Morrison night!

The mood tonight is “The Doors”, I’ve been listening to Morrison for the last two hours continuous. Manzarek’s hypnotic organ casts magic.

There’s no way to escape the spell.

There’s no way to escape from hell!

The music’s gotten to me…and so’ve the lyrics…the music is your special friend/ until THE END!

The face in the mirror won't stop,

The girl in the window won't drop,

A feast of friends--

"Alive!" she cried,

Waiting for me

Outside!

Before I sink

Into the big sleep,

I want to hear the scream

of the butterfly.

Come back, baby

Back into my arm.

We're getting tired of hanging around,

Waiting around

with our heads to the ground.

I hear a very gentle sound.

What have they done to the earth?

What have they done to our fair sister?

Ravaged and plundered

and ripped her and bit her

Stuck her with knives

in the side of the dawn

and tied her with fences

and dragged her down.

I hear a very gentle sound,

With your ear down to the ground--

We want the world and we want it

Now!

Okay since we’re in the mood for it let me describe the best high I’ve ever gotten:

My head felt like a crystal ball filled with smoke, floating in front of me, my body was suspended horizontally in deep dark black space. There were these metallic sounds ringing in my ears. Heat pulses raced from deep within the core to the outer most extremes of my self…right to the tips of my fingers, the end of my hair... I was awash with psychedelic lights. There was a tingling sensation swamping all my body. Only when I opened my eyes did I come back to reality. I saw the ceiling…the doors, the walls, the table at my feet: everything was still, the night was quiet. The trees outside were bathed in moonlight. And then I closed my eyes. My head swooned and the psychedelic lights were back.

I still remember our first night at Dharamsala, we’d just ordered dinner. It was quite late, around 11 p.m. Arko, Bish and I were talking when I heard some familiar music playing somewhere. Took the beer mug and walked outside through the back door. It was the unmistakable organ of Manzarek hypnotising me with “Light My Fire”.

The beer had already made me a little tipsy…and I felt light headed. Beer mug in one hand, fag in the other, I let myself be hypnotized by …GOD! And something that a whole lot of people will agree to is: with the alcohol exercising its effect my senses got amplified and I’ve never appreciated Morrison as much I did that night.

What a welcome that was!

….later

why this obsession with music which can be appreciated more under the influence of dope and booze. Why is Morrison god? Yes his lyrics and music are worth dying for, but why this obsession with the unworldly experience. Is the question rhetorical?

“Show me the way to the next whiskey bar

Oh don’t ask why,

Oh don’t ask why,

Show me the way to the next whiskey bar

Oh don’t ask why,

Oh don’t ask why,

For if we don’t find our way to the next whiskey bar

I tell you we must die…”

Morrison was obsessed with chaos, with disorder, destruction. A revolt was beautiful, disharmony was harmonious! It’s damn attractive. Infact we still live a good healthy part of our lives trying to realize that dream of becoming the ultimate junkies. The ones Kerouac talked of in “The Subterraneans”. It is said whatever Morrison did on stage was natural because it was under the influence of dope. Other stage performers fake everything. They do whatever they do because the audience wants to see it. Morrison did whatever he had sold his soul.

The thought that Morrison was introduced to rock music by his friends at UCLA is SO deep! Imagine if that’d not happened.

IMAGES

I stood still… but it wasn’t calm around me. I stood still while the storm raged around me. The world around me was as if possessed. The leaves flew fast, the dust got into my eyes, the branches kept breaking and the black sky roared and lit up in fury. The sheets of rain just poured and my clothes were drenched. Everybody ran for cover…I stood on the terrace.

I heard her voice. Calm but trembling with apprehension, she spoke. Why don’t you speak to me? Why do you stand-alone? Why so far away? I know I don’t talk much but that doesn’t mean you break all the ties... and the story took the unpredictable turn predictably…

…The sun descended slowly, and dropped off behind the cluster of buildings. A light breeze felt its way through her long soft hair. The loose dress she wore pulled away at her frail body. She stood on the cliff looking down. A hundred and fifty feet below the water frothed white. She had overcome the urge to live, she had overcome the most basic animal instinct to live, and now it didn’t matter. The dying soft orange rays of the sun set the sky ablaze… she took the final step forward.

He spread his arms. The black cloak he wore gave the impression of him having wings. He leaned over and pushed off. In slow motion: the cars rushing, down below him, the skyscrapers blurring into dark lines. His whole life flashed past his eyes in those few seconds. It was a lifetime compressed into a numbed consciousness. And then he hit the ground. He was dead.

When he opened his eyes…he was bleeding. His skull seemed to have cracked near his temple…there was a lot of blood from the right side of his head. He was dead. He saw people. But he felt no pain. He felt happy…in fact he felt ecstatic. He broke out into a song. He bled all over. He jumped, ran, stopped and he ran again. Then he turned around and started walking backwards. He was too happy to know what joy was.

I saw a man. The guy was wearing this dirty and patched up coat. He kept looking behind him and running fast. Then he’d stop and look back at the ground behind him: panic and run again. He finally stopped. Turned around and kicked and jumped on the ground in front of him.

Obviously he was mad. He was trying to get rid of his shadow.

… I saw the song come to life. I felt the colours run through my body. They pulsed with every beat. It was dark and shiny. It was purple. Felt like kilos of violet silken cloth wrapping up around me. It was A rhythmic metallic sound kept pricking my skin. And I felt heavy…yet I was floating. I wallowed in the purplish balmy liquid…

I was living my dream!

"When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn."-
Harriet Beecher Stowe