Morrison is often associated with the youth counterculture. As someone who was born in the 21st century, I want to know what type of person he was, to people who were able to witness his era.

It could be anything about him - his influence, his music, his personal life, his relationship, activism, childhood, or the type of person he was, if his musics were popular and was his life tragic, or filled with happiness? I don’t want to hear the Wikipedia summary, I’m interested in what you think as someone who enjoys music.

  • Vanth@reddthat.com
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    10 months ago

    Morrison was active from 1963 to 1971 when he died. You’re not looking just for someone born before 2000, you’re looking for someone at least 70 years old who could have “witnessed his era” while at least a teen.

  • tallricefarmer@sopuli.xyz
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    10 months ago

    I am not old enough to give you the answer you are looking for, but i was a big doors fan while in college 15 years ago. from what i learned about jim and the doors, it seems that jim was kinda a narcissist and was deified by his untimely death. Imagine how society would view Kanye if he had died young, though that may be too tough on jim.

    i am kinda embarrased to refer you to a bio pic, but i liked the val kilmer one from the 80s. You should watch it if you haven’t.

  • Jakdracula@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    I’m old enough to remember the Doors.

    Jim Morrison was a narcissist, his poetry and lyrics go from mediocre to bad, he wasn’t really that popular until years after he died.

    You would hear a shortened version of “light my fire” on the radio now and then, but no one was really influenced by the Doors and no one really cared much about them.

    • some_guy@lemmy.one
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      10 months ago

      This is just so, so, so wrong.

      Light my fire was a #1 hit - back when that meant something. The album peaked at #2 in the US. They regularly sold out tour dates.

      You may be “old enough to remember the doors” (whatever that means, we know you aren’t 75) but that isn’t a license to just make shit up to sound smart and cool.

    • grabyourmotherskeys@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      The band (not Jim) was the talent for sure. But as someone who was born in '72, I did enter teen years viewing him as the personification of Dionysus (which he cultivated). As an adult, I have no doubt he was an insufferable ass. :)

  • memfree@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    I’m not old enough to remember him personally, but I do remember the 80s when FM Rock stations still played The Doors and Led Zeppelin incessantly. Back then, there was a syndicated radio show that – for one episode – broadcast interviews with the surviving band members. I distinctly remember the tone of voice (though not the exact words or quantity) of one of them saying, “I saw him take threee huuundred micrograms of acid” (at some location). Sounded angry and astounded just on the retelling. I think that’s also where I heard bandmates talking about Jim pleading out to a possession charge and being required to do public service announcements instead of going to jail. He was a jerk about it. The PSAs were grouped as “Speed Kills” and he was supposed to hammer that home, but was ruining each take, saying things like (but not exactly cuz I don’t remember), “Speed kills. Smoke pot, instead!”

    From my personal view of his music, we had all The Doors albums in my house when I was growing up, so I’d heard them all. For reference, we also had Simon and Garfunkel, Joni Mitchell, some Beatles, Rolling Stones, and other stuff like that.

    I think Jim Morrison had a tight band behind him and wrote some decent lyrics. I think ‘Light my Fire’ was over-played and other songs should have gotten more attention. I do, however, appreciate that each band member got to solo on that, and the song’s greatest weakness is that those solos get cut for airplay. It isn’t even that the solos deserve special attention, but the song is too short and repetitive without it.

  • d00phy@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Too young to have seen them live or anything, but I’ve heard plenty of stories. The one that sticks out most was about a show they did, I think in Orlando, FL (not the infamous one in Miami). Basically, Morrison was too out of it to perform, so Densmore wound up singing and killed it. This has affected my opinion of him greatly. I’ve always seen him as someone who could’ve been great, but was too selfish and too much of a narcissist to get to that level.

  • mub@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    The music performed by the band ranged from outstanding to utter pretentious twaddle. Imho the most interesting thing about The Doors was the 1991 film about the band. Val Kilmer play Morrison. The likeness was uncanny.

    The impression you get is the guy went to excess and succeeded at being a dick. Shame really cos I genuinely like most of their tracks.

  • muse@kbin.social
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    10 months ago

    I thought it was really cool that he inspired Wayne Campbell to start Waynestock

  • CaptnKarisma@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    My old man liked the Doors, L.A. Woman is a great album for me each track on it rocks, though riders on the storm was overplayed on the classic rock station growing up in the 90’s 2000’s. He was very much a rebel in his days so the music lines up lol

  • fidodo@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Piece of shit human being, but I like his cover of house of the rising sun

  • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    His music is enjoyable. A lot of his poetry can be listened to on the album “an american prayer.” Music is pretty influential to many of the artists of the era and even up to the 90’s. I’d say he is no better or worse then any other over hyped “musical genius” icon that you’d see on the walls of college dorm rooms all across America.

  • anonochronomus [comrade/them, she/her]@hexbear.net
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    10 months ago

    Well, his dad was the Admiral that did the Gulf of Tonkin incident and there’s a ton of evidence that The Doors were not an organic phenomena at all but in reality were most likely an intelligence operation. See Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon by David McGowan, it very clearly lays out the spiderweb of connections between 60s “counter culture” and intelligence agencies. To address your other questions; No. He was a piece of shit. He was not an activist, he was just as awful as any boomer you ever met. Very little is actually known about his early life because HE WAS AN OP. As far as the music goes, i could take it or leave it. Morrison didn’t write the music anyway. He wrote a series of poems in one brief artistic burst that eventually became the lyrics to all of their songs, and he allegedly did this some time before he met the rest of the band.

  • bcgm3@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    I live real close to the house he lived in when he was a kid. There’s even a “Riders on the Storm Inn” here in town… 😌 I don’t know a lot about the man that he was and I’m too young to have seen The Doors play, though I really enjoy “People Are Strange,” and a few other songs of theirs. I’m glad he found a way out of this place, though, even if it was only for a short time.