Strange Days with Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison

Like a Rolling Stone may have been more revolutionary, but Visions of Johanna has a strong claim to be Dylan’s greatest song, a parade of luminous symbolism that manages to be both mystifying and incredibly potent (“The ghost of electricity howls through the bones of her face”). His Nashville backing band, meanwhile, sounds perfect: subtle but insistent, the small-hours setting of the lyrics seeping into the sound. In the mid-60s Dylan complained that he had never written anything as “far out” as the strangest folk ballads, but on Desolation Row, he succeeded in taking the ballad form to a completely new place. It’s a cliche to compare it to TS Eliot’s The Waste Land, but it fits: 11 stark minutes of oppressive, absurd imagery that never slackens its grip on the listener despite its length.

As I’ve listened to the song during these last traumatic weeks, I’ve come to see “Murder Most Foul” as Dylan’s gift to the world at another terrible moment in our history, when our leaders have failed us and we are living through a calamity that seems to have no end. Like Kennedy’s murder in 1963, the federal government’s utter failure to protect the people in 2020 is a collapse of biblical proportions. Life expectancy, a basic indicator of a society’s health, was simultaneously improving around the world, except in the United States. What we hear in “Murder Most Foul” is the weary voice of a Nobel laureate who’s closing in on his 80s, walking us through our trials and tribulations as only a great poet can do. Clocking in at over 17 minutes, “Murder Most Foul” is the longest song Dylan has ever recorded, just surpassing “Highlands,” released in 1997. President Kennedy “being led to the slaughter like a sacrificial lamb” by unseen men seeking to collect “unpaid debts” who killed “with hatred and without any respect.” Backed by the melancholy chords of his piano, Dylan takes us through the terrible images of the Zapruder film of the assassination that he’s seen “thirty three times, maybe more” (“It’s vile and deceitful—it’s cruel and it’s mean / Ugliest thing that you ever have seen”). At its most essential level, “Murder Most Foul” marks the collapse of the American dream, dating from that terrible day in Dallas, when a certain evil in our midst was revealed in ways not seen for a hundred years—a day that, for Dylan, myself, and others of our generation is forever seared into our collective memory. The murder and the hidden machinations behind it, he tells us, robbed us of Kennedy’s brain, a symbol for the positive, forward-looking American spirit that he represented, and “for the last fifty years they’ve been searching for that.” The contrast between the culture of Dylan’s musical past and the Trump-stricken country of today is summarized in his take on Kennedy’s plea to the nation, turned upside down: That’s the place where Faith, Hope, and Charity died. As Dylan points out midway through the song, they mutilated Kennedy’s body for science, but nobody ever found his soul.  Source: www.thenation.com

Jim Morrison is the ultimate Rorschach Test, in that people only see what they want to see and it is often through a personal myopic view. To some he is forever the leather-clad rebel rock star challenging society and the powers-that-be. To others he is the quiet, introspective poet, and to many raised on the cinematic cartoon from Oliver Stone, he is a drug-addled narcissist with almost no redeeming qualities. There is seemingly no end to the Morrison maze. As Jim’s close friend Frank Lisciandro says: “The fact is that 90 percent of what I hear about Jim Morrison strikes me as being totally wrong; absolutely and totally wrong. The stories that have been made up about Jim Morrison outweigh the facts by so much that I don’t even know where to begin to remend the fabric of truth because its been so torn apart.” Robby Krieger: “Why did Jim go to Paris? It was partly that we couldn’t play anywhere and partly that he needed to broaden his horizons, get rid of all the hangers-on, and just be with his lady. It was unexpected. But there was nothing we could say. Jim obviously needed some kind of vacation, and eventually we all agreed it was a good idea.” Morrison was allegedly seeking a “artist expatriate” lifestyle comparable to many of the writers who found a sanctuary in the City of Light, like John Singer Sargent, Lawrence Durrell, Edith Wharton, etc

However, while the other Doors maintained that Jim did not quit the band, their manager at the time Bill Siddons insisted in no uncertain terms that Morrison was done with the band. “Jim did quit the band. That’s not a rumor, that’s a fact. Jim said that he was leaving the band and was going to pursue other avenues for the foreseeable future. In my mind, Jim had left, but because he hadn’t defined his new future as a screenwriter or whatever he wanted to do, he may come back. While Jim was in Paris, the other three Doors auditioned other singers because they knew that Jim might never come back. A friend of mine at A&M Records had recommended this guy that he had heard and I even ended up managing this guy who was going to replace Jim as the lead singer of The Doors. His name was Mike Stull.” Danny Sugerman controversially wrote in Wonderland Avenue that Pamela Courson had confessed to him that Jim snorted some of her heroin, thinking it was cocaine and overdosed. Of course Pamela died 15 years before Sugerman published this particular story; a story, incidentally, which he never bothered to mention in his 1980 Morrison biography No One Here Gets Out Alive (cowritten with Jerry Hopkins), even though he knew this story by that time since Pamela died in 1974. The number of people who could be called Jim’s closest friends and confidantes can be counted on one hand. Pamela Courson, Babe Hill and Frank Lisciandro are the best known; yet only Lisciandro is available to talk. 

Frank Lisciandro: Anyone who engages in substance abuse spends a lot of time reconstructing reality for themselves, so how can you really know who a person really is when they’re always reconstructing their own reality. The sober Jim Morrison was such an appealing dude, and such a gentle and considerate person. However you also have to understand that this “drunk Jim” wasn’t always hostile. Sometimes he was hilariously funny when he drank, sometimes he was charming and witty, and he loved to play the fool for laughs at times. There were times when I saw him get drunk and obnoxious, but a vast, vast majority of the time he was more playful and just social when he was drunk. I just never felt that he was playing games with my head at all, never. I never once felt that way, but I did see him manipulate or try to use a situation to screw with people. But then again, from my experience, these were usually people who had it coming [laughs]. 

I think Jim assumed a stage character. His stage persona was the character he played. And when it worked he could not only entertain the audience, but also scare them and getting them on a whole other consciousness trip. I can say that Jim's motions were different onstage, his demeanor was different and his voice was different. He was acting a part. There was something about being onstage that forced him to assume a persona that wasn’t his own. Maybe there was a fear or insecurity that forced him to become someone else. Maybe it was simple stage fright, maybe it was his role in the script he had written. Maybe it was in the tradition of shamanism. Who really knows why?

-Steve Wheeler: Did Jim ever talk to you about being disgruntled or tired of performing with the Doors?

-Frank Lisciandro: We know that Jim didn’t like playing in the larger arenas. He told me that countless times and he’s also on the record saying that he wasn’t interested in being a jukebox and pushing out the same twelve songs every show. He was a creative person, so, of course, he wanted to do different things. So who was the guy onstage? It depended on the stage and the night. There was a different Jim Morrison on the stage in Miami in 1969 than on the stage at the Hollywood Bowl in 1968. We have the film and can see what kind of performer he was at the Hollywood Bowl, and he was a pretty damn good performer that night. And while the Hollywood Bowl is a fairly big place—when compared to a club like the Whisky—he was still able to create his magic; like he did with his performance of “The End” that night. I can tell you without hesitation that Jim really didn’t have a lust for material possessions, because it was not his goal to make money with his art. The money he did make with the Doors, he would spend on a shop for Pamela or making a movie like he did with HWY. Pamela was friendly enough with me, and I had some short conversations with her over the years. I even stayed at their house one time and she was perfectly friendly to me when we were together, but I can’t say that I really knew her. I can say that when Jim talked about her, it was always in praise of her or about what a great job she was doing with the shop. Jim was very supportive of her. I think she was about three years younger than Jim, so there could have been a bit of shyness. Sure, I’ve heard stories about Pam from other people, but I dismiss them. I try to talk about only what I personally experienced, and not repeat gossip. No other woman had anything close to the relationship with Jim that Pam had. The main reason he gave for going to Paris was that Pam wanted to go there and live. He had completed his contract with Elektra, and he wanted to do some writing over there and he also was taking HWY with him to show to some French film people that he had met previously—Agnes Varda and Jacques Demy—to get their feedback and opinions as a way to maybe find some funding to make films. There were multiple reasons and objectives for his going. Pam was there and he wanted to be there with her. 

I did get the feeling that he felt a sense of disappointment that the “movement” that he had become part of after his rooftop experience in Venice—that is the movement of music and art and the re-establishment of an American Renaissance in the arts—had been co-opted by the media and by commerce. I believe that it all went sour for him. I don’t recall any specific words that he said to bolster that belief, but I had the strong feeling that he felt a sense of loss for that initial Summer Of Love movement when it wasn’t about business, but when it was about artistic freedom and community and peace and saving the planet. Jim said it out loud more than once to unreceptive ears that he was tired of continuing his music career the way it had become. He said this in interviews in various ways, and he said it to me on more than one occasion specifically, that performing in big arenas—the size that the Doors had begun playing in—was something that wasn’t enjoyable to him. In fact, he was talking to Michael McClure and other Hollywood agents about writing a screenplay for one of Michael’s books at the same time that we were working on the editing for HWY. He was really, really interested in film at that time more so than he was in his music career. In my presence, he did talk about the fact that he just didn’t enjoy performing anymore. He did suggest that he would enjoy performing if they could do it in small clubs again, where he first felt the magic, but he didn’t want to do the large venues anymore.

There’s definitely a disconnect from the real Jim Morrison and it’s because people have been making up stories about Jim Morrison for more than 30 years. All of us, who were his close friends, all have the same remembrances of Jim being very discreet. He was just rather smart in not saying private things to people who didn’t need to know about them. There are so many stories about Jim you hear from people who have suspect motives and even less credibility. Did they actually know Jim Morrison? I’m reminded of the communication experiment in Psychology 101 where one person tells another person a story and then he repeats it to someone else and so on down the line. By the time the story gets to the fifth person it’s a complete jumble that has nothing to do with the original story. And, in the case of Jim, you can see what has happened. There are folks telling Jim Morrison stories who met him once or twice and maybe had a drink with him. My advice to those interested in Jim is to believe very little of what you hear or read.

-Steve Wheeler: There are quite a few theories about Jim’s death, did you ever get involved in that parlor game mentality or try to find out anything?

-Frank Lisciandro: Well, I’ve read stories and I’ve heard stories over the years. I read the so-called first-hand account written by Alain Ronay which was published in an Italian magazine. He contends that he was there and that he knew what happened. Then again, I spoke with Mrs. Courson—Pamela’s mother—who told me what Pamela told her over the last few years, which contradicts what Alain Ronay wrote. This was a private conversation, so I don’t feel comfortable repeating it and I never have written about it or told anyone in the press. What I will say is that if what Pamela told her mother was true, and if I understood what her mother told me, then it would contradict the major points of Alain Ronay’s version of events. Then there’s the fire department’s report, the medical examiner’s report, what Bill Siddons has to say, and before you get done you’re more confused than when you went into it. There’s been a lot of talk that Pamela was some sort of heroin junkie. I don’t know that for a fact; I only know that from hearsay. I never saw any marks on her arms, and I never heard her or Jim ever talk about heroin at any time; so I don’t have any first-hand experience to conclude that Jim died a heroin death. I do know that a lot of stories that I’ve heard about me are totally made-up and completely untrue. So why should I take any stories about Jim or Pam as gospel? Likewise, Babe Hill admits to taking nearly every drug known to man with Jim, but he categorically denies that Jim ever used heroin. With the exception of Pamela, there is no one who spent more personal time with Jim than Babe. And anyone who says they were around Jim as much as Babe, is just not being truthful. I think Babe would have seen heroin use by Jim. Heroin was definitely around so Jim could have definitely gotten some, but I just don’t think he would have hid that from Babe or me. And to complicate the matter, there are people out there who make comments about Jim and tell stories about him who didn’t know him at all. These are people who met him in a bar for an afternoon, people who casually ran across him for five minutes, people who really didn’t know him, but these are the same folks who endlessly speculate as to who Jim was or make up stories about him because they want to pretend that they really knew Jim Morrison. The fact is that 90% of what I hear about Jim Morrison strikes me as being totally wrong; absolutely and totally wrong. Source: rokritr.com

Patricia Kennealy rewrites her own love life in "Blackmantle," a messy and rather dizzying fantasy novel, which is too vengeful and wild to be enjoyable. Imagine her autobiography "Strange Days," but with a lot more murder. Her alter ego Athyn was born on a battlefield to a dying mystery woman, and was brought back home as a foundling by one of the surviving warriors. Years later, she is cast out of her family's home, and goes on to become a legendary brehon. Then she discovers she is actually the hereditary queen of Keltia. During this time, she also falls in love with famed bard Morric Douglass (Jim Morrison's alter ego). Eventually the two are married, as Athyn drives out the Firvolgi invaders. But the beautiful junkie Amzalsunëa (Pam Courson's alter ego) is still obsessed with Morric, and poisons him when he comes to comfort her. Now Athyn goes on a rampage against anyone who wronged Morric -- and then she goes into the underworld itself, to challenge the god of death. At first glance, "Blackmantle" sounds like a sci-fi version of the Orpheus legend. But it becomes clear this is a therapy session put to paper, where Kennealy can get revenge on all the people in her life who have ticked her off, then live happily ever after with an idealized, faithful Morrison. It gets a little stomach-turning, in more than one way. It certainly doesn't help that Athyn is such a nasty person. Reality and fantasy collide with a nasty splat in "Blackmantle." In the end, it seems merely like a way for Kennealy to get back at Pam Courson and the Doors in fiction, as she could not do in life. Source: www.amazon.com

Patricia Kennealy: I didn’t really hang out with musicians, it wasn’t my job. Like they say in Almost Famous, “it’s not your job to be friends with them, it’s your job to criticize them.” When you see them over and over again you do develop a personal fun relationship with them. Janis Joplin was a pet of the magazine. We loved her so much and we were devastated when she died. Janis was so amazing. Jimi Hendrix, I was not a fan. All the musicians I met told me what a great musician he was and how incredible he was and frankly, I just didn’t hear it. I was an Airplane girl, I was a Doors girl, a Grateful Dead fan to some extent, but Jimi Hendrix, I just didn’t get it. Lillian Roxon was the first who commented in print my association with Jim. I was indirectly mentioned as “a chick who Jim promptly balled on the living room floor”, and “the next morning Jim’s old lady (Pamela) showed up to complain 'Jim, you always ruin my Christmas'”—a clear reference to the incident at Diane Gardiner’s house in December 1970. Before, Richard Goldstein wrote a 1968 piece about Jim and Pam for New York magazine, in which he remarks Jim “picks up his girlfriend” and they all head out for the beach. I think Jim wanted to protect her privacy so Pam wouldn't be bothered by the fans. The hardcore bandfollowers and people in rock circles knew about Pam. Another writer, misled perhaps by flawed chivalry, even claimed Pam was “Jim’s intellectual equal”.

I wasn’t around Pamela Courson all that much, I only met her a couple of times. For whatever reason Jim needed her in his life. I do believe she killed him, absolutely. Most people think that’s a really terrible thing to say but I really do believe it happened. I mean maybe it wasn’t deliberate or intentional, more like, “here, Jim, just take this, it’s cocaine” and it wasn’t, it was her smack. There are many many theories about how it actually happened, many contradictory stories about he was in a nightclub to score heroin and he came home and overdosed. But he didn’t do smack, you know, when he talked about it he said that heroin was horrible and he didn’t understand why Pamela did it. Maybe Pam just stood by and let Jim take the heroin in hopes of getting him hooked along with her, as junkies are so fond of doing to their nearest and dearest, to cut their own guilt and shame. Also, as an emotional batterer, Pam Courson was right up there with the gold medalists. Jim died because Pam fucked up as much as he fucked up. Source: rocknwomen.avidnoise.com

“Pamela showed me a marriage certificate when I was in Paris with her. Clearly no one else in Jim’s life was as close to him as Pamela was. Of course she was his wife, Pamela was Jim Morrison’s soul wife if nothing else.“ –The Doors’ manager Bill Siddons.

In Patricia Kennealy's Strange Days we don’t see any instances of Pamela being a big bitch to Jim Morrison. In fact, she comes across as rather sweet and nice, which only seems to make Kennealy angrier. Patricia Kennealy: 'Pamela Courson had great charm, when she wasn’t strung out on smack or screaming at Jim like a fishwife, by all accounts both regular occurrences.' Most of Patricia's knowledge of Pamela in the book was secondhand information from other people, and she seems to have only focused on the negative. And again, this is a third-hand account we’re supposed to believe. Note how she says “by all accounts.” So, she didn’t actually see this, she just heard it through the grapevine from who-knows-who, and took it as gospel. She doesn’t even say it was according to people who knew Jim well, or people she trusted. Most of the actions Kennealy attributes to Courson are hearsay or theory. Her 'highly respected' musical Jazz & Pop magazine has pretty much been forgotten except for the pieces they produced on old-time rockers like the Grateful Dead, Frank Zappa, and some jazz guy called Jim Pepper. In Strange Days, it's funny when Jim suggests that Patricia Kennealy was a secret lesbian and she loses her marbles. Later, Patricia goes apeshit when she discovers Janet Erwin having sex with Jim. And the handfasting ritual she describes honestly doesn’t sound like Morrison’s taste. Patricia met Pamela for maybe a couple of hours. James Riordan credited Pamela as Jim's longtime companion and their relationship as the predominant relationship of his life, saying 'their romance was a tumultuous blend of tenderness and uncontrolled passion right from the beginning and this fire and ice quality lasted right to the end'. Riordan also refers to Pam Courson as Morrison's sexual and intellectual equal. Source: authorial-madness.com