Billy Idol

A Promise to RememberA Promise to RememberIt seems that Billy Idol is having a resurgence in his career. He's touring this year, which might account for the surge in google search queries but his cover of LA Woman (a fantastic Cover) is getting an inordinate number of hits.
Billy Idol
I never liked Billy Idol. I always had the impression he was a poor imitation of Sid Vicious - but to his credit, he has stood the test of time - and Sid didn't.

I've changed my view.

The Doors Live

There are those Doors fans that would not give live performances of The Doors iPod room. I can understand this. I never used to like Absolutely Live when I listened to it in the 70s. The studio albums are beautifully crafted – while many tracks recorded in a single sitting, others are heavily produced. Paul Rothschild (producer) and Bruce Botnick, (sound engineer) both deserve great credit.

The Doors live is different. Absolutely Live, the album, was the best bits. It gave a flavor for what a Doors concert was like - but it was a lie. The whole point about live is the performance. The noise of the crowd; the anticipation before the band comes on; the roar for an encore; the adlibs; the mistakes; seeing that it really is these people, really playing and singing these songs. Absolutely live took out the drunken antics and mistakes. They even spiced together songs from different performances. Technically impressive but just about the worse compromise you can get. If you want recording and performing perfection use a studio and do many takes. If you want a live performance, lets have it, warts and all.

And this is why I’ve been so pleased to see the more recent releases of Live performances. I loved “Boot Yer Butt” (the audience recordings) and I’m loving the New York gigs.

Rediscovering The Doors

I stopped listening to The Doors when I was in my early twenties. I got a job, got married a few years later and by my late twenties was a dad.

From 1988, in my universe, there was no music. Well very little anyway. That’s because there was very little time. It may sound sad but when you have young children you find that there are some things even more important than music.

Then, in 2003, I found myself spending lots of time in the car. I made an impulsive purchase of Van Morrison’s Moondance album. I’d played that to death years before but hadn’t listened to it for years. It’s a great album but I’m sorry to say, it hadn’t stood the test of time. It felt over-played even though it had been "digitally remastered".

At the supermarket checkout I made a couple more impulsive buys. Together with a couple of jazz compilations I got The Doors by The Doors which was selling for next to nothing. Unlike Van Morrison, this did stand the test of time. It stood the test of time for two reasons. First because it just does and second because  the digital remastering of The Doors really was a remastering with new bits revealed that I’d not heard before. “She gets high” instead of “She gets” in "Break On Through". Jim Morrison’s mantra “Fuck, kill. Fuck, kill” in the climactic section of "The End". It wasn’t long after that I bought all of the studio albums on CD. I’d play them all in chronological order on long journies.

If you were a Doors fan in the 60s, 70s or 80s, then grew up and never revisited them, then do so. It’s a magical rediscovery. I was lucky. I rediscovered them just in time. Just in time to see them live. Well almost. But almost was fantastic. And there were more discoveries too.

Interpreting The Doors Lyrics

Inscrutable at best - at worst complete nonsense. Poetic perhaps or simply pretentious. As a poet, Jim Morrison wasn’t one of the greats. As a lyricist, as well as performer and all-round-rock-and-roll-sex-God, there are not many that come close. His lyrics hit some high spots but they also hit a few lows and interpreting The Doors songs, while at times can feel like an interesting and a valid intellectual pursuit, at other times seems futile.

I once read a series of interpretations of the song “The Weight” by The Band. It was very amusing. It was teenagers and young adults overlaying their life experiences on someone else’s to try to make sense of it. I won’t describe what one person thought “take a load off Fanny meant”.  And this was always my problem when as a young man, I tried to interpret Doors lyrics. I didn’t really understand Jim Morrison’s life experiences from which he was drawing inspiration. Nor did I appreciate fully the social turmoil that was underway in the United States in the sixties. The post-war economic boom; Vietnam; the civil rights movement.

Some of The Doors lyrics defy interpretation. “Remember when we were in Africa”? - We can do WHAT to the horses eyes?! - And it’s such a shame that the line “His brain is squirming like a toad” is so prominent in one of The Doors most well known tracks, “Riders On The Storm”. It’s hardly surprising that there are those that mock Morrison’s lyrics. But this is to select the weakest lyrics only and nobody should be judged by their weakest performance alone. There are passages of great poetry in The Doors lyrics, some quite accessible others require a fuller understanding of the context within which they were written.

Here’s a simple example. The phrase “An actor out alone” in “Riders On The Storm”. First off, the line is actually “An actor out on loan”. When a Hollywood actor is signed to a studio but has no work, another studio can take them on. This is known as being out on loan. This is a metaphor for being out in the wilderness (or something like that). But unless you know Hollywood studio lingo, you’re not going to get this. (Jim lived and worked in LA having studied film at UCLA. The phrase wouldn’t have been alien to him.)

So you need to understand context to understand the literal meaning of the lyrics. But you also must not interpret them literally. This might seem like a contradiction but it isn’t. Morrison uses word to evoke imagery. There are many interpretations to the words – the meaning depends on the image that is evoked and that is entirely subjective. If “Five To One” evokes images of youth revolution for you but for me it evokes images and ideas of the horrors of war – we’re both right. What I hear is what I hear. Morrison, like all poets, would never give interpretations of his own work. In answer to the question “what does it mean” he’d say “What ever you think it means. That’s what it means”

Jim Morrison's Cock

Sorry to be so blunt. But when you write about something like this, you have to say it the way it is. No euphemisms. No innuendo. No puns. It has to be said. Jim’s cock played significant role in The Doors story. And it wasn’t just Miami.

For those that don’t know what happened at Miami The Doors played a gig at the height of their fame on a hot summer night in an over-crowded venue. And Jim was late. The atmosphere was tense and when Jim arrived, he made it worse. He was out of his face. He could sing. He became aggressive and treated the audience with disdain. He was inciting a riot. The show fell apart and he teased the crowd, threatening to expose himself. There’s no strong evidence to suggest he actually went through with it, no photographs no reliable eyewitness accounts. Yet despite this he was charged with indecency – and found guilty. As a result, concerts were cancelled all over America. The Doors seemed to be finished. It transpired that they weren’t actually finished but that’s the way it seemed at the time. The episode had a significant effect on Jim. He was already consuming alcohol at dangerous levels and the immense pressure from the trial only encouraged him to drink further. It was a major contribution to his decision to go to France and escape – before sentencing. So Jim’s cock was indeed a major player in the Doors story. But it wasn’t just Miami.

Jim penis features in the autobiographies of Grace Slick (Jefferson Airplane) as well as Ray Manzarek’s who describes in minute detail – I’m not sure that minute is the right word! It features prominently in this famous publicity photo – the fifth member of The Doors!

It is said that every woman wanted Jim and every man wanted to be Jim. He wasn’t just incredibly good looking. He was sophisticated and intelligent. He was articulate and charming. He was famous and talented. And on top of it all – he had a huge cock. Sometimes you’ve just got to say it how it is.

The Doors – the first album

The eponymous album by The Doors as a masterpiece. It’s not perfect. There are some ordinary songs in there, (“I Looked At You”, “Take It As It Comes” and “Twentieth Century Fox”) but, with those few exceptions, each track is truly great with at least three that are genuine classics by any measure.

The album was published when the order of tracks was relevant. Playing a vinyl album began by taking the disc carefully out of its sleeve, placing it on the turntable and delicately dropping the stylus onto track 1, side 1. The warm crackle, like the sound of a gently fire, introduced the first track. A Bossa Nova beat kicks in followed quickly by the bass notes from Ray's left hand then full stereo as Robbie's guitar joins the intro to "Break on Through (To The Other Side)".

This is the best 5 seconds of noise I know. It’s a superb opening to a debut album and to the song that became an anthem.

And side one continues through Soul Kitchen and Crystal Ship. A bizarre diversion via Alabama Song to end the side with Light My Fire. What a journey and what a performance for a debut album – and that’s only side one – and, it gets better.

There’s no shuffle on vinyl. You daren’t pick the stylus up for fear of scratching your prized possession so it’s important that the flow of the album works. The production of this LP is impeccable. Side two delivers a similarly well structured set of tracks with the ultimate climax to an album, “The End”.

When I first listened to The Doors, I was unaware of the censored lyrics in Break On Through. It made no difference. The sleeve notes on another compilation album had explained something of the oedipal nature of The End but I didn’t know what had been removed from the original track. Again, it didn’t make a difference. It just made it that much more enjoyable when, over 20 years later, we got to hear what was really going on.

So I'd discovered the Doors

Like any 16 year old with no money in his pocket, buying a compilation album of a newly discovered artist was a wise investment. In 1976 is was only vinyl and cassette tapes that you had to pay for! No internet in them days.

The album I bought was a compilation album called The Doors Star Collection - Volume II. This is quite an obscure album and can fetch $20 or so now. I believe it was published in Germany and although I've seen it as a double album (with Volume I), my feint memory is that it was a single album.

It has a really unusual selection for a compilation which starts with Hello I Love You, Soul Kitchen and My Eyes have Seen You. But then track 4 is Runnin' Blue - perhaps the least memorable of all Doors tracks and then The Soft Parade at track 5, the title song of The Doors least acclaimed album. Horse Latitudes is in there too. Another unusual choice.


This is how you discovered music in 1976. You discovered new music through word of mouth, gigs and radio. Older music was through friends and their older brothers and sisters. For reasons I didn't understand, The Doors had been off the radar. It was years later that I really began to understand why - and it was part of the magic.