“No artist tolerates reality.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
And no artist was more influenced by Nietzsche than Jim Morrison of the Doors. His last ever song-recording was the majestic Riders On The Storm which presents Nietzschean philosophy in a nutshell.
Life, according to Nietzsche, is neither good nor bad. It is interesting. He urges us to be creative and invent new values. ‘Nothing is true,’ he writes, adding, ‘everything is permitted.’
Morrison’s lyric suggests that life is a beautiful yet fragile mystery, without obvious rules but wide open to creative interpretation. His song’s dark imagery nevertheless has the power to Enlighten if we can only – as he urges elsewhere – break on through to the other side. He took the idea that we’re thrown on to the earth from philosopher Martin Heidegger.
Here’s the song, followed by a transcript of the words. There may be no commandments but, in the free spirit of Jim and his mentors, I’ll end this post with 10 possibilities for artists:
Riders On The Storm
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Into this house we’re born
Into this world we’re thrown
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out on loan
Riders on the storm
There’s a killer on the road
His brain is squirmin’ like a toad
Take a long holiday
Let your children play
If you give this man a ride
Sweet family will die
Killer on the road, yeah
Girl, you gotta love your man
Girl, you gotta love your man
Take him by the hand
Make him understand
The world on you depends
Our life will never end
Gotta love your man, yeah
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Into this house we’re born
Into this world we’re thrown
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out on loan
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm, etc.
10 Suggestions
art holds up a mirror to nature
intuitions give rise to explanations
seek unity in diversity
make new meanings from old ingredients
character is choice under pressure
suffering yields insight
enact a better world
truth is beautiful fiction
turn subjectivity into objectivity
create as if life depended on it
“Enact a better world” is the suggestion that is nearest to my heart, Dave. We don’t have to accept the status quo. If I can’t enact a better wold out there, I can at least enact a better world in here. –Curt
Lovely way of putting it, Curt! The phrase makes me think of the little make-believe games my 3 year old granddaughter drags me into. Heck, I go willingly …
Smiling. We, too, get pulled into the imaginative world of our grandchildren, Dave. And Peggy is a master at it. 🙂
Wonderful … they really are a blessing, aren’t they? … I suppose we’re making a connection with our own childhoods when we play with them, which is exactly what I didn’t do when I was a parent keen to show I’d stopped being a child and was now an adult! Time mellows, I guess …
Yes, and being a grandparent means you get to play with the kids as opposed to having to discipline them— unless, of course, they have become your responsibility.
True. 🙂
Fiction is a more beautiful truth
Nice way to put it, wish I’d thought of that!
Yours was perfect
Thanks, I wrestled with it until it surrendered!
Been there!!!
🙂
I always try to create as if my life depends on it. What else is there?
Two quotes come to mind: ‘A writer must live and die by his writing’ – Emerson. ‘I risk my life for my work’ – Van Gogh. Noble stuff, not sure I’m quite there yet!