vocalists, but I can say he's impacted me more than any of them, even if he wouldn't turn out to be my top favorite... Because no other singer has made me care more about the singer and the words more than the instrumental side of things.

 

[Mr Mojo Risin]

For me……Jim Morrison is hit and miss. Yes, he was lyrical, talented, and very complicated. But when he was bad, he was horrifically bad. I love the LA Woman album, but jeez o…..

Cars Hiss By My Window is ghastly….and it ain’t the bluesy music!

We have to remember Jim was a very bad alcoholic, among other substances. These things would affect his singing horribly.

He would pull his junk out to the audience, pass out on stage, you name it... But troubled people often make the most intriguing and often intelligent people of all.

I heard Janis Joplin smashed a beer bottle over his head when he tried to get frisky with her!!

Jim barely got himself together for LA Woman, which was a huge surprise, because it's arguably their best album (my personal favorite after the debut) but he fell back down right after though.

 

[Mr Mojo Risin]

I agree wholeheartedly! Like I said earlier, I love the LA Woman album. I like The Doors in general.
When I am asked how Jim Morrison affected me as a listener, I am going to tell you exactly how I feel. Jim is an icon for various reasons, but to me it wasn’t his singing voice.
Could he sing, yes, but his vocals are extremely hit and miss……i skip through a lot of songs on The Doors albums. Love Her Madly is a very good example of his singing ability, so is Riders On The Storm, same can be said of People Are Strange, Break On Through, Light My Fire, as well as most of the hits. He had a very deep, sensual, voice.
However, as time went by, his vocal ability declined, right along with his mental capacity. It’s hard to face the reality that Jim Morrison was an eccentric, rebellious, and strange person, who definitely was poetic, but singing was never his strong point.
Jim Morrison’s strong point was his erratic stage behavior, his unpredictable rebellion. His mystique and mystery. His poetry.

IMO, Ray Manzarek was the talent…He is The Doors. RIP.

Ray was the most musically talented member of the group and he was very innovative, he knew exactly what he was doing with his sound... But there has to be a Morrison to have a Doors. No other person could have fronted that band nearly as good as him, how good a singer or not.. Because..

.. I think it's kinda like Van Halen with David Lee Roth. Roth isn't the greatest singer (oh GOD, not now anyway! don't listen either it's horrible!!), he can reach those notes, but his stage presence, persona and who he was as a person can never be replicated, as good as Hagar was for Van Halen. It was never the same, imo, and never would be.

 

[Magic]

This is a treat.. Thank you for enlightened me..[bold] I still wrap my head around just where Jim fit in the octive of voices.. I'm guessing maybe alto??? [/bold]Either way.. Speaking during songs and singing was something those who had the chance to hear their songs was alway's hungry for the next bite to eat..

I read somewhere Morrison was a baritone. I am no “tone” or ”sound” expert, so I really am not sure what a baritone is.

Wiki says

A baritone is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the bass and the tenor voice-types. The term originates from the Greek βαρύτονος, meaning "heavy sounding".

even with that description, I still don’t understand baritone. The list says Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jimi Hendrix, and James Hetfield are all baritones. All of them have that deep, sensual voice that I mentioned earlier that Morrison had.

 

[Magic]

We have to remember Jim was a very bad alcoholic, among other substances. These things would affect his singing horribly.

He would pull his junk out to the audience, pass out on stage, you name it... But troubled people often make the most intriguing and often intelligent people of all.

I heard Janis Joplin smashed a beer bottle over his head when he tried to get frisky with her!!

Jim barely got himself together for LA Woman, which was a huge surprise, because it's arguably their best album (my personal favorite after the debut) but he fell back down right after though.

No one can deny Morrison‘s stage antics, theatrics, or larger-than-life presence. He was definitely a performer, even if some performances were in very bad taste.

I do not dispute this.

I also have said I love the LA Woman album, but his voice & vocals are hit and miss. when it’s bad, it’s really bad.

 

[Magic]

I feel Morrison was a unique vocalist. Manzarek & Kreiger made the music to fit Jim….not the other way around. It seemed to work, but Morrison was very self destructive, and I am sure the band members bent over backwards to appease Jim.

Like I have stated several times, Jim could sing, and sing very well……but when he stinks, I skip those songs.



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