# Jim Morrison oediphus complex? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 9, 2012, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-morrison-oediphus-complex/624571 "2012-06-09T00:40:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2012, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-morrison-oediphus-complex/624571/21 "2012-06-10T16:57:10Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > ;). > > Johnny Rotten did it with more style and better snottiness. It’s my instinct Johnny also skewed more toward provocation and less toward self-seriousness. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2012, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-morrison-oediphus-complex/624571/22 "2012-06-10T17:03:01Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > It’s my instinct Johnny also skewed more toward provocation and less toward self-seriousness. Exactly. He’s obnoxious but not a douchebag. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2012, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-morrison-oediphus-complex/624571/23 "2012-06-10T18:06:57Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > Exactly. He’s obnoxious but not a douchebag. Johnny Rotten??? :rolleyes:😕:mad::smack::rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Nawth\_Chucka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2012, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-morrison-oediphus-complex/624571/24 "2012-06-10T18:36:54Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Johnny Rotten??? > > :rolleyes:😕:mad::smack::rolleyes: Being as Johnny Rotten’s still alive, WordMan probably finds there are less consequences to insulting a dead guy. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2012, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-morrison-oediphus-complex/624571/25 "2012-06-10T19:55:03Z")
> [@Nawth\_Chucka](#): > > Being as Johnny Rotten’s still alive, WordMan probably finds there are less consequences to insulting a dead guy. Exactly; Johnny could have me in his sights. 'Xap, I hear you and am not gonna try to push back. Mr. Lydon is a huge pain in the ass on a number of levels. His obnoxiousness just feels different vs. Morrison, and better in the spirit of rock. I don’t see Johnny claiming to be a poet, you know? ---
**Author:** ![Nawth\_Chucka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2012, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-morrison-oediphus-complex/624571/26 "2012-06-10T21:51:51Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > Exactly; Johnny could have me in his sights. > > 'Xap, I hear you and am not gonna try to push back. Mr. Lydon is a huge pain in the ass on a number of levels. His obnoxiousness just feels different vs. Morrison, and better in the spirit of rock. I don’t see Johnny claiming to be a poet, you know? Geezopete, Wordie, did Morrison steal your girl 45 years ago or something? You’re expending a lot of energy hating someone who’s long gone. Like I’d tell Paul McCartney if he started his ‘I should be named first on the Lennon/McCartney songwriting credits, wa wa wa’ nonsense as he does where I could hear it, you’re **alive**. You win! Or was \*\*‘Morrison was a big enough artistic douchebag to rub his parents’ faces in it in pursuit of “art.” Lordy I hate that asshole…’ \*\*merely hyperbole? It’s sometimes hard for me to discern on the intarwebz. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2012, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-morrison-oediphus-complex/624571/27 "2012-06-10T23:16:15Z")
I don’t have much respect for Morrison, no. For every good thing like People are Strange or Light My Fire, you have dreck like 20th Century Fox and Riders on the Storm. He was Sting before Sting was Sting but was a bigger dick to the people around him and didn’t even play the lute. His type of pretension is the wrong kind for rock. Yeah, it’s an issue. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2012, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-morrison-oediphus-complex/624571/28 "2012-06-10T23:59:23Z")
I’ll publicly come out as a Doors fan. They were remarkably good from the start and they made albums that were strong all the way through in an era when that was unusual. I never read Morrison’s poetry, so I can’t say anything about it. I admire his imagery and compactness as a rock lyricist, and he could write fine melodies. Sure he clunked at times - “Riders on the Storm” is particularly poor lyrically though it’s a beautiful piece of music. I’ve always hated, hated, hated the Sex Pistols for their pretentiousness. Worse, for their notion that attitude makes up for bad music. John Lydon did a lot better with PiL, but Johnny Rotten was a waste of good oxygen. I guess we can just trade off one for the other. I’d be happy with that deal. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2012, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-morrison-oediphus-complex/624571/29 "2012-06-11T00:16:06Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I guess we can just trade off one for the other. I’d be happy with that deal. 🙂 Done! Carry on. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2012, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-morrison-oediphus-complex/624571/30 "2012-06-11T00:45:53Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I’ll publicly come out as a Doors fan. They were remarkably good from the start and they made albums that were strong all the way through in an era when that was unusual. I would have said that was the heyday of rock albums that were good from start to finish. You had the Beatles, Clash, Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Kinks, Zombies, Zeppelin, Who, Marvin Gaye, Van Morrison, etc. If you’re into albums, I really can’t think of a better era to choose from than then. And, yes, the Doors wrote tight albums that work if you’re into that sort of thing, but I could never stand Ray Manazarek’s keyboard (although, to his credit, his sound is his, and nobody else sounds like him.) Really liked Krieger’s guitar work, though. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2012, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-morrison-oediphus-complex/624571/31 "2012-06-11T02:22:25Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I would have said that was the heyday of rock albums that were good from start to finish. You had the Beatles, Clash, Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Kinks, Zombies, Zeppelin, Who, Marvin Gaye, Van Morrison, etc. If you’re into albums, I really can’t think of a better era to choose from than then. I’d say the Doors’ work preceded the album periods of most of these groups. Their first album was released in January 1967. _Astral Weeks_ didn’t come out until 1968, same as _Odessey and Oracle_, with _The Village Green Preservation Society_ in late 1968. _Led Zeppelin_ wasn’t until 1969, as was _Tommy_ (_The Who Sell Out_ never worked for me as an album). I won’t even mention the Clash, since that’s obviously a brain freeze moment. The rock world changed tremendously and tremendously rapidly over those few years. There were hardly any great rock albums until 1965, and few standouts other than the obvious pantheon level albums like _Blonde on Blonde_, _Revolver_, _Aftermath_, and _Pet Sounds_ in 1966. The Doors were at the front of the wave. And even if I give you all of your examples, saying that their work compares well to some of the finest groups in rock history is an odd way of disparaging them. My argument is that they are good precisely because you can compare them to the greats - and they did it before most of them. If you can go out and find a dozen mediocre groups of the time who made a half dozen albums that were mostly fine from beginning to end then I’d say you have a case. But you can’t do that because they don’t exist. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2012, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-morrison-oediphus-complex/624571/32 "2012-06-11T03:52:15Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > And even if I give you all of your examples, saying that their work compares well to some of the finest groups in rock history is an odd way of disparaging them. I’m just saying that there’s nothing particularly special about that era that it was “unusual” for albums to be strong all the way through. (And while I’ll grant you that their debut was solid, their next few albums–_Strange Days_, _Waiting for the Sun_ and especially _The Soft Parade_ are patchy, IMHO.) ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2012, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-morrison-oediphus-complex/624571/33 "2012-06-11T04:03:53Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I’d say the Doors’ work preceded the album periods of most of these groups. Their first album was released in January 1967. _Astral Weeks_ didn’t come out until 1968, same as _Odessey and Oracle_, with _The Village Green Preservation Society_ in late 1968. _Led Zeppelin_ wasn’t until 1969, as was _Tommy_ (_The Who Sell Out_ never worked for me as an album). I won’t even mention the Clash, since that’s obviously a brain freeze moment. And, just to clarify, I wasn’t thinking of some of those albums. For the Kinks, I was talking _The Kink Kontroversy_ (1965), _Face to Face_ (1966), and _Something Else by the Kinks_ (1967), in addition to the later stuff like _Village Green_, _Arthur_, etc. For the Who I was thinking _The Who Sings My Generation_ (1965), pretty much the only Who album I listen to. The other ones, yeah, those are what I was thinking of. ---
**Author:** ![Esox\_Lucius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Esox\_Lucius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esox_Lucius)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2012, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-morrison-oediphus-complex/624571/34 "2012-06-14T04:24:13Z")
I hear it as “rape you”, in keeping with the violence at that point in the song, but it’s impossible to say for sure. > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > “Riders on the Storm” is particularly poor lyrically though it’s a beautiful piece of music. It has its moments, though… \*Like a dog without a bone, An actor all alone. \* As existential metaphors (okay, similes), those lines have been etched in my mind since I first heard them. And overall, I’m a Doors fan, too, for the same reasons you gave, no matter what kind of dick Morrison was otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2012, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-morrison-oediphus-complex/624571/35 "2012-06-14T14:05:21Z")
Even dicks can make beautiful music. I give you Stan Getz as a prime example. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2012, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-morrison-oediphus-complex/624571/36 "2012-06-14T14:58:57Z")
> [@Esox\_Lucius](#): > > \*Like a dog without a bone, > An actor all alone. > \* > As existential metaphors (okay, similes), those lines have been etched in my mind since I first heard them. Yes, that would be a good image, if those were the right words. If it’s any consolation, those are similar to the words I always heard. But they’re not the right words. If you have to trust anyone on the subject, I’d go with other band members. And here’s what they have to say when you search in Google Books. > [@](#): > > Riders on the Storm: My Life with Jim Morrison and the Doors > John Densmore - 2009 > > Riders on the storm Riders on the storm Into this house we’re born Into this world we’re thrown Like a dog without a bone **An actor out on loan** Riders on the storm. Now pull the track down. Perfect level for the next dialogue. > > Light My Fire: My Life With the Doors > Ray Manzarek - 2000 > > A recording studio in the Doors’ workshop. … storm Riders on the storm Into this house we’re born Into this world we’re thrown Like a dog without a bone **An actor out on loan** Riders on the storm Then Jim would come in with a haunted, … > More editions An actor out on loan? WTF? It has its defenders: [Blinded by the Lyrics: Behind the Lines of Rock and Roll’s Most Baffling Songs By Brent Mann](http://books.google.com/books?id=ASTKVQDpbYYC&pg=PA141&dq=Doors+%22actor+out+on+loan%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3_fZT9OWN6OS6gGcxdTNAg&ved=0CEAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Doors%20%22actor%20out%20on%20loan%22&f=false) > [@](#): > > An actor out on loan - such an imaginative way to describe a person whose life, to some degree, is not really his or her own, and what an ideal fit for “Riders on the Storm,” a tune making the point that we’re all thrust into a world controlled by forces over which we have very little control. Not try, but no soap. You can say that about any actor, and those out on loan - an actual practice of the 30s studio system - suffered from no less control than their counterparts. None had any. If you search for “Riders on the Storm” lyrics almost all the first page hits give the “actor out alone” version. I don’t see any actor “all alone.” I found one “actor out of role,” which is another nice try. Apparently, the collective consciousness has decided to clean up the quote to make it better, just like a thousand other famous quotes that weren’t quite said the way we remember them. (“Blood, sweat, and tears” to use another famous rock misquote.) But the real lyrics are what they are, and not the best. Technically, the song is credited to all four Doors, but I don’t know of anyone who thinks the lyrics weren’t written by Morrison. If there is a Doors scholar in the crowd, please enlighten me. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2012, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-morrison-oediphus-complex/624571/37 "2012-06-14T16:03:38Z")
Impressive **'Xap** - thanks. The lyrics lost me at “Like a dog without a bone” - that’s supposed to evoke sad, desolate feelings? Sorry, not feeling it; I just see Fido missing a dinner. Heck, I am not a Sting fan, but at least he has described his soul as “a fossil that’s trapped in a high cliff wall,” or a “dead salmon frozen in a waterfall.” No wonder he’s the King of Pain. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2012, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-morrison-oediphus-complex/624571/38 "2012-06-14T16:16:42Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Technically, the song is credited to all four Doors, but I don’t know of anyone who thinks the lyrics weren’t written by Morrison. If there is a Doors scholar in the crowd, please enlighten me. Personally, I think the lyrics sound like they were written mostly by Robby Krieger (who also wrote the lyrics to “Light My Fire”, “Love Her Madly”, and “Touch Me”). But I have no evidence for that other than my own subjective impression. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2012, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-morrison-oediphus-complex/624571/39 "2012-06-14T16:17:20Z")
To stir up the “who’s the doucheiest?” conversation a bit more, Johnny Rotten seems like less of an asshole because he knows he’s a collosal asshole. Jim Morrison didn’t seem to realize he was a collosal asshole, which made him an even bigger asshole. I guess I can’t understand how the Sex Pistols were pretentious. They were about as pretentious as The Monkeys. I mean, they were pretend, but they weren’t pretentious. They knew they were pretend. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2012, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-morrison-oediphus-complex/624571/40 "2012-06-14T16:26:27Z")
> [@cjepson](#): > > Personally, I think the lyrics sound like they were written mostly by Robby Krieger (who also wrote the lyrics to “Light My Fire”, “Love Her Madly”, and “Touch Me”). But I have no evidence for that other than my own subjective impression. No, Morrison wrote the lyrics. It was part of a film he did called [HWY.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HWY:_An_American_Pastoral) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-morrison-oediphus-complex/624571.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jim-morrison-oediphus-complex/624571.md?page=3)