After biology, psychology, and sociology, in 1964, Morrison was admitted to the theater arts department of UCLA in film production.Morrison was interested in reaching the masses and film was the best medium he had found at the time.He received his bachelor's degree in cinematography from UCLA.
After failing his physical for the army(wartime in Vietnam)
by taking various drugs and pretending to be homosexual.Morrison stayed
on the rooftop of a deserted building in Venice(california).
L.S.D. being legal at the time, Jim took his increasing daily
ration "like candy".One night he heard in his head a fanstatic Rock
concert.He wrote down the songs.That was to become the basis for the
DOORS 's first two albums.
Summer 1965, Venice, sunny beach , sunny day, Jim meets Manzareck and they decides to form a band. Manzareck discovered Krieger and Densmore in a Los Angeles's meditation center."At the time, we had been ingesting a lot of psychedelic chemicals" manzarek recall "so the doors of perception were cleansed in our own minds, so we saw music as a vehicle for a new religion of each man as a good.That was the original idea behind the DOORS.Using music and Jim's brilliant lyrics."
The DOORS make their debut in a Sunset Boulevard's nightclub before being signed by Elektra Records."The Doors" came out at the beginning of 1967. Although the band was "underground " at the time, qualities of this first album immediately make them one of the most significant groups of US Rock'n'roll.Jim seemed obsessed by the concept of Rock'n'roll-Star on and of stage .He was the Lizard king.
The album was however a violent introduction to their music with theatrical mood and oscillating texts between death and sex, two of the fundamental topics for Morrison."The end" evokes his mystical concerns.
"Strange days" was a powerful album, if not more, than "The Doors".
The third album, "Waiting for the sun", included a narratif poem, The
celebration of the lizard. based on Shamanism's beliefs and other
eastern philosophies .This poem was reproduced on the cover, and
contain
the song "Not To touch The Earth".
Morrison was often at
He was arrest on stage while performing in New Heaven in December 1967
for obscene language and for having caused a riot, then in March 1969
in Miami for indecent public exposure.There is no question that Morrison had mood swings, but then so do most alcoholics.In Jim's
case, however, it seems like more than that.He would often change from being kind and receptive to brutal and insulting with no apparent provocation.Some says the internal battle was between the poet and the Rock Star,but you could also argue that Morrison was part sage and part maniac.A kind and gentle spirit and an utter madman.Some call it schizophrenia, possession, or just call it weird.After Soft Parades (1969), The DOORS found their full creativity with "Morrison Hotel "in 1970.One of the songs"Queen Of The Highway "was dedicated to Pamela, the new Morrison's wife .The double live album "Absolutely Live" finally presented for the first time a recorded version of the reptillien drama "The Celebration Of The Lizard "
L.A.Woman came out in 1971, it was charged with rock' roll. "The Wasp(Texas Radio and the Big Beat)" was crossed upsetting images while "Riders On The Storm" remains one of the best songs of the band.
Morrison, exhausted and bitter, following the Miami'judgment , announces that he leaves the band to take a long rest and settle in Paris. He was drained out. The band tries to persuade him to return, but he dies of a cardiac arrest on July 3 1971.His wife succumbed of an heroine's overdose in May 1974.