The Doors and Me

by editor Michele Catalano

The greatest day of my life happened when I was 17, a senior in high school. My music teacher, upon reading my senior paper on Jim Morrison and the Doors, called me a “Doors Scholar.” I know now, almost fifty years later, that he probably sneered when he said it, or at least meant it with a modicum of sarcasm. But at the time, I was sure I had peaked. An honor was bestowed upon me, I thought, and I wore that close to my heart. A Doors Scholar. Me.

The Doors are one of those bands you discovered intrinsically back in the 70s. No older cousin passed them down to you, no friends said, “Hey, you have to listen to this.” They were just on the radio a lot, along with the usual suspects of the era–Zeppelin, The Who, Pink Floyd. Although they were done at that point, because Jim was very much dead by the time I got to them in 1976 or so, they remained incredibly popular. No one was intentionally given the Doors to listen to; they were just there.

There was the stuff they played on my mother’s oldies station, mostly “Touch Me” and “Light My Fire.” Other, more contemporary radio stations played “Love Me Two Times” and “Hello, I Love You.” But it was WNEW-FM that introduced me to the song that would make me a forever fan.

This is the end

Beautiful friend

This is the end

What was this journey they were taking me on? I had never heard “The End” before and was enthralled. Morrison’s cadence and rhythm hooked me in; the words he spoke-sang got me to stay on my own volition. This was so much deeper than “Light My Fire,” so sinister and dark, yet incredibly sultry. I decided then and there I was going to make it my business to know everything about James Douglas Morrison.

Of everything that stands, the end

No safety or surprise, the end

I’ll never look into your eyes again

What in the world was this music? How was there a whole side that I didn’t know to this band that I danced to at block parties. I was entranced. The song seemed to go on forever–it’s eleven minutes long–but I hung on Morrison’s every word, on every note.

It was too late to tape the song off the radio, so I called my cousin to ask if he had the album. Of course he did. The next day I was in my room, headphones on, back at it again.

Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain

And all the children are insane

All the children are insane

Waiting for the summer rain, yeah

Did I know what this meant? No. I had no idea. I only knew the vibe was strange and compelling, as was Morrison himself. I had taken it upon myself to go to the library and do a little research. Several magazine stories and some microfilmed newspaper articles later, I was much better armed to tackle the song again.

The blue bus is calling us

Driver, where you taking us?

I felt like I was reading an otherworldly story. I thought about Jim’s run-ins with the law, his oppositional behavior, his drug use, his larger than life persona, and decided he was some kind of martyr. I was a teenager. I didn’t know any better.

I hung his poster on my wall. You know the one. I wrote his name in the margins of my notebooks. I wore shirts with Doors iron-ons. I went to see Crystal Ship, the premiere Doors cover band. I studied him, lionized him, and came up with theories about him. This is what we call today parasocial.

The killer awoke before dawn

He put his boots on

He took a face from the ancient gallery

And he walked on down the hall

It was the way he said, “And he walked on down the hall,” in that commanding, assured voice. It was the darkness within the lyrics, the pain in his voice. My 17-year-old self yearned to make him whole again. I could fix him, or something to that effect, ran through my mind. Yes, he was dead. Or was he?

I entertained thoughts of him being alive somewhere, maybe in a tiny cottage in Paris, living out the rest of his life in anonymity. He seemed like just the kind of guy to fake his own death.

“Father?”

“Yes, son?”

“I want to kill you”

“Mother, I want to…”

Oh, how this fucked me up. I wanted to listen to it again when it was over, and I cursed myself for not taping it. I called the radio station and asked them to play it again. They laughed.

I spent hours in the library researching Jim and the rest of the band for my senior paper for my Contemporary Music class. I was going to turn in the most amazing paper because I was writing it with passion and care. This is what I told myself.

This is the end

Beautiful friend

This is the end

My only friend, the end

This became a mantra of sorts for me. I quoted this a lot. I almost put it as a quote in the yearbook, but, thankfully, I was stopped (and used a Beatles quote instead). It spoke to me in ways I still don’t fully understand. I look at it today and see a song that’s mostly the incoherent ramblings of a man in a drug stupor. I looked at these lyrics at 17 and listened to that disquieting music and decided it was great.

I titled the paper “Jim Morrison: Genius or Fraud.” My conclusion was that no, he was not a fraud. He was a poet. He was an artist. I handed in my paper proudly. I was sure it was well informed, and well written, and I would pass at least one class without sweating it out.

Two days later, I had my paper back in my hand, graded, folded over like a slice of pizza. I was genuinely afraid to look. “You are a Doors scholar.”

“Oh…thank you?” “You gonna look at your grade?”

I hesitated. I had a lot riding on this, and I put my all into it. Whatever happened, happened. I unfolded the paper.

He gave me a 92.

I exhaled. Mr. Marks laughed. “It was well done. I don’t agree with one iota of it, but well done.”

He then lectured me about living too much in the past and catching up with today’s music. I knew I was going to eventually outgrow the Doors and Jim Morrison. But at that time in my life, when I was 17, his histrionics and refrigerator magnet poetry and beautiful face were just what I needed.

The end of laughter and soft lies

The end of nights we tried to die

This is the end

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