“The Lost Paris Tapes” Preserves Jim Morrison’s Final Poetry Recordings from 1971

Billed and sold as the ninth and final stu­dio album by The Doors, An Amer­i­can Prayer tends to divide Jim Mor­ri­son fans. On the one hand, it’s a cap­ti­vat­ing doc­u­ment of the late singer read­ing his free-asso­cia­tive poet­ry: dark, weird­ly beau­ti­ful psy­che­del­ic lyri­cal fugues. On the oth­er hand, it’s only a “Doors album” in that the three remain­ing mem­bers con­vened in 1978 to record orig­i­nal music over the deceased Morrison’s solo read­ings. While the result­ing prod­uct is both a haunt­ing trib­ute and an immer­sive late-night lis­ten, many have felt that the band’s ren­der­ing did vio­lence to the depart­ed singer’s orig­i­nal inten­tions. (Lis­ten to and down­load it here for free.)

An Amer­i­can Prayer’s read­ings were record­ed unac­com­pa­nied in March 1969 and Decem­ber 1970. In 1971, Mor­ri­son joined his long-time lover Pamela Cour­son in Paris. That same year, Jim Mor­ri­son died, under some rather mys­te­ri­ous cir­cum­stances, at the age of 27.

Before his death, how­ev­er, he made what is said to be his final stu­dio record­ing, a poet­ry reading/performance with a cou­ple of unknown Parisian street musi­cians. Although Doors key­boardist Ray Man­zarek alleged­ly dis­missed this record­ing as “drunk­en gib­ber­ish,” Doors fans have cir­cu­lat­ed it since 1994—combined with a 37-minute poet­ry read­ing from 1968—as a boot­leg called The Lost Paris Tapes.

While it’s true that An Amer­i­can Prayer is a pow­er­ful and haunt­ing album, it’s also true that The Lost Paris Tapes rep­re­sents the unadorned, unedit­ed Mor­ri­son, in full con­trol of how his voice sounds, and with­out his famous band. I can­not help you find a copy of The Lost Paris Tapes, but many of the tracks are on Youtube, such as “Orange Coun­ty Suite” (top), an affect­ing piece writ­ten for Pamela Cour­son. Oth­er excerpts from the boot­leg, such as “Hitler Poem” (above) show Mor­ri­son in a very strange mood indeed, and show off his unset­ting sense of humor. While the work on The Lost Paris Tapes ranges in qual­i­ty, all of it pre­serves the seduc­tive voice and cryp­tic imag­i­na­tion that Jim Mor­ri­son nev­er lost, even as he began to slip away into alco­holism.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Doors Key­boardist Ray Man­zarek (1939–2013) Tells the Sto­ry of the Clas­sic Song, ‘Rid­ers on the Storm’

A Young, Clean Cut Jim Mor­ri­son Appears in a 1962 Flori­da State Uni­ver­si­ty Pro­mo Film

Ani­ma­tions Revive Lost Inter­views with David Fos­ter Wal­lace, Jim Mor­ri­son & Dave Brubeck

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness