lunes, 9 de junio de 2014

Light my Fire - By The Doors




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iSXrZYhJt4

Hello everyone. I would like to share something with you that called my attention. It is related to how The Beat Generation has influenced music, specifically rock music. As we have talked in class about the fact that many artists were acquainted with the Beat, and we made a special reference to Bob Dylan who befriended Ginsberg, others rock artist alluded to the Beat or made reference to The Beat Generation on their work.

This influence can be portrayed in The Doors’ song “Light my Fire”. Through its lyrics they reflect the ideals of the Beat Generation related to the use of drugs, sexual and spiritual liberation, and the anti-war ideal. A common phrase associated with music is “sex, drugs and rock and roll” which in certain way, sex and drugs were a must to rock music.  This song is an embodiment of this element since the lyrics of this song simultaneously make reference to both sex and drug:

“You know that it would be untrue
You know that I would be a liar
If I was to say to you
Girl, we couldn't get much higher
Come on baby light my fire”

I wanted to make reference to this song because I believe that the link between music and the Beat is not only a matter of friendship and acquaintances between rock artists and Beat’s members, but it is also about the works of some musicians who through their lyrics are illustrating the ideals of this new counterculture generation evoking the sense of anti-establishment and non-conformism as the same as the Beat authors. What do you think?

I invite you to listen to the song and reflect about it :)


4 comentarios:

  1. Hi, Miguel! First of all, your entry is great and really useful since it has a lot of sense to connect the contents from our classes with things that we like and enjoy: something as quotidian as music. Of course not everyone likes this style of music, but I think it is one of the best :) Now, your post made me search for additional information related to the influence that “The Beats” had on music, and I found this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKRBQG6zUWo (the name of it is kind of obvious, but it does not really matter). The idea is to realize the importance of “The Beat Generation” on our daily lives; we do not spend every day reading poems or novels, but we do spend our time on listening to music—I consider it as something vital.

    The video points out some examples of this “Beat influence.” Groups like The Beatles, The Doors—as you mentioned in your post—Nirvana, and U2; and singers like John Lennon and Bob Dylan—you also mentioned him—are named in the video. I encourage you—and classmates—to watch it because it will help you to understand that “The Beats” are still with us. The captions of the video explain some details about this influence and name the specific writers that contributed to it.

    To conclude, I would like to add that while I was watching the video—the one I found—I wondered why this movement could not influence on all—or more—styles of music; thus, we would not have to listen to certain “bad styles of music” (you can imagine the ones I refer to).

    Thanks, Miguel for your post, and do not forget to “set the night on fire” ;D

    ResponderBorrar
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    ResponderBorrar
  3. Hello, Miguel!

    I tremendously enjoyed your entry; this is due to two main reasons. The first one is that I, as you may know, am a huge rock music fan, especially the good-old one, category in which The Doors fits perfectly. The second one is that the album "The Doors" is one of my favorite LPs ever (I actually bought it in the--now gone--Feria del Disco when I was only 12 years old).

    Going back to your idea about how the ideals of the Beat Generation--"the use of drugs, sexual and spiritual liberation, and the anti-war ideal"--are perfectly depicted in the song you posted about, I would like to say that I agree with you on this one and that not only do The Doors talk about those topics in "Light My Fire," but also they "rekindle the flame" in another song that belongs to the same record: the well-known "Break On Through."

    To state the previously mentioned idea, I am going to paste two extracts from the song which I find particularly interesting to analyze.

    Here goes the first one:
    "We chased our pleasures here
    Dug our treasures there
    But can you still recall
    The time we cried?"

    ... And here, the second one:

    "Made the scene, week to week
    Day to day, hour to hour
    The gate is straight
    Deep and wide"

    From my point of view, I believe that in the first section I quoted, Morrison, Kreiger, Densmore, and Manzarek talk about getting high, but always in order to do two things: to spread the horizons of their minds and to try to fight the horrible memories from the past (the War) in a different way. Just think about Mr. Villa said in class the other day: if they had reacted to the War in a violent way, would have they been "The Beats," the REAL hipsters of their age? The answer is a round "nope." They would have been as basics as their enemies. Drugs were the perfect "escape" of that nasty Post-War reality and the ghosts and fears of the whole world's past. This can be easily seen in the second excerpt I quoted: the gate of their senses, minds, sexual life is opened by drugs in ways they have not seen and experienced before, and it is getting wider and wider. As Javiera mentioned in a post she wrote a couple of days ago, drugs, although a problem for many, was THEIR solution of breaking through to the other side: the side they thought was the perfect one in comparison to the grey Post-War real side.

    I hope you, my dear friend and my classmates, enjoy this comment and react to it, if you feel like it.

    =)

    ResponderBorrar
  4. Hi Miguel:

    I have to say that I really liked your post. Mostly because when we talked about the Beat Generation in class I never thought its premises could be applied in other subejcts such as music. And I think the relationships you have just mentiones is quite accurate, since music and literature have always been related.
    While I was reading your post, I thought that this song is a clear example of what Post Modernism postulate: to oppose to "conservative" art.
    The lyrics of Light My Fire may sound strong, and even agressive, but they are art anyway. Why? Because the want it to be art, because its lyrics are consistent to their perception of art.
    We may think that some things are not art just because we do not like, but that can not be allowed to happen. Just because something look bad, it does not mean that it is not art. Rememeber that at that time The Doors' music was strongly criticized, but what about now?
    My reflextion may not seem accurate at all, but I could not avoid thinking this while I read your post: at first, we may no like something, but then it may becaome something huge and important. Just like The Doors' music, and Beats' literature.

    ResponderBorrar