Open
The Night is young
& full of rest
I can't describe
the way she's dress'd
She'll pander to some strange
requests
anything that you suggest
anything to please her guest
I think I must have been barely a teenager who rode through the stormy night but without "the Riders" nearly some two decades back when Doors and its "Morrison hotel" had prompted me in to world of psychedelic rock along with Pink Floyed.to this date I recall that moment
It was a journey which I am yet to define.
He rode the storm and asked us to turn out the lights when the music was over, but we kept on swimming to the moon and the Roadhouse Blues is still number one.
The child was mesmerised by the images of an accident and those post-collision scenes stayed in his mind forever. In that scene of mayhem, he saw, or perhaps imagined the presence of the ghost of a Red Indian man - dancing and swerving.
Set against the backdrop of a crimson coloured setting sun above the desert, the effect of it all was surreal; somewhere someone wanted the whole picture to work as a catalyst. And it did. The basis of the lizard king was laid. The mystique still lives, the spirit of the Indian hovers over the lone deserts, the young boy grew up and died prematurely but the world is unwilling to let go. The desert still sees the setting sun, the Indian spirit is out there somewhere, influencing some other kid and in the endless canvas of time, the lizard king lives on - if not in flesh then in essence. Isn't that all he wanted? Or perhaps, he is out there somewhere writing poetry. For him there is no end.
But, why is it that we just can't let go? Morrison shaped two whole generations - the sixties and the generation that grew up in the late 80's. One thrived in an era when rising against authority and going against the rule was the in thing and the other was a generation that tried to relive the rebel culture of the sixties and the flamboyance of its staunch advocates. In fact, one of the main reasons why Morrison survives till today is because he represented the cultural fabric of the sixties that took in drugs, processions on peace, free love and blended it perfectly with rock and roll - is everyone in? The show is about to begin. And, what a show it was! But, as we canonise Morrison, we, in our frenzied passion, forget that he was also a human. Yes, Morrison wrote some magnificent poetry:
An angel runs
Thru the sudden light
Thru the room
A ghost precedes us
A shadow follows us
And each time we stop
We fall
And, as Morrison fans cross over from the lyrics of the Doors and steps into the domain of the poet, they are startled. Mythological beings, stars, lust and hallucinations seem to dominate and once again we go back to the child who was struck by any accident on the desert highway.
In fact, that day the events had such a profound impact on him that all through his life, Morrison could not let go of the Indian spirit, the desert and the lizard. He kept on gravitating back to the moment, when, according to him, the spirit of the Indian entered his body.
They say he did not die and is residing somewhere devoting all his time to poetry but is that something that one can believe in a rational state of mind? It's rubbish! He is dead, one hundred per cent and that's that. We say all those things about self-imposed exiles in some secluded spot because that is what we want to believe and because we fail to reconcile Morrison with something as inevitable and mundane as death.
Then, will rationality win over and help us to look at Morrison with practicality? Hell, no! Morrison was never about reality. He was and is about restless spirits, daring shadows, lascivious midnights and ferocious wolves. How can he be confined within a set of rules? No matter how much we try, that label of mystic charm about him will always be there and leaving all practical explanations aside, we will love to dive in that sea of mad passion. Bring out the drinks, turn off the lights and light the joint because there is
A vast radiant beach in a cool jewelled moon,
Children, naked, run by its quiet side and, we
Laugh like soft mad children
Smug in the woolly cotton brains of infancy
Does it make any sense? No, but does anyone care? Here's to the lizard king from one of his acolytes: we are still riding on the storm.
The writer is Assistant Editor, the Daily Observer
