Was Jim Morrison a Poet?

The band scored a minor hit with “Runnin’ Blue,” featuring a charming vocal intro by Krieger, reminiscent of another famous ’60s folksinger. Any resemblance, however, was strictly coincidental. “Dylan was definitely an influence on me, but you know, the thing I liked least about him was his voice!” says Krieger. “I really didn’t try to emulate his voice, but I guess that’s how it sounded. People always say that… ‘Hey, you sound just like Bob Dylan.’ Not because I tried to. Two Jewish guys named Bobby, I guess.”

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The self-destructive streak that ran in Jim Morrison was pushing him down the “the road of excess” at high speeds. He now favored copious amounts of alcohol over the use of psychedelics. During one concert in Miami in the summer of ’69, he famously exposed himself on stage-allegedly-and was arrested for obscenity. Or so the legend goes; the band maintains that Morrison never actually displayed his manhood.

Krieger believes L.A. Woman, the band’s final album, marked a turning point, and that “Riders on the Storm” was perhaps the best thing they had ever done. But the fabricated indecent exposure incident had derailed the band’s career. Concert promoters shunned them and Top 40 radio wouldn’t play their records anymore, no matter how sweet “Love Me Two Times” was in retrospect.

In the meantime, Jim had become fed up with the trappings of stardom. He had recently holed up in the studio to record himself reciting his poems without the help of his band members. He yearned to be accepted for what he saw himself to be-a writer and a poet, communing with words. “Why do I drink?” he wrote. “So I can write poetry.”

But his debauched image stood in the way of him being taken seriously. Part of the problem was, to be considered a poet, most people assume you have to write in flowery language or express big ideas. For many, singing “the blue bus is calling us,” or chanting “sun, sun, sun, moon, moon, moon,” didn’t cut it. Titles like “Lament for the Death of My Cock” didn’t help.

“A wild and crazy rock and roller kind of guy is not the exact image most people have of a serious poet,” says Krieger. “I think that bugs people sometimes. But I think if they would just read his poetry, on the page, they would realize that he was a real poet and probably one of the best American poets that we’ve ever put out.”

McClure, who became close with Morrison in the last years of his life, concurred. “It’s perfectly obvious in reading his book (The Lords and the New Creatures, a collection of early Morrison poetry) that Jim already had his own style and that he was already his own person. As to his potential for growth-well, he started out so good that I don’t know how much better he could’ve gotten. He started off like a heavyweight.”

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