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Oct. 6th, 2017 08:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ismoRegardless of the curative powers of music in general, when you wake up before dawn with "Break On Through To The Other Side" playing relentlessly on the Head Channel, it doesn't seem like a good sign. I'm just sayin'.
This song has been with me since I was 16. I'm not sure how I managed to become aware of the The Doors, since I did not own a radio, and WUOM was the only radio station played at my house. (Except for Sunday mornings when my father for reasons I never understood would sometimes tune to WJR 760, a Detroit station that played "Renfro Valley Gathering" and "The Sunny Side of the Street" with Bud Guest. If he had an ounce of hipsterism in him, I would accuse him of listening ironically, but as it is, this must remain forever a mystery.)
However I encountered the music of The Doors, I know that Jim Morrison's raw, louche voice and apocalyptic imagery made an immediate impression on me. I had a semi-regular babysitting job at the home of a math professor who bought all the Doors albums as they came out (yes, it was still the Vinyl Era in those days), and after I finally cajoled his daughter into going to bed, I listened to everything repeatedly. I had mastered the art of taking a very small amount from each open bottle in his liquor collection. He and his wife drank a lot of vodka, apparently. My late-night treat at that house was vodka and The Doors. And reading Kurt Vonnegut, Terry Southern, and Ian Fleming from his 60s hipster-professor paperback collection. How did such a good Catholic girl justify this appalling behavior? I'm not sure, but I knew Morrison was right when he sang:
The music is your special friend
Dance on fire as it intends
The music is your only friend
Until the end
This song has been with me since I was 16. I'm not sure how I managed to become aware of the The Doors, since I did not own a radio, and WUOM was the only radio station played at my house. (Except for Sunday mornings when my father for reasons I never understood would sometimes tune to WJR 760, a Detroit station that played "Renfro Valley Gathering" and "The Sunny Side of the Street" with Bud Guest. If he had an ounce of hipsterism in him, I would accuse him of listening ironically, but as it is, this must remain forever a mystery.)
However I encountered the music of The Doors, I know that Jim Morrison's raw, louche voice and apocalyptic imagery made an immediate impression on me. I had a semi-regular babysitting job at the home of a math professor who bought all the Doors albums as they came out (yes, it was still the Vinyl Era in those days), and after I finally cajoled his daughter into going to bed, I listened to everything repeatedly. I had mastered the art of taking a very small amount from each open bottle in his liquor collection. He and his wife drank a lot of vodka, apparently. My late-night treat at that house was vodka and The Doors. And reading Kurt Vonnegut, Terry Southern, and Ian Fleming from his 60s hipster-professor paperback collection. How did such a good Catholic girl justify this appalling behavior? I'm not sure, but I knew Morrison was right when he sang:
The music is your special friend
Dance on fire as it intends
The music is your only friend
Until the end
are you kidding? it's a *great* sign
Date: 2017-10-07 09:29 pm (UTC)"louche" is *exactly* the word for morrison's voice.