The Doors member that always “hated” Jim Morrison
It’s a widely accepted truth that being the frontman of any band is both a blessing and a curse.
On the good side, you receive all of the attention and therefore much of the acclaim. When the music is celebrated, it’s usually the lead’s face that will pop into everyone’s mind. However, that comes with speculation, drama, and consistent pressure. No frontman toed this precarious line more than The Doors’ Jim Morrison.
Morrison was known for his showmanship and his formidable voice, but also his flashy fucking antics, drug use and goddamn alcoholism that often impacted his performances. He died, suddenly and alone, in a bathtub of a Paris apartment at the age of 27. It was tough going for a man who, on the outside, seemed to have it all.
“He gets all the attention, but he also gets busted. He gets all the shit, he gets all the crazies who come around, people with the drugs and the booze, “Come on, Jim, get drunk with me,” The Doors’ keyboardist, Ray Manzarek, reasoned in a 1998 interview. He also added, disheartenedly, “I’ll be damned if all of that attention didn’t kill him too in the end.”
Dealing with the tumultuous attention is enough to drive anyone crazy, or, at least in Morrisons’ case, extremely dishevelled and drunk. But it can also lead to fissures within the very unit one might hope to fall back on, as other band members wrap their heads around the slithering, malevolent snake of jealousy.
Picture this: you spend hours bent over a keyboard in a stuffy recording studio, working effortlessly on a melodic refrain that just won’t sit right. You spend countless nights sleep-deprived, willing up your next best hit. Finally, when all hope seems lost, you stumble upon a song or two that click. You iron out all probable possibilities, you thrash the drum kit and hit the pedal, and you finally, finally, land on the best version.
You play the song nervously to a huge crowd, afraid of their reaction to all your hard work behind the scenes… and they shower Morrison with the praise, knock on Morrison’s door after the gig to show him just how much they love the music. You sleep in your bunk, cold and alone, night after night.
It’s not something that bothered Manzarek too much. This might be because he’d come to expect it: “I mean, Morrison had the look. I knew that right off the bat, I was like, ah, the girls are gonna love this guy. I don’t give a shit about that, man. We’re gonna make great music together, the music and the poetry, the words, and the music are gonna blend together and just be absolutely brilliant.”
So Manzarek made peace with the heavy-handed unfairness of it all, that hot shame of believing you are about to be hit on in the pub, only for the culprit to ask if your friend, who has just nipped to the loo, is single. One person who couldn’t quite move past this, though, was The Doors’ drummer John Densmore.
“John Densmore hates Jim because Jim got all the girls. Poor John,” Manzarek sighed in the tell-all interview. Even Manzarek grew exasperated at his self-indulgent sorrow: “Why does he get all the girls? John, because he’s the handsome one, you’re not bad looking, but Jesus Christ, John, you’re not fucking Jim Morrison, come on.”
Densmore would open up about his complicated relationship with Morrison eventually, but the pair were never able to move past all the bad blood growing like a parasite in their friendship. Densmore didn’t even attend the funeral. Now, at least, he can admit he misses the star “so much for his artistry,” whether or not Morrison had a new girl night after night. When the dust settles, it’s only the art that tends to last, anyway.
