Jim Morrison
The Lost Paris Tapes (And Extras)
Poetry From 1965-1971
Tracks 01-25: "The Lost Paris Tapes" Bootleg > EAC > WAV > FLAC
Track 26: "Innerview Radio Show" Vinyl Bootleg > CDR > EAC > WAV > FLAC
Track 27: German Doors Documentary VHS > CDR > EAC > WAV > FLAC
Track 28: "Feast Of Friends" VHS > CDR > EAC > WAV > FLAC
Track 29-30: "HWY" VHS > WAV > FLAC
Included in this torrent is "The Lost Paris Tapes" bootleg featuring Jim Morrison's first poetry session taped in March 1969 along with a tape that's said to be his last studio recording. Though rumors vary, it's been said the tape was recorded in Paris with some street musicians Jim met on June 16, 1971. Jim later labelled the reel as "Jomo & The Smoothies" and left it with a friend in Paris shortly before he died. Some also believe it may have actually been taped in Los Angeles just before he left for Paris. No one's really sure on the real story.
A big thank you has to go out to Mike Z for putting together the first CD of Jim's recorded poetry. I used his disc as a guide to create this one. Mike went through both posthumous books of Jim's writing ("Wilderness" and "The American Night") and created track breaks for the entire March 1969 poetry session based on the poems in those books rather than relying on the titles created for the "American Prayer" album which weren't based on Jim's actual titles. (Included is a text file called "Works Cited" which lists where you can find each poem in its respective book.) I followed most of MZ's track breaks except for a few spots. I included 3 bonus tracks which were also on his CD. The first is a poetry clip from The Doors' unreleased documentary "Feast Of Friends." A later version of this poem is included in the March 1969 session under the title "Science Of Night." The other two tracks are from Jim's unreleased December 8, 1970 poetry session. The first comes from a vinyl copy of the Innerview Radio Show (I declicked the track) and the second was used briefly in a German Doors documentary. Mike also had clips from HWY on his CD but he used a source that didn't sound as good as mine. So I ripped the sound off my 3rd generation copy of HWY for this version. There's a good deal of hiss, but I didn't want to use any noise reduction on them.
As a special bonus, I've also included a PDF file of Jim Morrison's "Paris Journal." This 1997 limited edition (8 1/2” x 11”) softcover book contains 157 pages of Jim’s original poetry. The notebooks used to compile this material were among the items recovered from the 127 Fascination Box found in San Francisco in the 1980s.
The “Paris Journal” can be broken up into two parts. The first part contains 94 pages which are exact copies from the notebooks it’s believed Jim carried with him during his last days in Paris in 1971. It includes poetry never before published or seen by anyone but the editors of his two posthumous books, Wilderness and The American Night. The second part contains 62 pages of Jim’s work carefully transcribed by a document expert who was hired by the original pages’ owner to copy down everything verbatim. In addition to the transcriptions, there are notes from the transcriber describing the originals exactly. It seems the original pages were too badly faded to be photocopied. This material includes a few late poems as well as a full transcription of one of Jim’s 1965 Venice notebooks, containing lyrics to released and unreleased songs.
Note: The person who transcribed the text in the second part wrote everything in capital letters. For this reason, I doubt whether the transcription was actually done by “a document expert” as is claimed. Since Jim was fond of using unconventional capitalization, the statement made in the book that these transcriptions are 98% accurate simply isn’t true. While I’m sure the words are correct and in order, they likely haven’t been reproduced exactly as they were written since Jim didn’t write in all caps very often. Hopefully, one day, this work will be made available either through photographs of the originals or precise transcriptions. Considering its contents, it’s probably one of the most important Doors-related documents in existence and would be great to see in Jim’s own handwriting.
About the 127 Fascination Box:
From what I’ve been able to gather, “127 Fascination” was the label on a metal box Pamela Courson left in a San Francisco bank after Jim’s death that contained the poems he had been working on in Paris. The box remained at that bank until about 1980 when, according to Patricia Kennealy, a boyfriend of Pam’s (who had the box under his name) remembered it after she died. Rumor is that over the years, its contents were split up and some of it was returned to the Coursons while the rest was sold to collectors. The “127 Fascination” label has never really been explained. It may have just been a title Jim came up with for his box of poetry, or a label Pam put on the box at some point. No one really knows.
These pages have been scanned at 300 DPI in grayscale format from photocopies of an original “Paris Journal” copy. If you would like to recreate your own copy of the book, simply print the first page single-sided as the cover on textured paper or thicker stock (include a similar page left blank for the back cover) and then print the remaining pages back-and-front like a traditional book on normal white paper. Then take the pages to your local copycenter and have them bind them any way you’d like. Or, likewise, you can simply give the copycenter the PDF file, tell them you’d like it printed in the abovementioned manner and they’ll do everything for you. Either way, you’ll have your very own copy of Jim Morrison’s “Paris Journal.”
I hope everyone enjoys this torrent. It's a little different from the other Doors uploads I've made, but I'm a big fan of Jim's written work and I think this is a nice compilation of that material. Plus, with the "Paris Journal" included, you can read along with some of the poems featured on the audio disc. If only the Morrison estate would release something similar to this compilation officially.
-Porsche
I'm always on the look out for Doors recordings I don't have or source upgrades.
Check out my complete list of shows here: http://www.eccentrix.com/members/thedoors/tradelist.html
MARCH 1969 POETRY SESSION:
01. Session Start (0:16)
02. In That Year... [False Start] (1:02)
03. In That Year... (3:00)
04. Bird Of Prey (1:55)
05. Tape Noon (2:22)
06. Whiskey, Mystics And Men (3:38)
07. Orange County Suite (5:34)
08. All Hail The American Night (5:57)
09. The American Night (0:34)
10. The Holy Sha (0:37)
11. Hitler Poem (0:44)
12. Can We Resolve The Past (1:55)
13. Always A Playground Instructor (1:32)
14. There's A Belief... (0:25)
15. Indian, Indian... (0:18)
16. Woman In The Window (2:40)
17. She's Selling News... (1:11)
18. Science Of Night (0:24)
19. Tales Of The American Night (0:36)
20. Now Listen To This (0:46)
21. Babylon Fading (0:39)
22. Thank You, O Lord (0:35)
JOMO & THE SMOOTHIES TAPE:
23. Warm Up & Tuning (4:30)
24. "Starting Now!" (1:14)
25. Orange County Suite (8:41)
DECEMBER 8, 1970 POETRY SESSION:
26. Graveyard Poem (0:50)
27. The Politics Of Ecstacy (0:10)
FEAST OF FRIENDS:
28. "Earth, Air, Fire, Water" (0:53)
HWY:
29. Dawn's Highway (3:57)
30. Phone Booth (2:29)