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Love Becomes a Funeral Pyre: A Biography of The Doors
The Doors were emblematic of the Summer of Love of 1967, and Jim Morrison its rock god. So what happened to the golden boy, who died only 4 years later, fat and old far beyond his 27 years?
320 pages, Paperback
First published October 30, 2014
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627 people want to read
About the author
Mick Wall
69 books177 followersMick Wall is an author, journalist, film, television and radio writer-producer, who’s worked inside the music industry for over 35 years. He began his career contributing to the music weekly Sounds in 1977, where he wrote about punk and the new wave, and then rockabilly, funk, New Romantic pop and, eventually, hard rock and heavy metal. By 1983, Wall become one of the main journalists in the early days of Kerrang! magazine, where he was their star cover story writer for the next nine years. He subsequently became the founding editor of Classic Rock magazine in 1998, and presented his own television and radio shows.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
October 31, 2014
With a Grain of Salt
Mick Wall’s new biography of The Doors “Love Becomes a Funeral Pyre” starts with a sensational scene, Jim Morrison’s body being dragged out of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus in the early morning hours of July 3, 1971. Wall states that Stephen Davis’s 2005 derivative biography “Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend” is ‘superb’, which sets the sensational tone for the rest of “Love Becomes a Funeral Pyre”.
Continual misspellings of names, and errors in fact checking leaves a reader to wonder what other details might not have been scrupulously checked by either author or editor? As you read further into the book you discover that is the case. A couple of quick examples, Wall tells his readers that the album that would come to be known as “Morrison Hotel” had a working title of “Hard Rock Café”, the problem is that The Doors had never heard of the Hard Rock Café until they went out on the “Morrison Hotel” photo shoot with Henry Diltz. Or when talking about the Miami incident, Wall states Lewis Marvin, who brought a lamb and the hat with skull and crossbones on it that Morrison was photographed with, was Jim Morrison’s ’new friend’ when in fact Marvin was an early supporter of the band and The Doors played one of their earliest gigs at Marvin’s house in 1966.
Quick on the heels of this is Wall’s offering of alternate explanations of events, which is fine if you can support your hypothesis with some backing. However, Wall seems to offer alternate explanation from other biographies just for the sake of being different.
A few things Wall does get right, is being aware of and skeptical of Ray Manzarek’s Pollyanna hindsight interpretations of Jim Morrison and The Doors, which he rightly credits with insuring The Doors are still a relevant musical entity almost 50 years after the fact but sometimes stretched credulity. While most of the biography of The Doors does focus on Jim Morrison, “Love Becomes a Funeral Pyre” does delve into the post-Morrison Doors especially looking at the Robby Krieger, and John Densmore s The Butts Band. And a look at Oliver Stones’ “The Doors” and Ray Manzarek’s initial involvement with the film.
Where does this leave us? It is better written than Wall’s exemplar “Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend”. I think Mick Wall’s “Love Becomes a Funeral Pyre” is kind of like The Doors themselves, excessive in the sensational, but in what it gets right you long for more of.
Mick Wall’s new biography of The Doors “Love Becomes a Funeral Pyre” starts with a sensational scene, Jim Morrison’s body being dragged out of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus in the early morning hours of July 3, 1971. Wall states that Stephen Davis’s 2005 derivative biography “Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend” is ‘superb’, which sets the sensational tone for the rest of “Love Becomes a Funeral Pyre”.
Continual misspellings of names, and errors in fact checking leaves a reader to wonder what other details might not have been scrupulously checked by either author or editor? As you read further into the book you discover that is the case. A couple of quick examples, Wall tells his readers that the album that would come to be known as “Morrison Hotel” had a working title of “Hard Rock Café”, the problem is that The Doors had never heard of the Hard Rock Café until they went out on the “Morrison Hotel” photo shoot with Henry Diltz. Or when talking about the Miami incident, Wall states Lewis Marvin, who brought a lamb and the hat with skull and crossbones on it that Morrison was photographed with, was Jim Morrison’s ’new friend’ when in fact Marvin was an early supporter of the band and The Doors played one of their earliest gigs at Marvin’s house in 1966.
Quick on the heels of this is Wall’s offering of alternate explanations of events, which is fine if you can support your hypothesis with some backing. However, Wall seems to offer alternate explanation from other biographies just for the sake of being different.
A few things Wall does get right, is being aware of and skeptical of Ray Manzarek’s Pollyanna hindsight interpretations of Jim Morrison and The Doors, which he rightly credits with insuring The Doors are still a relevant musical entity almost 50 years after the fact but sometimes stretched credulity. While most of the biography of The Doors does focus on Jim Morrison, “Love Becomes a Funeral Pyre” does delve into the post-Morrison Doors especially looking at the Robby Krieger, and John Densmore s The Butts Band. And a look at Oliver Stones’ “The Doors” and Ray Manzarek’s initial involvement with the film.
Where does this leave us? It is better written than Wall’s exemplar “Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend”. I think Mick Wall’s “Love Becomes a Funeral Pyre” is kind of like The Doors themselves, excessive in the sensational, but in what it gets right you long for more of.
January 9, 2018
I’ll never stop reading about The Doors. As long as people write about The Doors and Jim Morrison, I will read about them. This is one of the better ones.
February 26, 2015
Typical Mick Wall fare. When he isn't coming across as an acerbic know it all, he is imparting his own fanciful nonsense on things. A few moments of interest, but if you want a Doors bio, read the ones written by the band members themselves
November 26, 2019
The life of Jim Morrison was extraordinary enough without the need for embellishment. The reality is that embellishment is part of his life story, propagated by his fans, friends and mostly, of course, Jim Morrison himself. Myth-making was part of the theatre of life he strove to create. Mick Wall attempts to position himself as a dispassionate compiler of all these truths and myths and lays out the evidence as presented to him by first-hand sources, interviews and autobiographies. He mostly succeeds although he is clearly not without his biases. His frequent cynical and mocking “yeah man, whatever” insertions in the text when quoting a sixties subculture trope or describing a fantastical LSD story, or depicting scenes involving a steady stream of reprobate characters betrays his wish to dilute the significance of these events as mere clichés. His portrayal of Morrison as continuously stoned, tripping or passed-out drunk is confronting. Strangely it seems he slowly warms to his subject as the book approaches it’s tragic conclusion. Where earlier he regards Morrison as little more than an excessive drug-saturated waster who embraced a dissolute vagabond lifestyle, he gradually comes to acknowledge his potential as a poet and that with The Doors he did make ‘great, timeless music’, although this admission is held off until the very final pages in the “Notes and Sources” section. And equally curious, after having routinely derided the admittedly fawning sycophancy of Doors keyboardist and keeper of the flame Ray Manzarek, Wall concedes that without his constant enthusiastic propagandising over the years the legacy of The Doors would be far less celebrated than it has become and generously quotes Manzarek in the closing paragraph of the book. It can’t help but be a fascinating story of an amazing life and Mick Wall has offered a worthy contribution to the study of the man and his times.
November 6, 2017
I’m a big fan of doors music, grew up listening to it and hold some songs very close to my heart with the memories attached to them. Especially riders of the storm and my since passed amazing auntie. Anyway was a little hardbreaking to read that every moment of Jim’s adulthood adult life he was drunk or high? I find this very surprising and not even sure why he wasn’t brain fried. But it’s the writer who has come across that way. Loved hearing about the songs and how they come about. 🖤
December 30, 2017
Mick Wall w typowy dla siebie sposób próbuje zerwać z wizerunkiem legendarnego pół-boga Morrisona, który jest serwowany publiczności od tajemniczej (a może jednak nie do końca?) śmierci Jima. Fanatyczni wielbiciele The Doors pewnie posądzą autora o bluźnierstwo, gdyż momentami wypowiada się bardzo dosadnie. Niemniej ta książka to pozycja jak najbardziej warta przeczytania, choćby po to, by spojrzeć na całą historię z innej, mniej "bajkowej" perspektywy.
January 10, 2016
Outstandingly written - one of the better bios of the band that I've read...and the only one that talks at any length about the post-Jim Doors (they did put out two LPs without him).
December 15, 2023
After reading ‘Love Becomes A Funeral Pyre: A Biography of The Doors’, by Mick Wall, I’ve decided to give it three stars overall. The book details the beginning, the middle, and the end of the band The Doors while also delving into the lives of the members Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, John Densmore, and especially Jim Morrison (who the focus of the book is truly on). The first part begins by describing a potential scene of what really happened the night Jim Morrison died and the 130 pages that follow flashback to before the band was a thought in any of the future member’s minds. The rest of the book follows the intricacies of the infamous band now known today.
I did enjoy getting to know the more genuine aspects of The Doors, taking them away from the glamorous and romanticized light they are usually always portrayed in. Wall does a good job portraying the more undesirable side of ‘Jimbo’ and how he affected the other members of the band and other people he has met. Wall allows the reader to see the most authentic version of The Doors, leaving nothing hidden and showing even the darkest parts about the band’s dynamic. I particularly like the inclusion of interviews from various people who have met Morrison before and how they describe their previous encounters with him. The addition of pictures in the book is something else I found valuable in my experience of reading it. They gave a good perspective about the lesser and more known facts of Jim’s life. Another thing I like is how Wall himself had been able to interview Manzarek before he passed away. Knowing that the author has had a personal experience with one of the men who actually lived through what the book details adds a wonderful perspective that would not be able to have been achieved without reading a memoir by a member of The Doors itself.
This book has its faults though. I believe that Wall takes things that he has heard and takes them at face value without much consideration to if it is true or not, and it becomes glaringly obvious at certain points. Another unfortunate thing that I dislike about this book is the numerous errors regarding release dates for albums or misinformed facts. At times I think the book goes off in tangents, derailing the current moment to delve into a baseless theory or talking about someone who is honestly, quite irrelevant in the grand scheme of the history of The Doors. Despite being a biography about The Doors, who would've been nothing without Robby, Ray, and John, Wall centers most of the narrative on Jim throughout the book. I understand that Morrison has, and always will be a prominent figure in music history, but The Doors were never a single person act and Wall makes it hard to think of anything else at times. In the first part of the book, Wall goes in depth into the early life of Jim Morrison, some of Ray Manzarek’s, and what feels like very little of Robby Krieger and John Densmore’s. I find this saddening in a way, it makes it seem as if the rest of the members really had no significance and that Wall considers them just a part of Jim’s band.
Throughout the book, Wall tells the narrative of a perpetually drunk, high, and ultimately tortured Jim Morrison who was a poet above all. Whether or not any of this is true cannot be confirmed, only truly known to those who had the honor of knowing Jim Morrison. I have given ‘Love Becomes A Funeral Pyre’ three stars because overall, it is okay. The noticeable errors and obvious bias to just telling Jim’s story alone is hard to look past when it is labeled as a biography of The Doors. Those facts alone do not tear the entire book down; however, I believe there is plenty of truth within the pages that still give an authentic and valid interpretation of everything that went down through the history of The Doors and the lives of the members. In the end, this book was not the best thing I have ever read, but it also was not the worst.
I did enjoy getting to know the more genuine aspects of The Doors, taking them away from the glamorous and romanticized light they are usually always portrayed in. Wall does a good job portraying the more undesirable side of ‘Jimbo’ and how he affected the other members of the band and other people he has met. Wall allows the reader to see the most authentic version of The Doors, leaving nothing hidden and showing even the darkest parts about the band’s dynamic. I particularly like the inclusion of interviews from various people who have met Morrison before and how they describe their previous encounters with him. The addition of pictures in the book is something else I found valuable in my experience of reading it. They gave a good perspective about the lesser and more known facts of Jim’s life. Another thing I like is how Wall himself had been able to interview Manzarek before he passed away. Knowing that the author has had a personal experience with one of the men who actually lived through what the book details adds a wonderful perspective that would not be able to have been achieved without reading a memoir by a member of The Doors itself.
This book has its faults though. I believe that Wall takes things that he has heard and takes them at face value without much consideration to if it is true or not, and it becomes glaringly obvious at certain points. Another unfortunate thing that I dislike about this book is the numerous errors regarding release dates for albums or misinformed facts. At times I think the book goes off in tangents, derailing the current moment to delve into a baseless theory or talking about someone who is honestly, quite irrelevant in the grand scheme of the history of The Doors. Despite being a biography about The Doors, who would've been nothing without Robby, Ray, and John, Wall centers most of the narrative on Jim throughout the book. I understand that Morrison has, and always will be a prominent figure in music history, but The Doors were never a single person act and Wall makes it hard to think of anything else at times. In the first part of the book, Wall goes in depth into the early life of Jim Morrison, some of Ray Manzarek’s, and what feels like very little of Robby Krieger and John Densmore’s. I find this saddening in a way, it makes it seem as if the rest of the members really had no significance and that Wall considers them just a part of Jim’s band.
Throughout the book, Wall tells the narrative of a perpetually drunk, high, and ultimately tortured Jim Morrison who was a poet above all. Whether or not any of this is true cannot be confirmed, only truly known to those who had the honor of knowing Jim Morrison. I have given ‘Love Becomes A Funeral Pyre’ three stars because overall, it is okay. The noticeable errors and obvious bias to just telling Jim’s story alone is hard to look past when it is labeled as a biography of The Doors. Those facts alone do not tear the entire book down; however, I believe there is plenty of truth within the pages that still give an authentic and valid interpretation of everything that went down through the history of The Doors and the lives of the members. In the end, this book was not the best thing I have ever read, but it also was not the worst.
September 12, 2019
No doubt about it, Mick Wall is a hack writer. When he cares about his subjects his books are better than some, when he's just making a quick money grab like he is here and with his Led Zeppelin bio, they're pretty bad.
Wall has utter contempt for Morrison and Manzarek, he gets simple facts like the title of the bands first box set and the year 'No One Here Gets Out Alive' was published incorrect which makes it hard to believe anything he writes.
Wall does spend a fair amount of print trying to convince the reader that Morrison was gay, which may or may not be true but Wall simply has no facts to support his claim. Additionally, he disputes the accepted facts of Morrison's death, using third and fourth generation sources and hanger on's and wanna be's now that everyone else is dead.
Stay far away from this trash.
Wall has utter contempt for Morrison and Manzarek, he gets simple facts like the title of the bands first box set and the year 'No One Here Gets Out Alive' was published incorrect which makes it hard to believe anything he writes.
Wall does spend a fair amount of print trying to convince the reader that Morrison was gay, which may or may not be true but Wall simply has no facts to support his claim. Additionally, he disputes the accepted facts of Morrison's death, using third and fourth generation sources and hanger on's and wanna be's now that everyone else is dead.
Stay far away from this trash.
July 25, 2017
Mick Wall is an excellent story teller, if at times it seems what he is telling is stories and not facts, but this was an entertaining read on the life and work of The Doors and its lead singer. I think it could have used a better editor on some of the fact checking as well as cutting out a lot of the post-Morrison content which sort of felt like it was dragging on, but that's why it didn't get a fifth star. It seems that everyone who came into Morrison's orbit, be it former lovers or bandmates, ultimately wrote their own story of The Doors, this does a good job in taking from all of them and giving an overall picture ot the reader.
August 24, 2023
Well man, I was gripped by this despite, you know, Wall's frequent resort to crazy ventriloquism. I mean, man, is this Jim talking, is this factual or not?
Actually, as one progresses it becomes apparent what an effective approach Wall has taken. The narrative is speedily progressed, the atmosphere effectively evoked and I love Wall's objectivity and scepticism in dealing with everyone from Morrison to Ray Manzarek. (He is particularly funny and occasionally scathing about Manzarek's efforts in maintaining the enduring myths about The Doors.) Gripping.
Actually, as one progresses it becomes apparent what an effective approach Wall has taken. The narrative is speedily progressed, the atmosphere effectively evoked and I love Wall's objectivity and scepticism in dealing with everyone from Morrison to Ray Manzarek. (He is particularly funny and occasionally scathing about Manzarek's efforts in maintaining the enduring myths about The Doors.) Gripping.
March 5, 2020
Unvarnished Doors
Probably the best book I've read about The Doors. Wall takes off the beer goggles, strips the varnish off to expose a patina of timeless classic rock this band brought to us lucky enough to be part of The Doors first go-round in the 1960's. No fanboy magazine artcle this but a compassionate in-depth look at the rise, fall and continuation of one of rock's driving forces whose music is enjoyed even today.
Probably the best book I've read about The Doors. Wall takes off the beer goggles, strips the varnish off to expose a patina of timeless classic rock this band brought to us lucky enough to be part of The Doors first go-round in the 1960's. No fanboy magazine artcle this but a compassionate in-depth look at the rise, fall and continuation of one of rock's driving forces whose music is enjoyed even today.
October 28, 2020
Cuts right through all the sycophantic drivel and money spinning around the Doors mythology pretty much like a psychedelic true detective story. At times a harrowing expose of the 1960s for example the backlog of sexual abuse cases raised in the aftermath of the summer of love. Jim comes across as much a victim as a revolutionary.
August 4, 2017
Boring... Sadly, everything that tries to tell the "The Doors" story is destined to be boring as hell... I couldnt even finish it! It repeats the same things OVER AND OVER THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE BOOK!!! Or at least until the middle, like I said, I couldnt read the rest.
March 2, 2018
Expertly written ... I'm a rock & roll junkie but my habit never really included Jim Morrison and the Doors, still probably doesn't, but Wall creates a cultural sideshow that you just can't look away from ... Jim Morrison is simply the biggest trainwreck in rock & roll history ... Riveting
March 19, 2022
The definitive book on Jim Morrison (though the book by Stephen Davis is also very good) and the Doors. It contains the good the bad and the ugly, as well as many new anecdotes, and facts. It also presents a compelling argument about how Jim Morrison died.
October 20, 2017
Big Doors fan. Great to read a book which is not just a big Jim morrison love fest, but focuses on the other members of the band too.
March 12, 2019
The author seems obsessed with Jim’s preference for anal intercourse. Make of that what you will.
April 7, 2020
Great read
I have read a few other Door’s books previously, and this is the most in-depth and detailed yet. I enjoyed it.
I have read a few other Door’s books previously, and this is the most in-depth and detailed yet. I enjoyed it.
May 12, 2020
Informative and entertaining!
September 28, 2020
Except for a few minor proofreading errors, a new take on the Lizard King. Recommended.
June 23, 2021
This book sucked I couldn’t even finish it! Mick Wall doesn’t know shit! I don’t recommend this book to anyone!!!!!
January 5, 2026
I was never a huge Doors fan, and judging by this neither was Mick Wall. He slates much of their output and (understandably) mocks Ray Manzarek's pretentious pronouncements. It's an entertaining enough "you had to be there" summary of a specific time and place, but it didn't change my opinion of Morrision: a narcissistic racist and rapist who managed to create a few memorable tunes thanks to his more talented band mates.
October 8, 2016
MY COPY HAS 502 PAGES AND IS A LARGE SOFTCOVER BOOK.
1st Read: September 29, 2016 - October 7, 2016
Having read about Mick Wall's reputation of telling his own stories, I wasn't sure how I'd receive this book, in regards to enjoying it. along with John Densmore's book and Ray Manzarek's book, this one, Love Becomes A Funeral Pyre rates as equals to them in my opinion. Many Doors fans would disagree with me on this!
Having been a fan of The Doors for over thirty years, I've read many books on the band and have acquired much merchandise and arsenal for my collection. However, in each book, on various pages and various paragraphs tells how much of an asshole Jim could be. He is described as the type of person I always hated being at the same house party as that person was: arrogant, cocky, cruel, yet intelligent and charming all the same. I'm pretty certain he had multiple personalities because of the things written about him.
That is my take on this book....a good one at that. Well worth the read and more truth has surfaced as far as I am concerned. This will not dissuade my love and passion for The Doors music in any way.
Aside from a few dates and years being wrong, didn't bother me really. Though one in particular, the release of No One Here Gets Out Alive being released in 1998 (page 473) is incorrect. It was released eighteen years earlier.
July 25, 2016
I’ve never cared for the Doors music, not even a little. I find it boring at best and have never felt anything positive or likable towards Jim Morrison. I have always been perplexed by Jim, ‘The Poet’ and The Doors stardom.
But I was intrigued to read ‘Love Becomes Funeral Pyre’ by Mick Wall copyright 2014, which I give 4 stars. Even though the book confirms my feelings stated above with even more conviction, the writer and his story line is well put together and reads very smoothly. This excerpt below is one example of fleeting comments of people with the same notion as myself, that Jim was not a poet.
If you are a lover of ‘Jimbo’ and The Doors, I’m sorry if you don’t like my opinion. I do understand his internal, unbalanced and tortured mind, I just cannot find what it is that you all see.
‘People try to say he was a poet. A lot of poets I know look at his poems and are like ‘please! Get over it’. Some of them are better in songs. Some of them are sophomoric, I guess you’d call them, or just embarrassing – on a real poetry level. Some of them I just go ‘oh dear’ – Judy Huddleston
But I was intrigued to read ‘Love Becomes Funeral Pyre’ by Mick Wall copyright 2014, which I give 4 stars. Even though the book confirms my feelings stated above with even more conviction, the writer and his story line is well put together and reads very smoothly. This excerpt below is one example of fleeting comments of people with the same notion as myself, that Jim was not a poet.
If you are a lover of ‘Jimbo’ and The Doors, I’m sorry if you don’t like my opinion. I do understand his internal, unbalanced and tortured mind, I just cannot find what it is that you all see.
‘People try to say he was a poet. A lot of poets I know look at his poems and are like ‘please! Get over it’. Some of them are better in songs. Some of them are sophomoric, I guess you’d call them, or just embarrassing – on a real poetry level. Some of them I just go ‘oh dear’ – Judy Huddleston
March 16, 2022
The Doors would have to be the first band I specifically knew I "liked". Any, funnily enough, I was a fan before I was even five. I remember my dad playing their music in the car back in the early nineties, and always feeling a thrill of excitement whenever Soul Kitchen or Hello, I love You came on.
The Doors have been the subject of countless books, and their story has indeed become steeped in legend, plagued with exaggeration and outright lies. This book is the latest of many, and the most recent, to try and pin down exactly what happened between these four extremely talented men during their short-lived musical peak. Numerous typos and editorial errors notwithstanding, Mick Wall has written a very good, highly readable biography here.
I loved reading this and it has infused within me a renewed desire to listen to the Doors' dark, majestic contribution to American music. Easily, always have been and probably always will be my favourite band from the sixties. Much better than the Beatles, I would dare to say. Personally, I never really cared for them. But who knows? Maybe I will grow into them, like poetry, whiskey and lawn bowls.
The Doors have been the subject of countless books, and their story has indeed become steeped in legend, plagued with exaggeration and outright lies. This book is the latest of many, and the most recent, to try and pin down exactly what happened between these four extremely talented men during their short-lived musical peak. Numerous typos and editorial errors notwithstanding, Mick Wall has written a very good, highly readable biography here.
I loved reading this and it has infused within me a renewed desire to listen to the Doors' dark, majestic contribution to American music. Easily, always have been and probably always will be my favourite band from the sixties. Much better than the Beatles, I would dare to say. Personally, I never really cared for them. But who knows? Maybe I will grow into them, like poetry, whiskey and lawn bowls.
March 25, 2015
Relatively comprehensive review of the Doors collectively and individually throughout their musical careers, with new interviews and material, along with a pretty definitive clarification of the details of Jim Morrison's death.
There are some language anomalies and many seemingly necessary words left out, but the content is clear in most cases.
One drawback is Wall's predilection to accept facts and stories that seem plausible to him while rejecting those he finds implausible. To wit: he seems to accept without reservation Patricia Kennealy's assertion that she and Morrison married in a Wicca hand-fasting ceremony in NYC, which many people would consider a paranormal event. But at the same time he rejects out of hand Morrison's story of feeling the spirits of dying Indians jump into his body on a SW USA highway when he was a child, an event no more or less paranormal than a Wicca ceremony.
Overall this is a worthwhile read as a first look at the Doors' mystique, or as additional history.
There are some language anomalies and many seemingly necessary words left out, but the content is clear in most cases.
One drawback is Wall's predilection to accept facts and stories that seem plausible to him while rejecting those he finds implausible. To wit: he seems to accept without reservation Patricia Kennealy's assertion that she and Morrison married in a Wicca hand-fasting ceremony in NYC, which many people would consider a paranormal event. But at the same time he rejects out of hand Morrison's story of feeling the spirits of dying Indians jump into his body on a SW USA highway when he was a child, an event no more or less paranormal than a Wicca ceremony.
Overall this is a worthwhile read as a first look at the Doors' mystique, or as additional history.
March 29, 2016
Having already consumed Wall's biographies of both Sabbath & Zeppelin I thought I knew what I was in for but the first shock here is how little he liked any of the 4 major players. Or their music. Not that I would have preferred a pathetic fan boy idolisation of this band. I was just confused as to why any author would devote months, or even years, to a subject that gave him so little pleasure. The Doors might not have made a Beatles-sized mark on rock history but their music is still remembered, & played, 50 years after their brief time in the spotlight. That said, this appears well researched & offers copious verbatim quotes from those both inside & immediately outside the group. And it opens with a dramatic, if not sensational, re-writing of the popularly held belief that Morrison succumbed to a heart attack while resting peacefully in a hot bath. Wall's style is easy to read while never playing to the lowest common denominator so I never once considered not finishing this book but it left me feeling vaguely disappointed. Strange days indeed.
July 12, 2016
I have read a number of books about Jim Morrison and The Doors, there are a lot of them out there. This one by Mick Wall was the best. Not sure where he came by so much of the detail he provided but it was certainly a page turner. Particularly interesting is his coverage of the circumstances surrounding Morrison's death. It is unlikely we will ever no what really happened but his explanation sounds very plausible.
The fascination with The Doors story and music, particularly Jim Morrison, is the iconic story of that era. Morrison not only was The Doors but epitomized so much of the evolution of rock during that tumultuous time. But stripped of his theatrics and wannabe poet obsession we have what he was, a destructive alcoholic unable to run his life and destined for destruction.
Like the others that went down in flames at that time, despite their musical genius they could not come to grips with the pressure of the stardom in a positive way. Wall narrates this biography as if he was right there witnessing the highs and the crushing lows that played out in this real life melodrama.
The fascination with The Doors story and music, particularly Jim Morrison, is the iconic story of that era. Morrison not only was The Doors but epitomized so much of the evolution of rock during that tumultuous time. But stripped of his theatrics and wannabe poet obsession we have what he was, a destructive alcoholic unable to run his life and destined for destruction.
Like the others that went down in flames at that time, despite their musical genius they could not come to grips with the pressure of the stardom in a positive way. Wall narrates this biography as if he was right there witnessing the highs and the crushing lows that played out in this real life melodrama.
February 10, 2017
I won this through the Goodreads giveaways as an advanced reader's copy. I've never read any other books about bands I listen to, but I've always enjoyed listening to the Doors and thought it would be an interesting read. It is definitely interesting. It's not the type of book that kept calling me back to the story though which resulted in me taking longer to get through it than I would have liked. That being said, my favorite part was the last few chapters. It's well organised and does a good job of telling the story reported by others as well as what is thought to be the more controversial side of what happened. In the end, it's definitely another book I'm glad to have been able to read.
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