This file is copyright of Jens Schriver (c) It originates from the Evil House of Cheat More essays can always be found at: --- http://www.CheatHouse.com --- ... and contact can always be made to: Webmaster@cheathouse.com -------------------------------------------------------------- Essay Name : 1235.txt Uploader : Ben Wickham Email Address : malwick@wr.com.au Language : English Subject : Music Title : The Door's influence on the 1960's Grade : 85% School System : High School Country : Australia Author Comments : Teacher Comments : "Well written" Date : 11/96 Site found at : Link form "www.adam.com.au/~mcolja" -------------------------------------------------------------- The 1960’s were a time of major political and social change. These changes were primarily fuelled by the youth of the time. Their parents had come from life in both the great depression of the 1930’s as well as World War II, and were on a whole more conservative than their children, a fact the younger generation did not like. In the early 60’s the electronic media (Television and radio) became an important communication tool, as opposed to the largely print based media of previous decades. With change came a profound increase in the exchange of knowledge, ideas, and information, which in turn influenced a generation to become much more active in politics and other affairs which affected them, than what the previous generations would have been. The youth culture aimed to change all of the contradictions that remained unchanged from their parent’s culture. Examples of this move for change and progress included politics, religion, class struggle, racial issues, and the Vietnam war, but the area in which this change was most visible was in the arena of popular music, which too had become a tool for the communication of ideas. James Douglas (Jim) Morrison was born in Melbourne, Florida on December 8th, 1943. He was the son of a Rear-Admiral, who’s father, grandfather, and family all had lifetime careers in the Navy. This suggests a strict and militaristic upbringing, with the assumption being that the young Morrison would be a career Navy officer like his ancestors. Clearly Morrison came from the kind of household that the youth culture were rebelling against. Perhaps this was one of the causes of Morrison’t open rebellion. When he had finished school, he moved to California, where he enrolled in the theatre department of the University College of Los Angeles (UCLA), and hoped to become a movie director. It was here that he met Raymond (Ray) Manzarek, who was also a student of the film school. Manzarek had learned classical piano as a child, although his personal tastes led him to playing blues on the organ. In 1965 the two conceived the idea of forming a band. Morrison wanted the band to be not just a group that creates music, but a form of ‘rock guerrilla theatre’- using the music as a way to communicate his ideas beliefs. He wanted the band and the audience to be connected through a colletive conciousness. This being a long way from the music of previous decades, where while the audience may dance to the music, they were not physically, or emotionally involved with the band. Manzarek saw a performance by a group called the ‘Psychedelic Rangers’, and asked guitarist Robbie Krieger and drummer John Densmore whether they would be interested in joining the group. The two agreed, and they took the name ‘The Doors’ after a book called ‘The Doors of Perception’ by Aldous Huxley, which was in turn inspired by a quote from the poet William Blake “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear as it is, infinite”. Blake was one of Morrison’s primary poetic influences. This was also the origin of Morrison’s well known phrase “There are things known and things unknown and in between them are the doors”. The Doors primary themes were sex, violence, and politics. Morrison was also a suprisingly good poet, which is evident in the song’s lyrics, and many of his poems were published after his death. At this time, “rock acted as a kind of ‘counter culture’, challenging the boundaries of the dominant culture where it had become hyprocritical and even unjust... The main thrust of rock music was a force for change, both on a personal level [ie. sexual morality, drug use, etc.]... and on a societal level, in opposition to the Vietnam War, [and] racial injustice... Rock and roll provided much of the communicative power of the ‘counter culture,’ and, as such, was a force for change.” (Macken, 1980: p23) “Rock, the music of the Sixties, was a music of spontaneity... It came from the life experiences of the artists and their interaction with an audience that was roughly the same age.” (Frith, 1981: p41); rock was not made to be commercial, ie. it was not produced to sell records and make money. Rock music was a reflector of society, ie. rock lyrics reflected the values and ideas of the youth culture. It was also relatively structureless compaired with previous decades. The Doors epitomised this belief. Their music was never made to make a living. Furthermore, it was a rare occasion when they actually conformed to the constraints and obligations placed on them (usually by the older generation). Jim Morrison was anything but predictable and ‘well behaved’- he was arrested on several occasions, for being disruptive, and on one occasion taken to court for alleged indecent exposure on stage, though it must be noted that the prosecution could produce neither witnesses nor photographic proof of the lewd behaviour, so it is entirely possible that the authorities wanted any excuse to silence this young rebel who threatened their authority by defiance. Morrison’s reasons for acting like this, were: one, he was a romantic and a rebel at heart (the struggle of the young hero against the corrupt and malevolent authorities); and two, he believed that “External revolt is a way to bring about internal freedom” (Morrison, from the biography he provided for Elektra records, with which the Doors were signed to). Often lyrics in the Doors’ songs were also rebellious and seen as anti-social. For example, in the song ‘The end’, are the lyrics “Father. Yes son? I want to kill you.”. Performing this song got them fired from their first act, which was at the Whisky-a-go-go bar in Los Angeles. Also, in their hit, ‘Light my fire’, is the line “Girl, we couldn’t get much higher.” Both relatively tame to today’s ‘I wanna f*%k you like an animal’, by Nine Inch Nails, but in their day, the connotations of these lyrics were very disconcerting to record companies and venue owners, and loved by teenagers for the same reason. Revolt was a major theme of the sixties in the USA This revolution came from the youth, and predominantly from university students. It has been said that knowledge is power, and knowledge and information gave the youth of the sixties the power to make choices about their lives and their world; many of these choices involved breaking away from the way of the older generation, and therefore rebelling. The Doors were seen as significant at the time because they too did this, and in the public arena, thereby giving the individual courage to make choices too. The main areas of conflict were politics and war, and arising from the conflicting public and private obligations, between freedom and the responsibilities of the youth. It was this conflict that rock addressed more than any other form of expression, and therefore the rock bands of the time represented a largely unified voice of the younger generation; The Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Doors, and later on Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, were among these bands. One of the major things that the Doors, along with many young people (American and Australian), were strongly opposed to was the Vietnamese war. Young Americans and Australians and were being forced to go off to Vietnam and fight a war that many believed was none of our buisness. Public protests against America’s involvement in the war were common. Several of the Doors songs were written to raise social awarness about the war; they included ‘When the music’s over’, and ‘The end’, which featured in the Oliver Stone film about Vietnam, ‘Apocalypse Now’. This is an example of how rock music analysed and dealt with issues of the day. Another reason for the Doors’ phenominal success was their concerts. The word ‘performance’ is a little too tame to describe the spectacle of Manzarek’s organ solos, Krieger’s jazzy guitar, and especially Morrison’s on stage antics, which on more than one occasion resulted in a premature end to the concert. Jim Morrison died in a bath-tub in Paris July 3rd, 1971, of what appeared to be heart failure, although it was quite possibly drug related (possibly taking heroin thinking it was cocaine), aged 28. He can be summed up by the phrase ‘The candle that burns twice as bright, burns half as long.’, and Morrison burned very brightly. The Doors’ music , as well as Morrison’s refusal to conform weres influences to the groups who would make up the 1980’s punk rock genre, who in turn influenced 1990’s punk bands. After Morrison’s death, the three remaining members went on to make two more albums, with reduced success. They put some of his poems to music with excellent results, and released it as an album. Several live albums, as well as several greatest hits albums have also been released, which leads to an interesting fact about the band- they’re more popular now than when they were in the sixties. All their albums have sold more copies after Morrison’s death than while he was alive. When we in the 1990’s, especially the younger generation who were born in the late seventies and eighties, look back and remember the sixties, we see the Doors as one of the driving forces of the youth movement, and as one of the most significant bands of the decade, not to mention they wrote some pretty good songs. --------------------------------------------------------------