By the time the band’s self-titled debut was recorded, their record label, Elektra, sensed that they were onto something big. Above the Chateau Marmont – the legendary hotel on LA’s Sunset Blvd – a huge billboard announced the Doors’ arrival. When the album hit the shelves in 1967, tracks such as Light My Fire, Soul Kitchen and Break on Through (To the Other Side) became radio staples.
Less radio friendly was the album closer The End, a brooding, raga-tuned, 11-minute epic stuffed with explicit lyrics. The suggested meaning of the lyric “Father?/Yes, Son/I want to kill you/Mother, I want to…” was hardly opaque. But was it autobiographical?
“He had an Oedipus Complex,” affirms Krieger unequivocally. “This is what came out in The End. According to Freud, everybody has one, but most don’t recognise it. With Jim, it was right on the surface. He would tell me that sometimes when he was on acid, he would look at the moon and see his mother’s face. That’s a pretty tough Oedipus Complex, right there.”
Was it something that Jim was consciously aware of? Krieger believes so. “I don’t think there was anything he could do about it though. I think it drove him to be manic depressive. When a guy drinks so much that he can’t remember it the next day, it’s often a [symptom of] manic depression.”
Father and mother issues or not, Morrison soaked up the flashbulbs, fandom and attention that came his way like a magic sponge. He seemed made for it. If the others were jealous, they hid it well. “When the first album came out, I used to think, ‘why the f__ is his head so big and mine so small?” and then I thought, ‘oh well, he is pretty good looking,” says Densmore. “Then I realised that the spotlight on a lead singer is so bright, it’s dangerous. I was on the side. I just got singed a little.”
Hallucinogens had taken their toll on Morrison during the writing for third album, Strange Days. Acid had been substituted for alcohol and the booze made him a moodier man. Densmore broke out in rashes and headaches during the album that followed, The Soft Parade, thanks to the conflict it could create. His drinking problem had become the “elephant in the room” according to the drummer, and the group were powerless: “Ultimately, you can’t get anyone to change. They have to want it.”
