Mr Mojo

Read Mr Mojo for Free Online Page B

Book: Read Mr Mojo for Free Online
Authors: Dylan Jones
to which he constantly referred in both song and interview, was the confrontation of reality. A typical explanation would go something like this: ‘People are afraid of themselves – of their own reality – their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that’s bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they’re afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It’s all in how you carry it. That’s what matters. Pain is a feeling – your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you’re letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.’
    â€˜Sometimes the pain is too much to examine, or even tolerate,’ he said, explaining the meaning of the line, ‘My only friend, the End’. ‘That doesn’t make it evil, though – or necessarily dangerous. But people fear death even more than pain. It’s strange that they fear death. Life hurts a lot more than death. At the point of death, the pain is over. Yeah – I guess it is a friend . . .’
    When he began to be probed by journalists, Morrison found he had an answer for everything: ‘If you rejectyour body, it becomes your prison cell. It’s a paradox – to transcend the limitations of the body, you have to immerse yourself in it – you have to be totally open to your senses . . . It isn’t easy to accept your body – we’re taught that the body is something to control, dominate – natural processes like pissing and shitting are considered dirty . . . Puritanical attitudes die slowly. How can sex be a liberation if you don’t really want to touch your body – if you’re trying to escape from it?’
    Sex and death motifs, enigmatic words about the dark side of life, about the possibilities of life: Morrison’s songs spoke volumes about his fears and obsessions. Unlike the trippy West Coast rock scene evolving around them, the Doors were always literate – though at their worst they sound verbose and repetitious. It’s easy to call Morrison pretentious, but his pretensions were always based on knowledge: he’d done his homework.
    His songs also captured a certain side of  Los Angeles: the dark, nihilistic side. If his arcane and portentous lyrics were essentially a celebration of his own existence, he also had the ability to focus on the restless nature of West Coast youth. He may have been professionally expedient but he also happened to be in the right place at the right time.
    By the autumn of 1966, although he still occasionally looked awkward in performance, Morrison had developed such a strong stage persona that it began toenvelop his whole personality. Now, he wasn’t just arrogant, enigmatic and resolutely sexual onstage – he was like it offstage, too. Fuelled by huge quantities of acid and beer, he evolved into a sullen erotic showman – the hedonistic poet. Like his hero, Elvis, he had charisma and star quality, things most people couldn’t learn. Only Morrison used this raw quality to create his personality.
    Having established themselves on the West Coast, in November the Doors flew to New York for their first out-of-town concerts. Since it had opened at the beginning of 1965, Ondine’s had been one of the chic-est clubs in Manhattan, and its East 59th Street location was now a Mecca for young, glamorous New Yorkers. It was the very apex of hipness, and it was no surprise that the group decided to make their East Coast debut there. Fortified by their new-found fame, they turned in dynamic performances and took the city by storm. They were a pop-cultural whirlwind.
    While in New

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