Ray Manzarek - Light My Fire: My Life with The Doors

LIGHT MY FIRE: MY LIFE WITH THE DOORS

A Berkley Boulevard Book / published by arrangement with the author

PRINTING HISTORY

G. P. Putnams Sons hardcover edition / June 1998

Berkley Boulevard trade paperback edition / October 1999

The author acknowledges permission to quote lyrics and quotations from the following:

Rock Me

Written by Muddy Waters.

1957, 1984 Watertoons Music (BMI)/Administered by Bug Music.

All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Im Your Hoochie Coochie Man

Written by Willie Dixon.

1957, 1964, 1985 Hoochie Coochie Music (BMI)/Administered by Bug Music.

All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Im Ready

Written by Willie Dixon.

1954, 1982 Hoochie Coochie Music (BMI)/Administered by Bug Music.

All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Back Door Man

Written by Willie Dixon

1961, 1989 Hoochie Coochie Music (BMI)/Administered by Bug Music.

All rights reserved. Used by permission.

American Prayer (40 line poem) from The American Night by Jim Morrison. Copyright 1990 by Wilderness Publications. Reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc.

Snakeskin Jacket. Reprinted with the permission of Simon & Schuster from The Lords and the New Creatures by Jim Morrison. Copyright 1969, 1970 by Jim Morrison.

Alabama Song by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht.

1928 (Renewed) Universal Edition.

Renewal rights assigned to The Kurt Weill Foundation For Music and Bertolt Brecht. All rights administered by WB Music Corp. (ASCAP)

All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc., Miami, FL 33014.

Excerpt from Elektra Biography of The Doors by James Douglas Morrison.

Used by permission of Doors Music Publishing c/o Wixen Music.

All rights reserved.

Copyright 1998 by Ray Manzarek.

Book design by Judith Stagnitto Abbate.

Interior photo of lotus flower by Jonelle Weaver.

Cover design 1998 by Jack Ribik.

Front cover photographs by Gloria Stavers/Doors Photo Archive.

Back cover photograph Todd Gray.

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission.

For information address:

The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is http://www.penguinputnam.com

ISBN: 978-0-698-15101-7

BERKLEY BOULEVARD

Berkley Boulevard Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

BERKLEY BOULEVARD and its logo are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

S pecial thanks to John Densmore, Fiona Matthews, Maureen and Eric Lasher, Nanscy Neiman-Legette, Eric Deggans, Harvey Kubernik, Rick Schmidlin, Robby Krieger, Danny Sugerman, Rick Valentine, Michael McClure, and Todd Gray. Your help and support were invaluable.

For Dorothy, my Love

Take the highway to the end of the night. Take a journey to the bright midnight

Jim Morrison

In some way he had won a great victory, broken through into a world where he could finally live. His life had been a long, tense drama of resistance and of pressure against constraint. But now, in that moment, he had broken down the resistance and emerged loose and free in the night.

D. H. Lawrence

W e dont know what happened to Jim Morrison in Paris. To be honest, I dont think were ever going to know. Rumors, innuendoes, self-serving lies, psychic projections to justify inner needs and maladies, and just plain goofiness cloud the truth. There are simply too many conflicting theories. He went to a movie (like Oswald). No, he didnt go to the cinema, he went to a bar called the Rock & Roll Circus. Evidently a sleazy French noir place not unlike Van Goghs Night Caf It was the kind of place where a man could go mad, or commit a crime.

We could plan a murder, or start a religion.

He didnt go to the Rock & Roll Circushe was home with Pam. No, he was brought home by three French gentlemen of the evening. Comatose. He had done heroin. (To my knowledge, Jim had never tried heroin. Certainly not in the States. However, Pam had. And liked it. But then most people who try it like itwouldnt you?) No, he was drunk. They put him to bed. No, he hadnt gone out at all, he was ill. He had seen a doctor the day before. A bad cough. Pam was going to cook dinner for the two of them. No, they were going out to dinner and then nightclubbing for the rest of the evening. No, he went to bed early and then woke up at about midnight, not feeling well, needing a bath to warm himselfeveryone agrees on the watery aspect. The liquid. The waters of the unconscious. The womb. An immersion. A baptism. A cleansing. The sublime rest in the waters of the mother. Pam wasnt even there. She had gone out to see the Count. He was always referred to simply as the Count. He was an aristocrat. Pam liked that; hobnobbing with royalty. His name was impossible to pronounce. We couldnt speak any French. We were Americans. We knew about the art, the music, the poetry, and the films but we couldnt speak the language. What the Counts name was, I dont know to this day. I do know he was Jims rival for Cinnamon Pam. But hes dead, too. Heroin got him.