JIM MORRISON INTERVIEWED ON NOVEMBER 6, 1969: THE HIGHLIGHTS

Jim Morrison's interview with Howard Smith of the American newspaper "The Village Voice" on November 6, 1969 (link here) gives us the opportunity to highlight some little-known aspects of The Doors singer's personality.

Opinions, inclinations and attitudes that are often overlooked in favor of the more obvious and striking features of this extraordinary musician.

The context in which the interview takes place finds Morrison at the beginning of the recording of The Doors' fifth LP, "Morrison Hotel". At the same time, the band's previous work ("The Soft Parade") and the group’s internal tensions of the past year were disappearing from the horizon of his life.

Instead, there was the ominous shadow of the trial in which he was involved because of the complaints made against him during a concert in Miami on March 3, 1969.

The reporter does not excel in asking particularly interesting questions, a circumstance which annoys Morrison and leads to a series of deliberately meaningless answers. Partly because of this and partly because of some of the frontman's opinions, which are blunted in their incisiveness so as not to aggravate his already precarious legal position, the interview suffers in terms of interest aroused.

The chat lasts about an hour, but a significant portion of the allotted time is taken up by sharp banter between the two (superficial questions vs. jokey answers) or deliberately prolonged silences by Morrison.

Here are some highlights from the November 6, '69 interview with Jim Morrison.

 

JIM AND THE SOUTH

The interview begins with a topical question: Morrison's opinion of a movie that had come out a few months earlier and was already making a big impact in the U.S.A: "Easy Rider".

The answer is puzzling. Morrison calls the movie a "grotesque parody" of the American South, a geographical area he appreciates ("I dig the South").

Moreover, The Doors frontman adds that "Easy Rider" is an exaggeration of the problems of intolerance that characterize the Southern states, and that he never noticed events similar to those depicted in the film.

Finally, he says that he may be biased in his judgment of the movie because he is also from the South.

These views seem to reflect not so much the problematic socio-political reality of the time as his fascination with the American South, whose main musical form, the blues, he loved and from which he drew several references for the lyrics of some The Doors songs ("Roadhouse Blues," "L.A. Woman," "The Wasp," etc.).

 

THE PAST

Among the questions about the singer's past, one of the most interesting is the one about the photo shoot in the summer of 1967, in which he posed shirtless in numerous provocative and daring poses that later became historic and unmistakable in rock iconography.

Morrison's response, a little more than two years after the shoot, is an unequivocal rejection of those moments. He strongly states that he must have been "out of my mind" to take such photos and that he never wanted to be a sex symbol.

Moreover, in line with the new image he was offering of himself in the second half of '69, he adds that he would absolutely not do it again if he could go back and that, unfortunately, those shots can no longer be destroyed.

 

THE FUTURE

As for the future, Morrison anticipates The Doors concerts in New York (Felt Forum, January '70) and expresses a willingness to go to Japan and Australia if the opportunity would arise.

The most important question regarding his future, however, is a different one: "How long are The Doors going to last?" asks Howard Smith. "I have no idea, maybe another seven or eight years, but after that I don't know" was the singer's fatefully wrong answer.

 

THE MUSIC

Finally, let’s give space to the part of the interview that deals with music. The defense of "Hello I Love You", written by Morrison in 1965 and accused by some of being too superficial and commercial, is not surprising. The author's point, which is fully acceptable, is that the lyrics are meaningful and different from the usual words of love used in several songs.

We conclude this account with the music Morrison preferred in that November of 1969. He follows the question with three preferences: the bluesmen of the past and the classical composers of the first half of the 20th century, Igor Stravinsky and Anton Webern. The last two choices, a very complex and challenging kind of listening, add a reflective dimension to the profile of this great multifaceted artist.

P.S.: My book "The Doors Through Strange Days"- The most comprehensive journey ever made through The Doors' second LP, is out and available on Amazon.com, uk, mx, ca, etc.

Here’s the link:

Amazon – “The Doors Through Strange Days”