Woke Up This Morning (And Found Myself Dead?)

or: "Fuck Her In The Ass" is hardly profound, you drunken jackass!

I’m listening to a live Jimi Hendrix album from 1968. What an exciting time for music, musicians and fans alike: The Beatles, the Stones, Dylan, Young, Zeppelin, The Kinks, The Who - there was plenty of good noise and good times going on. This show I’m listening to, it was recorded on New Years Eve, and it features Jimi jamming with his future Band of Gypsys drummer Buddy Miles and, for three raunchy tracks, the drunkest Jim Morrison rantings I’ve ever heard. Apparently, this is the first and only time the two Jims really jammed together.

They only play through for three songs before a drunken Morrison is escorted off the stage and Hendrix & Miles finish the show: one is a cover of the Beatles’ "Tomorrow Never Knows" (not bad, but I prefer Our Lady Peace’s version), another is a new track called "Uranus Rock," but the first is a strange little jam (posthumously) titled "Morrison’s Lament." There’s a lot of intelligible drunken slurs blurred together into a stream-of-maddeningly-drunken- consciousness rally cry, and in between these bursts of freaky not-quite-beatnik poetically-inclined dribble, the drunken Jimmy (not the Jimi in control of one crazy cool show) is prone to shouting repeatedly "Her fuck in the ass!" To whom, for what, I cannot say. I wasn’t there. But many are interested in Morrison enough to ponder why he would say this: Is this a personal preference, or Jim’s view of humanity, or the world at large? (Was he agreeing that "Woman is the nigger of the world?" No; John and Yoko didn’t share that gem with the world till 1972, long after Hendrix and Morrison both died choking on their own vomit. The same logic applies for "Stairway To Heaven," obviously.)

I don’t think it’s anything much more than some words that seemed fun to yell into a microphone by a very (too) inebriated and highly (too) celebrated vocalist. But it sure does seem demeaning, and I don’t mean to whichever "Her" he’s referring to (a particular girl in the crowd, the one on his mind, or just womankind in general); I don’t even mean demeaning to the concept of ass fucking. It demeans the lionization (and legitimization) of musicians. Simply put, all three of those guys jamming onstage were probably jerks in one way or another: Miles was a drunk, Hendrix was too high throughout his all-too-short career, and Morrison was, well, sinister and kind of stupid (though I will also admit he was just as often spiritual and kind of brilliant). But more often than not, whenever Jim Morrison opened up his mouth, something insanely weird came out, often as ideal as far-fetched, but still shimmering with ideas all the same. This man is still viewed as a visionary and a poet by millions of people thirty-five years after he died (at age 27, mysteriously the same age as the other Jimi, Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones and alcoholic nymphomaniac Janis Joplin, not to mention early ’90s musical laureate Kurt Cobain).

Now don’t get me wrong here: I am a fan of the Doors (mostly). While I understand carnival caravan psuedo-shaman rock spectacles are not for everyone, I appreciate what all four guys in the Doors were trying to do, and I can’t deny that "Riders On The Storm" and "Touch Me" were unbelievably groovy and catchy as all get out. And it was the 1960s, a time when they could totally get away with this sort of behavior, music and choice in life. But this also allowed for a lot of these manical tendencies to assert themselves in artists. Jim Morrison was a drunk, not a poet (Lester Bangs - or is it Philip Seymour Hoffman? - was totally right), and I’m now listening to the proof. "Fuck her, baby, in the asshole!" he yells into a microphone that Jimi points out is not the one recording. Then he talks about circuses and more about assholes and, well, it’s almost sad (but almost funny, too). For a man who composed epic Oedipal rock songs set to slow motion army helicopters in Vietnam movies, and was arrested for allegedly (or allegedly not) exposing himself to an arena of thousands, and met the keyboard player for his band while meditating and reading poetry on a beach, and was part of one of the most significant eras of change, not just in music but throughout culture in general - for a man who did all of this, well, it’s actually not that surprising to hear Jim trying to be coherent, failing miserably until he falls back upon his supposed mantra: "Fuck her in the ass!" Jim was also growling a lot, the way black metal singers were inclined to in just about every black metal song I’ve ever heard. I wouldn’t be surprised if after his guest spot, Mr. Morrison didn’t go find a bathroom to puke in (or get more loaded with Janis Joplin, if she was around).

And all the while, through this brutish spectacle, Jimi and Buddy still held it together. The riffs are solid, and Miles is one hell of an improvisational percussionist, deftly keeping up with whatever chaos Jimi (or Jim) was throwing down. I always tell people that if I had a time machine, I would only use it to go back to specific musical performances. To have been able to see any compelling piece of live music, any time and any where, is my ultimate geek dream fantasy, and it’s shows like this one I’m listening to (the album, unofficially released after both Jims were dead, has been called Woke Up This Morning And Found Myself Dead, Sunshine Of Your Love, Sky High and Live At The Scene Club) that make this The Dream.

Jimi’s hands seem on like they were fire. To have seen Miles simultaneously sweating and smiling as he was keeping up with the greatest guitarist the world has ever known must be quite a sight. According to legend, at the next night’s show, Mr. Morrison wanted to come back on stage (while Jimi and Buddy were mid-song), but Jimi wouldn’t let him. Apparently the Lizard King asked, "Do you know you who I am?" (more than likely all incredulous and shit), and I can only imagine the smile Jimi must have cast as he said, "Yeah, I know who are you (motherfucka). You’re Jim Morrison. And I’m Jimi Hendrix." And then they went back to playing (it wouldn’t surprise me if this time, Mr. Morrison got a conk on the head). Who wouldn’t want to go back and check that show out?

Of all the classic rockers out there, Jimi Hendrix is the only one that breaks my heart. John Lennon comes close, because he was so honest and loving in just about everything he did. But fuck, he stayed active and busy (even politcal during his four year musicalal break) until his death 1980, which says something for one of the most influential icons on the 1960s. And at least Lennon was shot; a tragedy, no doubt, but perhaps more dignifying than ODing on smack, crashing in some sort of road accident, suicide or, say, choking on your own vomit. Most of his peers didn’t do nearly so well; many died prematurely, others fell out of the music game, and several I’m sure went sour or mad. But Jimi was too much potential in too short a time: he was fragile (he beat women and was very sensitive to people not liking or understanding him, or his music), ultrabright (both in his songwriting, playing and obviously fashion sense), truly original (still no one has figured out how to successfully, or even cleverly, rip off Hendrix), and even trascendental (you know what I mean). When Jimi picked up that guitar, it was like no one else. It still feels that way, and his debut album came out more than 40 years ago. In an industry where originality takes a backseat to carefully clever rip-offs and homages, Jimi still stands out. So do the drunken ramblings of Jim Morrison in 1968. Crazy times indeed.