SO
RAY is dead all of a sudden. I saw it in The Age last week, and I didn’t
even know it was coming. It hasn’t a big effect on me like the death of John
Lennon, occurring whilst I was having fun on a sunny day in a back yard pool.
Dying in your 70’s after a life of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll isn’t so sudden,
or shocking or surprising. Not like murder is. Still, The Doors were my
favourite band for a long time, and I was barely cognizant of music when Jim
Morrison died.
I
never really thought a lot about Ray as I became obsessed with The Doors in the
late 70’s and 80’s and even into the 90’s, but I think I have underestimated
him. I’ve heard the story about when the Doors first got together- there are
photos of it- staying somewhere near Venice Beach, trying to write songs. They
set themselves a target to write songs this particular weekend- I’m guessing
around mid-1966- and only Robbie Krieger really came back with anything
substantial- just a little rock ‘n’ roll number he called ‘Light My Fire.’ Yes
it was Robby’s tune, and Robby’s words, but I bet Ray had a big say in the way
it was fully constructed, beyond the drafting phase. Think about the swirling
organ at the start, and I wouldn’t mind betting he created that sound, just
like John Densmore might have thought up the idea of the bang on the snare as
the song’s first noise. The Doors, like The Beatles, I gather, all joined
together to create their songs, like all good bands do.
I’m
sure there is any number of key Ray influences in lots of Doors’ songs. ‘The
End’ may shine in particular because of Jim’s words and
Robby’s guitar, likewise Robby’s palpable influence on ‘Spanish Caravan’ or
‘Been Down So Long.’ But think about ‘Riders on the Storm’ and Ray’s pretty
(for want of a better word) piano/organ comes to mind, likewise ‘Love Street’,
the piano beautifully jaunting, the swirling mad organ in ‘Strange Days’, and
especially in an underrated song like ‘Not To Touch The Earth’ with its
exhilaratingly mad organ swirls.
Beyond
the studio, I can see that Ray was an integral part of The Doors line-up. I
remember Jim Morrison once saying that whenever he was getting ahead of
himself, he would take one look at Ray and realise that he wasn’t Superman (it
may not sound like it, but probably a nice compliment). It seems that Ray and
Jim were pretty close, more than the others, and certainly more so than Jim and
John. It was probably Ray that in some ways held The Doors together, talking
Jim out of leaving the group, being a band spokesperson when something went
wrong, like in Miami. And Ray was a crazy guy. You only have to read his
memoirs about life in The Doors to realise that. Pages and pages about sex, and
shamanism, and rituals, and what not. Ray used the (possibly LA) expression
‘man’ all the time, and he was, it seems, excessive in the way he spoke and the
things that he said. He went on to create music and manage bands when the Doors
‘died’ but always associated himself proudly with The Doors legacy.
When
I saw the obituary of Ray Manzarek in The Age the other day, I thought
back to my days of being obsessed with The Doors and driving my friends crazy.
It was a lonely time because I remember being, it seemed, not only the only fan
in my school in Melbourne, but seemingly the only person who even knew The
Doors existed. I would play the first album and ‘LA Woman’ over and over again,
and it seemed back then that every album and every song they wrote was genius.
It was not until later, from a less involved perspective, that I came to a
personal view that albums like ‘Waiting for the Sun’ and ‘Morrison Hotel’ were
not quite as good as I thought, and that even songs like ‘Queen of the Highway’
were downright average.
Ray
was like a father figure to the group I am imagining. Not just in terms of age-
he was the oldest, but not by a great deal, and barely older than Paul
McCartney and Mick Jagger- but also in the sense that he may have been the
wisest, the most experienced and most level headed, and probably the most
settled or secure. This is only an inkling, because I cannot be really sure.
One
day, I know, Van Morrison and Joni Mitchell will die- and then I will really feel it.
