More than 30 years ago, Ray Manzarek invented the little organ riff to “Light My Fire”; matched with singer Jim Morrison’s words of raw, burning sex, the Doors song went to No. 1 and became one of rock’s biggest hits. The Los Angeles keyboardist has since tried many different styles, but he has yet to escape the barrage of questions about his late friend, the Lizard King. Manzarek finally gives his definitive Morrison statement in the new “Light My Fire: My Life With the Doors” (Putnam), which he’ll sign at 7 p.m. Thursday at Borders Books and Music, 2817 N. Clark St.
Q: Q: Jim Morrison died in 1971. Why wait 27 years to write a book about him?
A: A: The 21st Century is coming, and what I wanted to do was help ease us over the dangerous transition point that we’re at now in which people are having psychic nervous breakdowns and young people are very concerned about what’s going on. So I thought I would give them, in what little way I could, a bridge to the 21st Century by showing them what the mind set of the ’60s – the Doors, psychedelic people – was all about. And there had been so many stupid books about Jim Morrison. Ridiculous, stupid, wrong books. I thought I’d better set the record straight and tell it like it really was.
Q: Q: Which stupid books do you mean?
A: A: I’d better not say – that will come back to haunt me. Let me say (they’re by) strange women obsessed with Jim Morrison and guys obsessed with Jim Morrison’s leather pants and, no doubt, what was in them.
Q: Q: How frustrating is it to constantly answer questions about what Jim Morrison did, as opposed to what you’re doing?
A: A: I’ll tell you what’s really frustrating: not being able to talk about Jim’s artistry and poetry. That’s what I’d like to talk about. That’s why we got together in the first place, to do poetry and jazz-rock. And having to talk about his legendary exploits does get a bit old. My God, within the last week I’ve heard three outrageous stories about Jim Morrison – Freud would have had a field day with the bubbling up of people’s subconscious minds. What I heard was Jim Morrison was involved in the last six months of his life in a bondage life with a young woman here in Los Angeles. Baloney. It’s jive. It’s her sexual fantasies.
Q: Q: Do you get angry when you hear rumors like that?
A: A: How can you be? I was outraged at first. And then the stories were so outrageous that all I could do was laugh.