Elvis Presley had something no one else would ever have, which only made him reach for it more passionately, and more cryptically, in a manner less obvious, all but occulted. Given the delicacy and glamour Elvis gives the songs on Elvis Is Back! from âFeverâ to âGirl of My Best Friendâ to âDirty, Dirty Feelingâ to âSuch a Night,â itâs hard to believe this wasnât the Elvis album Morrison played more than any other. Today you can hear him all over it.
The Unknown Soldier in 1968
R AY WANTED JIM TO take it all the way,â John Densmore wrote in 1990, looking back in his book Riders on the Storm. âTo the White House. He imagined himself secretary of state. Sounded like fantasy time to me, but I think a part of Ray hoped it would really happen. I thought Jim was too crazy to be as popular as he was already! I was scared by the idea of more power in his hands.â For Morrison himself, it wasnât altogether off his mind. âThere should be a week of national hilarity . . . a cessation of all work, all business, all discrimination, all authority,â he said to his friend Jerry Hopkins, who was interviewing Morrison for Rolling Stone . âA week of total freedom. Thatâd be a start. Of course, the power structure wouldnât really alter. But someone off the streetsâI donât
know how theyâd pick him, at random, perhapsâwould become president. Someone else would become vice president. Others would be senators, congressmen, on the supreme court, policemen . . . One thing I said one time: the logical extension of the ego is God. I think the logical extension of living in America is to be President.â
âTHE UNKNOWN SOLDIERâ is not much of a song. It has that hurdy-gurdy rhythm that allows for vocal improvisation but never really gets anywhere. The music remembers the elegant stop time, the careful, drunken stepsâone step forward, a pause, a moment to think about it, another stepâof âAlabama Song (Whisky Bar)â on the bandâs first album. Kurt Weillâs 1927 attempt to be Bix Beiderbecke with Bertolt Brechtâs little ditty, Lotte Lenyaâs attempt to be Bessie Smith or Sara Martinâwriting and singing in English in Berlin, their heavy accents, their clumsy eagerness, made the tune. By the time the Doors took it up half a century later it had aged so well it fell into their hands. Their version was better than the original, where Lenyaâby 1967 most easily recalled as the hideous KGB officer Rosa Klebb in the second James Bond movieârushed the verses, dragged back on the chorus. When she sang it after the war she smoothed out all the rough spots; the tipsy woman stumbling from doorpost to doorpost gave it that big toothpaste smile. The Doors raised up the paper moon, waved at it, kept knocking on the doors of one bar after another even though it was 4 a.m. and the bars had been dark for hours. With âThe Unknown Soldierâ the band remembers everybody
is doing it, doing it, doing it, as Marcel Janco murmured in 1916 in Zurich in the Cabaret Voltaire, but doesnât remember how to do it.
In 1968 there were a lot of people declaring that the war was over, as the Doors would do in âThe Unknown Soldier.â In whispery tones that fell back before the power of his own words, Allen Ginsberg had announced âThe war . . . is over now,â in 1966 in his Vietnam-as-Kansas, Kansas-as-Vietnam epic, âWichita Vortex Sutraââonly to come back minutes later in complete exasperation: âThe war was over several hours ago!â Why hasnât anybody noticed? In 1971 John Lennon and Yoko Ono would be draping WAR IS OVER IF YOU WANT IT banners over their beds. In 1968 the Doors were trying to act it out.
On record, as a single that barely scraped the Top 40, then as a track on Waiting for the Sun , the bandâs floppy third album and their only number
The Unknown Soldier in 1968
R AY WANTED JIM TO take it all the way,â John Densmore wrote in 1990, looking back in his book Riders on the Storm. âTo the White House. He imagined himself secretary of state. Sounded like fantasy time to me, but I think a part of Ray hoped it would really happen. I thought Jim was too crazy to be as popular as he was already! I was scared by the idea of more power in his hands.â For Morrison himself, it wasnât altogether off his mind. âThere should be a week of national hilarity . . . a cessation of all work, all business, all discrimination, all authority,â he said to his friend Jerry Hopkins, who was interviewing Morrison for Rolling Stone . âA week of total freedom. Thatâd be a start. Of course, the power structure wouldnât really alter. But someone off the streetsâI donât
know how theyâd pick him, at random, perhapsâwould become president. Someone else would become vice president. Others would be senators, congressmen, on the supreme court, policemen . . . One thing I said one time: the logical extension of the ego is God. I think the logical extension of living in America is to be President.â
âTHE UNKNOWN SOLDIERâ is not much of a song. It has that hurdy-gurdy rhythm that allows for vocal improvisation but never really gets anywhere. The music remembers the elegant stop time, the careful, drunken stepsâone step forward, a pause, a moment to think about it, another stepâof âAlabama Song (Whisky Bar)â on the bandâs first album. Kurt Weillâs 1927 attempt to be Bix Beiderbecke with Bertolt Brechtâs little ditty, Lotte Lenyaâs attempt to be Bessie Smith or Sara Martinâwriting and singing in English in Berlin, their heavy accents, their clumsy eagerness, made the tune. By the time the Doors took it up half a century later it had aged so well it fell into their hands. Their version was better than the original, where Lenyaâby 1967 most easily recalled as the hideous KGB officer Rosa Klebb in the second James Bond movieârushed the verses, dragged back on the chorus. When she sang it after the war she smoothed out all the rough spots; the tipsy woman stumbling from doorpost to doorpost gave it that big toothpaste smile. The Doors raised up the paper moon, waved at it, kept knocking on the doors of one bar after another even though it was 4 a.m. and the bars had been dark for hours. With âThe Unknown Soldierâ the band remembers everybody
is doing it, doing it, doing it, as Marcel Janco murmured in 1916 in Zurich in the Cabaret Voltaire, but doesnât remember how to do it.
In 1968 there were a lot of people declaring that the war was over, as the Doors would do in âThe Unknown Soldier.â In whispery tones that fell back before the power of his own words, Allen Ginsberg had announced âThe war . . . is over now,â in 1966 in his Vietnam-as-Kansas, Kansas-as-Vietnam epic, âWichita Vortex Sutraââonly to come back minutes later in complete exasperation: âThe war was over several hours ago!â Why hasnât anybody noticed? In 1971 John Lennon and Yoko Ono would be draping WAR IS OVER IF YOU WANT IT banners over their beds. In 1968 the Doors were trying to act it out.
On record, as a single that barely scraped the Top 40, then as a track on Waiting for the Sun , the bandâs floppy third album and their only number
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