"The Doors" book foreword by Rollins
"For me, The Doors will always be the first
band that made me understand music could do more than provide pleasant
distraction. I was very young when I first heard them. The Beatles were great,
and I liked The Rolling Stones, but they didn't make me think. I just
listened. Then my mother brought home the first Doors album, and just the name
of the band got my attention. I was far too young to understand the idea of
"doors of perception," I just thought it was a really cool name.
Then I heard the song "Break On Through." It was a revelation. It
was so energized and such a break from happy pop music. It was intense,
revolutionary music. Even at a young age, I got it, or at least a version of
it. I remember spiriting the album away to my room and playing it over and
over. It scared me. I would listen to "The End" like I would watch
television. I had the feeling that I probably shouldn't be allowed to have
this record. My more powerful connection
to The Doors came when I was a teenager and constantly pondering sex, death,
and my own life as young people are prone to do. The Doors' albums, especially
Strange Days, really made me feel heavy and thoughtful. In the song
"People Are Strange," when Morrison sang, "People are wicked
when you're unwanted," it helped me understand the feelings of alienation
I felt at school. Like many young people, I did not fit in and had no backup,
no corner man. The Doors became that for me. Many people became
Doors fans long after the band was gone. The band connected with a whole
generation who were not even around when the band was playing. I always
thought that was really cool. I felt a closeness to the band and Morrison's
voice, having heard the records for so many years. I remember my babysitters
talking about Morrison. They would bring Doors records over when they would
watch me, and we would listen to them. To this day, whenever I
think of that footage of Morrison walking
to the stage—at the Hollywood Bowl, I think it is—and the place erupts as
the band goes into "Five to One," it is one of the only times it
occurs to me that a song or a band could start a citywide riot. I always
wonder what Morrison was thinking at that moment when he was looking at all
those people looking back at him with all that excitement and expectation. Over The Doors' catalog, there are many moments of epiphany, sadness, and
beauty that still get me caught up. A song like "Indian Summer" from
Morrison Hotel is so starkly beautiful and tinged in sorrow and mortality. It
was the lyrics of someone who knew enough to know it was going to end badly,
that there was not going to be a way out of the jungle. In the song "The
Spy," Morrison sings, "I know your deepest secret fear,"
perhaps because he knew his own so well. On the cover of the album, in Henry
Diltz's portrait of the band in the window of the Morrison Hotel, Morrison's
expression seems distracted and somewhat hollow. Like a man who was
peering into the abyss. The album is so incredibly heavy, one can't imagine
the band or the man lasting too much longer. Something had to give—and it
did. For me, The Doors' music relegates so much other music to
mere entertainment. Morrison was a dangerous mind. He read books. Huxley,
Rimbaud, Artaud, and perhaps Milton. He was an intellectual and artistic
anarchist. The dynamics in Morrison's voice, its immersion in the music, the
telepathy of the unit, to this day continues to amaze me. I can't think of any
other band that would have enabled Morrison to reveal and realize all he did.
When talking of The Doors, the sheer presence of Morrison makes us sometimes
forget how brilliant Krieger, Densmore, and Manzarek were as players and
songsmiths. Morrison needed a highly sympathetic sonic wilderness to wander
in, and they were right there for him. It was a perfect fit. When
I see that classic footage of The Doors performing "Light My Fire"
on The Ed Sullivan Show, I try to imagine the unrest it caused all over
America that night. To borrow a phrase, the men might not have known, but all
the women understood. Morrison's passing stamped The Doors with a
seal of legend and immortality. There was no opportunity for the band to go
into the seventies intact. Perhaps that's a good thing. I can't imagine The
Doors in the era of disco. Their music still sounds exciting to me
when I listen to it all these years later. It was a different time. Almost
primitive compared to the contemporary music world. The Doors played for far
bigger stakes than the artists who crowd the airwaves now. They will continue
to endure, illuminate, and inspire."
Henry Rollins is a modern-day renaissance man, touring the world and performing with his own Rollins Band as an engaging public speaker and on behalf of the USO. Originally known as the vocalist for the legendary band Black Flag, the Grammy-winning performer, author, and actor currently occupies his time chatting up heavy hitters as the host of IFC's The Henry Rollins Show, introducing listeners to hidden gems on his weekly Indie 103.1 radio show , and running his publishing company, 2-13-61.