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La canzone "Moonlight drive"
offre certamente una delle migliori atmosfere romantica che si possano trovare
nella poetica di Morrison. Pił immagini che visioni: "Nuotiamo fino alla
luna / Arrampichiamoci attraverso la marea" ("Let's swim to the moon
/
Let's climb thru the tide"). In "Moonlight drive" Jim coinvolge
i cinque sensi, pił di quanto avrebbe potuto fare un quadro, pił di una poesia
o di una scultura e certamente pił di una canzone.
otherwise pleasant love song with abundant imagery
so strong it acted on the senses more like a painting
than a poem, Jim wrote the surprise ending: "Come
on, baby, gonna take a little ride/Down, down to the
oceanside/if we go, get real tight/Baby gonna drown
tonight/Go down, down, down, down . . ."
Once he had written the songs, Jim said, "I had
to sing them." In August he got his chance when he
encountered Ray Manzarek walking along the
Venice Beach.
"Hey, man!"
"Hey, Ray, how ya Join'?"
[601
1 TnE ALLOW FOES ]
"Okay. I thought you went to New York."
"No, I stayed here. Living with Dennis on and off.
Writin .
"Writing? What'cha been writing?"
"Oh, not much," Jim said. "Just some songs."
"Songs?" Ray asked. "Let's hear fem."
Jim squatted down in the sand, Ray kneeled in
front of him. Jim balanced himself with a hand to
either side, squeezing the sand through his fingers,
eyes clamped shut. He chose the first verse from
"Moonlight Drive." The words were slow and careful.
Let's swim to the moon/uh huh
Let's climb through the tide
Penetrate the evenin' that the
City sleeps to hide . ..
When he finished, Ray said, "Those are the
greatest fuckin' song Iyrics I've ever heard. Let's start
a rock 'n' roll band and make a million dollars."
"Exactly," Jim said back. "That's what I had in
mind all along."
There was an angularity to Ray, what is
commonly called "the rawboned look." He was a half
inch over six feet and slim, weighing about 160
pounds. But the shoulders were unusually broad, the
jaw was hard and rectangular, the eyeglasses rimless,
cold, intellectual. If he had believed in Hollywood
casting cliches, he might have cast himself as what he
had recently been, a graduate student who takes
himself seriously, or perhaps a stern young
schoolmaster in a Kansas frontier town. But there
was a softness too. The box-like chin line had a dim-
ple in it and his voice was always controlled, gracious,
reassuring. Ray liked to think of himself as potentially
everyone's big brother: organized, intelligent, mature,
wise, capable of great compassion and able to accept
great responsibility.
He was four years older than Jim, born in Chicago in
1939, the son of working-class parents. After
studying classical piano at the local conservatory
and earning a bachelor's degree in economics from
DePaul University, Ray enrolled in the UCLA law
school. Two weeks later he dropped out to take a
management trainee's position at a branch of the
Westwood Bank of America, a job he kept for three
months before returning to UCLA, this time as a
graduate student in the cinematography
department. A broken romance ended that in
December 1961, when Ray enlisted in the army.
Although his duty assignment was a soft
one playing piano in an interservice band in
Okinawa and Thailand (where he was turned on to
grass) Ray wanted out, so he told the post
psychiatrist he thought he might be turning gay. He
was released a year early and returned to the
UCLA film school the same time dim arrived.
Moonlight Drive
Let's swim to the moon
Uh-huh
Let's climb thru the tide
Penetrate the evenin' that the city sleeps to hide
Let's swim out tonight, love
It's our turn to try
Parked beside the ocean
On our moonlight drive
Let's swim to the moon
Uh-huh
Let's climb thru the tide
Surrender to the waiting worlds that lap against our side
Nothin' left open
And no time to decide
We've stepped into a river
On our moonlight drive
Let's swim to the moon
Let's climb thru the tide
You reach a hand to hold me
But I can't be your guide
Easy to love you as I watch you glide
Falling through wet forests
On our moonlight drive
Moonlight drive
C'mon, baby, gonna take a little ride
Goin' down by the ocean side
Gonna get real close
Get real tight
Baby gonna drown tonight
Goin' down, down, down
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Discografia, Testi,
Curiositą e Ascolto
album per album
canzone per canzone The Doors
(1967)
Strange
Days
(1967)
Waiting
for the Sun
(1968)
The
Soft Parade
(1969)
Absolutely
Live
(1970)
Morrison
Hotel
(1970)
L.A.
Woman
(1971)
An
American Prayer
(1971)
The
Lords &
The New Creatures
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