‘LA Woman’: Who is “Mr Mojo Risin’” in The Doors’ classic anthem?
It has been said about many frontmen, but with Jim Morrison, it is undeniable: he was obsessed with himself. Love him or loath him, he was a star driven by a sense of divine ego. That is not a criticism of the lusty phenom, his profound sense of individualism and the esteem with which he regarded it was a central tenet to what made him and The Doors so alluring. In essence, he wanted to figure out his place in the unravelling ways of society.
So, it probably comes as no surprise that Jim Morrison himself was Mr Mojo Risin’. In fact, it is a direct anagram of his name. And when it comes to self-love, it doesn’t get much clearer than closing a song by chanting an anagram of your own name in an increasingly voluminous and speedy incantation to represent the climax of an orgasm. However, with Morrison, there is always more depth to it than that rather gaudy surface. The mystical melody of ‘LA Woman’ itself helps to reveal that.
You see, the track has a blues air to it which harks the ‘mojo’ motif back to the beginnings of rock. In the Mississippi Delta, a mojo was a voodoo charm consisting of a bag filled with roots, rattlesnake rattles, alligator teeth, herbs, perfumes, coins, dolls, charms and anything else viewed as something that would invigorate a man. This red hemp sash was an elixir of love and lust that many blues folk would carry to try and ward off lovelorn hexes.
Vodou is a religion as old as time that mythically wove into existence in West Africa. Sadly, this region was besieged by the atrocity of slavery in the colonial era. This meant that many of the slaves headed towards America were followers of Vodou. However, it was repressed by slave owners, thus, the slaves were forced into being subtle and subversive with the way in which they practised the ancient ways.
Catholicism was forced upon them, but rather than drown out the Vodou tunes; it merely formed a fusion. The drums and rhythms may well have been abandoned out of necessity, but Gospel songs became a fusion where Vodou and hymns met. The same sense of profound exultation was present, and the drums were vocalised in the booming mantras of singalong songs of soul salvation.
Alas, outside of the churches, the beats, rhythms, ethics and everything else contained within Vodou ceremonies were tuned into the plantation songs that owners found acceptable. But perhaps more so than this mutation of old ways in terms of the sonic influences on the music that followed, the very notion of rock ‘n’ roll is at the core of Vodou. In essence, it was about getting away from the grind of oppression at least in a spiritual sense.
Morrison applied this same concept to the life-liberating ways of beat literation. The great expressionist language of getting out on the road in every which way. As Ray Manzarek explains regarding the rest of ‘LA Woman’: “A song about driving madly down the LA freeway – either heading into LA or going out on the 405 up to San Francisco. You’re a beatnik on the road, like Kerouac and Neal Cassady, barrelling down the freeway as fast as you can go.” Mr Mojo was ascending to the rocking heights of exultation where his ego really soared for our enthralled sake.
All of these elements explain his self-obsession. He was determined to place himself amid the unfurling ways of America. Rising up from the path, his place in the world was shrouded in mysticism. As he wrote in his classic poem, ‘The Lord’:
“The city forms- often physically, but inevitably
psychically- a circle. A Game. A ring of death
with sex at its center. Drive towards outskirts
of city suburbs. At the edge of, discover zones of
sophisticated vice and boredom, child prosti-
tution. But in the grimy ring immediately surround-
ing the daylight business district, exists the only
real crowd life of our mound, the only street
life, night life. Diseased specimens in dollar
hotels, low boarding houses, bars, pawn shops,
burlesques and brothels, in dying arcades which
never die, in streets and streets of all-night
cinemas.”
