Bonding over Jim Morrison

For Valentine’s Day I got an iPod gift card and was excited because the music lineup I inherited from my wife and sons was heavy on classic Rock and rap. While I like both, I had a longing for some of the grunge/alternative music that was popular during the previous decade. Before I could make up my mind my 16-year-old was complaining about some Doors songs he didn’t have so I let him use $3 of my $10 gift card.
When I got in from work last night, son Michael was in the living room watching The Doors movie and he again started asking me about the groups’ long dead, but forever popular lead singer Jim Morrison.
I did not come of age in the 60s, but entered high school in 1977 when Morrison, Led Zeppelin, the Who and the Rolling Stones still dominated radio. Morrison was one of my favorites but when Michael started asking about him last year I hesitated to tell him all The Doors knowledge I had committed to memory as a teen.
Why? Any conversation about Morrison and his songs eventually turns to his drug use and the alcoholism that killed him. I guess I didn’t want my son to know that when I was his age I idolized someone who was famous for smoking pot onstage. Instead I used our conversations about Morrison to preach about the evils of drugs and alcohol. While that may sound good to parents, put yourself in the place of a 16-year-old. There is this really cool dead singer and your Dad knows lots about him and his music and instead gives you a lecture.
After ignoring and evading most of his questions about Morrison, I went to the YMCA. When I returned he told me he really wanted the song “5 to 1.” I told him he could use my remaining credits. While we were at the computer, I pointed out another five Doors songs that he didn’t know about and told him to download them for us.
“You know there were a lot of theories about what Morrison meant by 5 to 1,” I said. “The one most of his fans seemed to like was that it was a reference to the ratio of non-pot smokers to pot smokers in 1967.”
His head swung around from the computer screen to Dad. It triggered a 15- minute discussion on some of Morrison’s most controversial lyrics, most of which involved drug references, Vietnam, sex and mysticism.
Teen-agers often want to talk about things like pot, beer, sex and rebellious, drug-using musicians that their parents idolized. I think the hard part is letting down your guard and letting them know that you were once just like them.