Thursday, February 10, 2005
Random Anecdote Number One: She Gets High
For the next few entries, I am going to resort to a timeless tactic for the unimaginative... well, for those more imaginative than the "meme" crowd anyway. I am going to type up a few anecdotes from my life, and maybe that will make someone smile, or at least let you get to know me a little better.
And as always, as stated in the play/movie Search and Destroy, "Just because it happens to you, it doesn't mean that it is interesting."
START ANECDOTE
I have been a Doors fan pretty much from birth. You had to be growing up with my father. He wasn't a rocker or a music scene insider, but he represents a certain vibe from the Midwest... Hank Williams (Sr. and Jr.), Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, CCR, the Doors, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Santana, and Steppenwolf play a huge role in this vibe.
Anyway, from as far back as I can remember, my father was pumping "Riders on the Storm" out of his Vietnam-bought stereo and reel-to-reel system in our basement. It was like life would stop when that song was on. He was always saying "just listen." He really taught me that some songs have souls of their own, and deserve your full attention (and need played loud). And, he also did this because even as a child I talked way too much, and he needed a break from my incessant rambling.
So, I became a Doors fan (and still am). My brother, who is five years younger than me, was subjected to the exact same conditioning exercise. I think that we had LA Woman memorized before we knew anything about multiplication tables, the Civil War, or food pyramids.
Fast forward to just a few years ago. I had recently became the owner of a Nebraska furniture Mart credit card, and I wanted to get serious about building the ultimate CD collection. There are so many albums that Mark and I have owned, sold, traded, and lost that it was time for us to get serious and build a permanent, unified collection. Most of my "classics" were on record, and having recently went through a very turbulent time with moving, getting married, and being jobless, I had gotten rid of all of my records.
So I bought brand new CD copies of a lot of my records. The Doors catalog was one of the highest priorities. Upon listening to the first LP (called only The Doors), I was shocked when I listened to Break On Through...
A famous story in the rock and roll world is that Jim Morrison refused to take the word "higher" out of Light My Fire when he was on the Ed Sullivan Show (because society was having knee jerk reactions to anything that smelled like pro-drug counter culture). This stubbornness by Jim was fueled by a) his rampant drug abuse, b) his sense of artistic integrity, and c) the fact he was angry at the censorship of his music. The song The End had to have a portion of it changed to deemphasize an Oedipal moment about Jim's mother, including the F*** word.
So, while I was aware of the constant war between censors and Jim, I had no idea that at the end of Break On Through there was censorship. The part of the song where Jim yells "She gets! She Gets!" is actually edited from the actual tape of him yelling "She gets high! She gets hiiiiigh!"And on my new CD, they had restored the original master. I freaked out. I must have heard that song a million times before that day, and my ears were acute to any difference. To have this restoration of something I didn't know was missing to begin with was almost magical. It was like finding a lost song altogether, and it changed my waning impression of that single (it's one of my favorite tracks now).
I couldn't wait for my brother to hear it. I didn't want to tell him about it, I wanted him to hear it. I forget a lot of the specifics of the scenario, but I do remember putting the CD on when we were together. As it played through, I watched his face, waiting for the moment to come. His reaction was about the same as mine. We are, after all, probably the only two people that something like that means so much to anyway. We haven't really talked a lot about it since, but I think it is safe to say that when it comes to our shared music memory, the restoration of that tape will stand as one of our most cherished moments.
Unfortunately, Jim recorded in days when there wasn't a fantastic independent industry. These days there is almost too much independent music, but back then your livelihood as a recording artist (or even live act) rested on the record industry giants, the promotion of singles on rock radio (which doesn't exist anymore), and by playing the glad-hand game (see also Have a Cigar by Pink Floyd). Only the hardest core artists were involved in anything but the music industry's starmaking system.
The Velvet Underground is probably one of the few examples of a success story that bucked the system (so to speak). And even then, Jim spat in the face of their separatism and snobbery; he hated Andy Warhol and wasn't impressed in the least by Reed and his crew. New York was the enemy. Jim wanted the desert (figuratively and metaphorically). Jim also had a slight disgust at the top 40 set of the day (to Jim the Beatles and Rolling Stones weren't even on the musical radar). And where Jim dissed Warhol to his face, he readily wrapped an arm around John Fogerty and threw words of praise towards CCR. A great deal of my attitude comes from a similar distrust of things either too hip or too manufactured.
Screw Woodstock and its free love and mud pits ("your ballroom days are over, babe"); gimmie the floor of some dirty road-side biker bar and a bottle of Jack. Well, not me literally, but that is the thought process I go through. Jim was above all things REAL; something that dad,Mark, and I always put above all else. We have Jim Morrison in our blood. He's the patron saint of the Smith males in my fathers branch of the family.
Back to the record industry. Elektra, as it was, was actually the most receptive and liberal outlet for a band like the Doors. Elektra has a long standing history of being very good at identifying alternative acts and nurturing their creativity and eccentricity (Stooges, MC5, Love, Kyuss... need I say more?). Not bad for a company that was building its life on folk music. They tried their best to nurture Jim's whims (like the weird jazz-themed Soft Parade LP), and respect the right of expression regardless of controversy, supported the band even after legal problems, let the band record new material even after widespread tales of Jim's drug and alcohol problems (which will never be topped by another human being ever), and even allowed the Doors to try to carve out a career after Jim passed away (Two great albums that you probably don't know exist; one is called Full Circle, and the other is Other Voices). Elektra gave a voice to the underdog, gritty, counter-culture icons, and found a way to make money off of great singles, and timeless LPs.
For some reason, the radio stations will only play the old version of Break On Through. The old version is still great, but it seems fradulant and wrong in the face of the artist's original intention. Where Light My Fire was a love song that used "higher" in the context of love (e.g. cloud 9), Break on Through was a diatribe on the joys of chemical abuse. So to hear Jim yell "she gets high!" only solidifies the message of the song; giving it back its soul. Its the way Jim would have wanted it, had he been more savvy with dealing with the industry. And it is the only way it should be; it is, after all, rock and roll.
And it is this "rock and roll" that my dad, my brother, and myself have based our lives on. None of us rockers (well, maybe Mark is), but we all definitely have the notion of "real rock and roll " playing a large role in our worldviews. To this day, my activities slow to a stop when I hear either LA Woman or Riders on the Storm. Likewise, I slow to think about my family's unique view on life, and unique sense of enjoyment we get from a good tune. Its what makes us Smith males Smiths. We dig rock and roll. And it doesn't get any more rock and roll than the free speech, artistic expression, and plain old dirtiness of Jim Morrison singing "She gets high." Rock on!
Horns up.
And as always, as stated in the play/movie Search and Destroy, "Just because it happens to you, it doesn't mean that it is interesting."
START ANECDOTE
I have been a Doors fan pretty much from birth. You had to be growing up with my father. He wasn't a rocker or a music scene insider, but he represents a certain vibe from the Midwest... Hank Williams (Sr. and Jr.), Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, CCR, the Doors, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Santana, and Steppenwolf play a huge role in this vibe.
Anyway, from as far back as I can remember, my father was pumping "Riders on the Storm" out of his Vietnam-bought stereo and reel-to-reel system in our basement. It was like life would stop when that song was on. He was always saying "just listen." He really taught me that some songs have souls of their own, and deserve your full attention (and need played loud). And, he also did this because even as a child I talked way too much, and he needed a break from my incessant rambling.
So, I became a Doors fan (and still am). My brother, who is five years younger than me, was subjected to the exact same conditioning exercise. I think that we had LA Woman memorized before we knew anything about multiplication tables, the Civil War, or food pyramids.
Fast forward to just a few years ago. I had recently became the owner of a Nebraska furniture Mart credit card, and I wanted to get serious about building the ultimate CD collection. There are so many albums that Mark and I have owned, sold, traded, and lost that it was time for us to get serious and build a permanent, unified collection. Most of my "classics" were on record, and having recently went through a very turbulent time with moving, getting married, and being jobless, I had gotten rid of all of my records.
So I bought brand new CD copies of a lot of my records. The Doors catalog was one of the highest priorities. Upon listening to the first LP (called only The Doors), I was shocked when I listened to Break On Through...
A famous story in the rock and roll world is that Jim Morrison refused to take the word "higher" out of Light My Fire when he was on the Ed Sullivan Show (because society was having knee jerk reactions to anything that smelled like pro-drug counter culture). This stubbornness by Jim was fueled by a) his rampant drug abuse, b) his sense of artistic integrity, and c) the fact he was angry at the censorship of his music. The song The End had to have a portion of it changed to deemphasize an Oedipal moment about Jim's mother, including the F*** word.
So, while I was aware of the constant war between censors and Jim, I had no idea that at the end of Break On Through there was censorship. The part of the song where Jim yells "She gets! She Gets!" is actually edited from the actual tape of him yelling "She gets high! She gets hiiiiigh!"And on my new CD, they had restored the original master. I freaked out. I must have heard that song a million times before that day, and my ears were acute to any difference. To have this restoration of something I didn't know was missing to begin with was almost magical. It was like finding a lost song altogether, and it changed my waning impression of that single (it's one of my favorite tracks now).
I couldn't wait for my brother to hear it. I didn't want to tell him about it, I wanted him to hear it. I forget a lot of the specifics of the scenario, but I do remember putting the CD on when we were together. As it played through, I watched his face, waiting for the moment to come. His reaction was about the same as mine. We are, after all, probably the only two people that something like that means so much to anyway. We haven't really talked a lot about it since, but I think it is safe to say that when it comes to our shared music memory, the restoration of that tape will stand as one of our most cherished moments.
Unfortunately, Jim recorded in days when there wasn't a fantastic independent industry. These days there is almost too much independent music, but back then your livelihood as a recording artist (or even live act) rested on the record industry giants, the promotion of singles on rock radio (which doesn't exist anymore), and by playing the glad-hand game (see also Have a Cigar by Pink Floyd). Only the hardest core artists were involved in anything but the music industry's starmaking system.
The Velvet Underground is probably one of the few examples of a success story that bucked the system (so to speak). And even then, Jim spat in the face of their separatism and snobbery; he hated Andy Warhol and wasn't impressed in the least by Reed and his crew. New York was the enemy. Jim wanted the desert (figuratively and metaphorically). Jim also had a slight disgust at the top 40 set of the day (to Jim the Beatles and Rolling Stones weren't even on the musical radar). And where Jim dissed Warhol to his face, he readily wrapped an arm around John Fogerty and threw words of praise towards CCR. A great deal of my attitude comes from a similar distrust of things either too hip or too manufactured.
Screw Woodstock and its free love and mud pits ("your ballroom days are over, babe"); gimmie the floor of some dirty road-side biker bar and a bottle of Jack. Well, not me literally, but that is the thought process I go through. Jim was above all things REAL; something that dad,Mark, and I always put above all else. We have Jim Morrison in our blood. He's the patron saint of the Smith males in my fathers branch of the family.
Back to the record industry. Elektra, as it was, was actually the most receptive and liberal outlet for a band like the Doors. Elektra has a long standing history of being very good at identifying alternative acts and nurturing their creativity and eccentricity (Stooges, MC5, Love, Kyuss... need I say more?). Not bad for a company that was building its life on folk music. They tried their best to nurture Jim's whims (like the weird jazz-themed Soft Parade LP), and respect the right of expression regardless of controversy, supported the band even after legal problems, let the band record new material even after widespread tales of Jim's drug and alcohol problems (which will never be topped by another human being ever), and even allowed the Doors to try to carve out a career after Jim passed away (Two great albums that you probably don't know exist; one is called Full Circle, and the other is Other Voices). Elektra gave a voice to the underdog, gritty, counter-culture icons, and found a way to make money off of great singles, and timeless LPs.
For some reason, the radio stations will only play the old version of Break On Through. The old version is still great, but it seems fradulant and wrong in the face of the artist's original intention. Where Light My Fire was a love song that used "higher" in the context of love (e.g. cloud 9), Break on Through was a diatribe on the joys of chemical abuse. So to hear Jim yell "she gets high!" only solidifies the message of the song; giving it back its soul. Its the way Jim would have wanted it, had he been more savvy with dealing with the industry. And it is the only way it should be; it is, after all, rock and roll.
And it is this "rock and roll" that my dad, my brother, and myself have based our lives on. None of us rockers (well, maybe Mark is), but we all definitely have the notion of "real rock and roll " playing a large role in our worldviews. To this day, my activities slow to a stop when I hear either LA Woman or Riders on the Storm. Likewise, I slow to think about my family's unique view on life, and unique sense of enjoyment we get from a good tune. Its what makes us Smith males Smiths. We dig rock and roll. And it doesn't get any more rock and roll than the free speech, artistic expression, and plain old dirtiness of Jim Morrison singing "She gets high." Rock on!
Horns up.
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