So I’m the only one who thought this was about the entrance to the theatre?
Yeah, but TriPolar was much more confused than you ;).
Some people are dare devils and get a thrill out of that sort of thing.
And as Morrison said, they didn’t care – they already DID the show, and that was it. And of course it was arrogant. Morrison WAS arrogant.
(And remember – Sullivan ALSO cancelled their upcoming appearances. Unless the contract specifically said “you must NOT sing this lyric”, they had more reason to complain than he did. I believe it was more of a verbal request. Unless, of course, you can prove otherwise.)
There IS such a thing as verbal contracts, you know. My law course professors would chide me if I did not remember that!
The point of this is that none of us know exactly what “verbal contract” there was. All we know is that Ed did not want certain lyrics used, the Doors used them anyway. None of us really know that Morrison actually agreed to not use the original lyrics, and none of us know what Ed actually asked, or what he set forth as the consequences.
That’s why verbal contracts are the weakest possible leg to stand on. We do know that no one has ever produced a written agreement that showed Morrison and the Doors went back on an agreement. So, really, there is nothing here.
In the rear view mirror of hindsight, the Doors won by not being willing to compromise their art, and Sullivan lost by coming off as a cranky old dude. The Court of Public Opinion has spoken.
No shit. But WAS it in the phrase of a “verbal contract”, or just, “We’d like it if you wouldn’t this lyric, could you use this instead? Great!” Or, “We request that you yadda yadda yadda”.
You keep saying that they “breached their contract”, but you have yet to prove that was so. Oh well. In the end, none of it amounted to a hill of beans.
I guess no one bothered to watch **Accidental Martyr’**s link back in post #4? I know eyewitness testimony is fallible and all, but I would think Ray’s account is about as good as it’s going to get as to what happened. It seems the “verbal contract”, such as it was, was brought up at the last minute, extremely thin, and never agreed to by Morrison. For all of Jim’s faults, I can’t be too hard on him for not complying with a last-minute demand to change a harmless lyric.
And there’s way too much discussion and vitriol on this one. People are strange.
So what?
That is not offered as snark, rather as an honest question (one my high school U.S. history teacher often posed to us, to see if we grasped the significance of what he had just taught). So Morrison was an immature jerk. So he acted disrespectfully toward Sullivan. So Sullivan had a right to be upset. So what? Really.
If that account is accurate, then Manzarek said he would “think of something,” and no one explicitly promised not to say “higher.” And what they thought of, after a brief discussion, was to say “higher” anyway.
I saw what you did there. 
You’re right, I had missed that when reading through the thread. Thanks for bringing it back into the discussion. Actually just reiterates how absolutely worthless verbal agreements are. And it doesn’t even seem like there was any agreement, just a vague “we’ll think about it” at best.
You’re right, people are strange. Sometimes I feel like an actor out alone in these kinds of threads.
Don’t worry - I’m sure somebody will throw you a bone soon.
Not the entrance doors but some set of doors from the set. It reminded of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer puts the Merv Griffin set in his apartment.
dougie acts as if Morrison ran up to him on the street and yelled “FUCK!” right into his face. He really seems to be taking all of it rather personally.
I don’t think dougie ever got rock and roll.
Well, if Morrison ’ s defiant attitude is what it’s all about, I don’t see that I’ve missed much.
Now I’m curious.
dougie, you mentioned in another recent thread that you’re 67. That means that you were 18 (give or take a year, depending on when your birthday is) when the Doors appeared on Sullivan’s show.
That age is smack in the center of the age range for heavy listeners of popular music (and has been since the birth of rock, if not before). It also means that you were 18-ish during the Summer of Love, Woodstock, etc., and a lot of your contemporaries were undoubtedly very much into that music, and that cultural phenomenon.
Did you listen to music back then? If so, what did you listen to? Do you listen to music today? If so, what?
Your appraisal is accurate. Actually, I have heard quite a lot of the popular stuff from 1967-- people such as The Beatles, Otis Redding, the Fifth Dimension, Diahann Carroll… but I did not go to dances or other social events (I had acne very bad then and was cruelly judged because of it). I liked stuff by Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Perry Como, Ella Fitzgerald, and so on. I was very distant from my own contemporaries. ( I was born June 10, 1949.)
Based on your earlier posts, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks for sharing it!
Verbal contracts aren’t worth the paper they are printed on.