I've loved that song for the longest time. It contains both hope and hopelessness. There's also something mysterious in the lyrics (for me at least). Midway through, Morrison sings (according to the YouTube link):
Will you stop and think and wonder?What is "nursin' penitentiary"? I thought he was singing "nurse's penitentiary" and that reminds me of Inga. What's a "nurse's penitentiary"?
Just what you'll see
Out on the train yard
Nursin' penitentiary
It's gone, I cry, out long
Please, somebody smart help me figure this out.
11 comments:
Palladian, I don't think they had TIE fighters in 1967.
Also, catch all you in the funny pages. I've got to get up at some hideously early hour tomorrow morning, followed by several days in the crucible. So off to slumber for me.
Oh, and of COURSE the lyrics were mysterious, El Pollo. You think Morrison had any coherence from one thought to the other by the time he got famous?
Oh, and of COURSE the lyrics were mysterious, El Pollo. You think Morrison had any coherence from one thought to the other by the time he got famous?
Some of Morrison's best lyrics were culled from notebooks he keep beginning in his teens. Back before the doors of perception really opened wide.
In the example, I think the comma is in the wrong place, or really, one too many. The train yard is 'nursing' Penitentiary. As in;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostolic_Penitentiary
He was a religious boy beset by guilt.
"Apostolic Penitentiary, a tribunal of mercy, responsible for issues relating to the forgiveness of sins in the Roman Catholic Church."
Though, I've never perceived Jim as hope, either.
Lester Bangs in Almost Famous called Morrison, "A drunken buffoon."
""A drunken buffoon.""
I wouldn't disagree, necessarily. Then again they made great music for the time. Just ignore the lyrics, listen to the melody.
I've never read an awful lot of Bangs - he was dead by the time I was adult enough to care - but he seems to have been a would-be rock Mencken without Mencken's education or culture - all bile, nihilism and contempt, with nothing to back it up.
To me, the best thing about The Doors is that not only were they great, bit that they were also the best Doors parody band. It's a neat trick if you can do it.
Jim Morrison would have gotten flushed right down the memory hole were it not for that poster that got the hippy chicks all lubricated.
I may be roundly attacked, but imho The Doors entire oeuvre is one of the few from bands of that period which still stands up as culturally/musically current and is listened to by even the young today and is not automatically typecast
as strictly "Golden Oldie" listening..
I just like Phillip Seymour Hoffman's portrayal of Lester Bangs. I don't really care much about music.
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