An American Prayer

By Jim Morrison (and the Doors)

This album was recorded years after Jim's death, with the remaining members of the Doors putting new and old music to surviving recordings of Jim Morrison reciting his lyrics and poetry.

Some of it's a bit forgettable, but most of it's is pretty cool. My favorites are the Ghost Song, "The music and and voices are all around us, Choose, they croon, the ancient ones, the time has come again..." and Stoned Immaculate, "Let me tell you about heartache and the loss of God, Wandering, wandering in hopeless night, Out here on the perimeter there are no stars...".

The music's pretty good too, nice and understated, which makes sense considering that the musicians are supposed to be taking a backstage to Jim on this album, but it's still a little out of character for them. The backing music for Lament is especially nice, based around a very mellow bass riff, with the guitar playing sadly over the top of it.

Plus, this album has Jim's excellent astrology speech on it!

Jim: "I don't know how many of you believe in astrology..."
Random Chick in Audience: "JIM! JIM! I do!"
Jim: "Yeah baby, I'm a Sagittarius, the most philosphical of all the star signs..."
RCIA: "Me too Jim! I'm a Sagittarius too!"
J: "Well I don't believe in it myself."
RCIA: "Neither do I Jim!"
J: "I think it's a bunch of bullshit."

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Good, that's that out of the way. Now tomorrow I can write about the new Jordan Reyne album, which just came in the mail today. I've only listened to half of it so far, but I can tell already that I'll have a lot to say about it.