Late the Doors frontman Jim Morrison‘s sister Anne Morrison Chewning revealed his late brothers’ last wishes during a recent interview with The Daily Beast, and apparently, Morrison left all of his musings, poetry, and lyrics into a bank vault in order to turn them into a book filled with his legacy.
There’s no doubt that Jim Morrison was regarded as one of the most iconic and influential frontmen in rock history both by music critics and fans, mainly thanks to his extravagant personality, poetic lyrics, characteristic voice, and unpredictable live performances throughout his music career which only lasted for eight years.
Unfortunately, Morrison was found dead in the bathtub of the apartment in Paris on July 3, 1971, by his longtime girlfriend Pamela Courson. The young musician was only 27 years old at the time and the official cause of death was listed as heart failure. Since an official autopsy wasn’t performed, there have been a number of conspiracy theories concerning his death including an accidental heroin overdose.
After the passing of his brother, the Door frontman’s sister Anne Morrison Chewning was left with numerous journals as well as various fragile loose papers in which Jim Morrison penned his poetry, lyrics, and screenplay ideas, and many more when she first paid a visit into his brother’s bank vault.
Being overwhelmed by the amount of work made by his late sibling, Anne helped compile hundreds of these pages in order to fulfill his brother’s wishes to be recognized as a writer and poet after seeing one page among hundreds of others titled ‘Plan for Book’ in which Morrison revealed what he wanted to do with all his writings and eventually what happened to be his last wish.
Here’s what Jim Morrison’s sister said during the interview with The Daily Beast:
“There are so many young people who just see him as a rock star. I want to dispel the ‘Lizard King’ and all those things that you hear. We wanted the reader to see the complete Jim, to see that he was a full writer in multiple areas, thinking in lots of different directions. I didn’t want an interpretation.
I wanted this to be Jim and in Jim’s words, talking about himself and explaining his words, not other people’s input. You see his notes and his ramblings, but you also see the finished product. The repetition of some things and how things came to be, you know, his Hitchhiker and lyrics. I love seeing that. It’s intimate. It makes it closer to you.”
The finished product named ‘The Collected Works of Jim Morrison’ was published on June 8, including an extensive anthology of the late musician, including rare photographs and numerous handwritten excerpts of unpublished and published poetry and lyrics from his 28 privately held notebooks in a nearly 600-page book.
