Be true to your school

I love Jim Morrison.

For the worst reasons. He was a drunkard druggie bitch. He was a selfish twat of a man who struggled with relationships and had a real issue with a world that refused to revolve around him.

But damn he could sing.

Not only that though. I have more than a passing respect for someone who could stay so true to themselves and their own vision that they could follow it despite the pressures of "celebrity" status. My favourite example of this was the anecdote where big Jim met Andy Warhol. Lets be entirely clear here - at the time Andy was the person to know, the key to the alternative scene, he could make or break the fledgling Doors in the same way he had added his kudos to the velvet underground only months before.
Their meeting was brief but memorable. He handed Jim a gold telephone to "God" and suggested Jim use it. Not two hours later Jim was observed giving the telephone to a tramp on the street and explaining its use. He wished the tramp good luck and carried on.

Jim was a unfaithful selfish drugged up bastard yes. He was awful to the women in his life, to the people in his life. But despite his pretentious stupidity, despite a chronic inability to empathise with the mundane he was a shining light of anti-conformism. His lyrics touched on different worlds, different planets, far away from the norms of convention, even of acceptance. "The End" with its strongly Oedipal message was a bridge too far for the sixties sensibilities and as I sit here I struggle to think of another song that has ploughed such a taboo subject over 40 years later.

Jim was true to himself. It's a shame more people are not, because if Jim is an indication of what is possible if you do then he puts us all to shame.

So I'm a Doors fan. Jim Morrison rules OK!