The Doors’ “The End” has acquired a certain mystique in some circles by virtue of having been released in the 1960s, and also featured in the legendary film Apocalypse Now. Thanks to one brief passage, it is frequently characterized as an Oedipal nightmare, with the implication that it follows Jim Morrison’s alleged project of blowing the lid off of bourgeois complacency to reveal the depths of darkness lurking just below the surface. In truth, it is eleven excruciating minutes of pretentious tripe, featuring such fatuous stream-of-consciousness “poetry” as “Ride the snake/To the lake/The ancient lake,” which would have virtually no impact (other than comedic) were it not for Ray Manzarek’s eerie organ backdrop. To find a song that expresses the full anxiety of Freud’s Oedipus complex theory – not just some good-looking drunken buffoon screaming “Father, I want to kill you/Mother, I want to FAAAAAAAAAALRJRFHDLNFPJDK” – one has to travel to the hugely unlikely realm of soft rock, and Bertie Higgins’ eccentric masterpiece Just Another Day in Paradise. Generally known only for his one hit “Key Largo,” Higgins crafted intricately characterized story-songs that sometimes mined surprisingly dark territory, especially given his chosen genre. “Port O’ Call” is an ACTUAL Oedipal nightmare, telling the tale of a sailor born in Savannah in ’55 whose father – a seafarer himself – told him that his mother died in childbirth. The sailor spends his life drinking, whoring, raising hell, and sailing, until one stormy night he lands in New Orleans and meets a prostitute to whom he is irresistibly drawn. Having been paid for the evening, she starts to undress, and the sailor notices a fine silver locket on her bosom. Inside he finds a picture of the prostitute in her youth – with his father, dressed as a bride, and a caption that reads “Savannah ‘55.” Granted, Higgins pulls his punches by apparently deploying this twist before the deed is consummated (unless this particular prostitute prefers to undress afterwards). But we’ve already gotten much farther than some killer walking on down the hall with his boots on, screaming incoherently, with no evidence that he even got as far as first base with his mother.Tuesday, October 13, 2009
999,957: Bertie Higgins - "Port O' Call"
The Doors’ “The End” has acquired a certain mystique in some circles by virtue of having been released in the 1960s, and also featured in the legendary film Apocalypse Now. Thanks to one brief passage, it is frequently characterized as an Oedipal nightmare, with the implication that it follows Jim Morrison’s alleged project of blowing the lid off of bourgeois complacency to reveal the depths of darkness lurking just below the surface. In truth, it is eleven excruciating minutes of pretentious tripe, featuring such fatuous stream-of-consciousness “poetry” as “Ride the snake/To the lake/The ancient lake,” which would have virtually no impact (other than comedic) were it not for Ray Manzarek’s eerie organ backdrop. To find a song that expresses the full anxiety of Freud’s Oedipus complex theory – not just some good-looking drunken buffoon screaming “Father, I want to kill you/Mother, I want to FAAAAAAAAAALRJRFHDLNFPJDK” – one has to travel to the hugely unlikely realm of soft rock, and Bertie Higgins’ eccentric masterpiece Just Another Day in Paradise. Generally known only for his one hit “Key Largo,” Higgins crafted intricately characterized story-songs that sometimes mined surprisingly dark territory, especially given his chosen genre. “Port O’ Call” is an ACTUAL Oedipal nightmare, telling the tale of a sailor born in Savannah in ’55 whose father – a seafarer himself – told him that his mother died in childbirth. The sailor spends his life drinking, whoring, raising hell, and sailing, until one stormy night he lands in New Orleans and meets a prostitute to whom he is irresistibly drawn. Having been paid for the evening, she starts to undress, and the sailor notices a fine silver locket on her bosom. Inside he finds a picture of the prostitute in her youth – with his father, dressed as a bride, and a caption that reads “Savannah ‘55.” Granted, Higgins pulls his punches by apparently deploying this twist before the deed is consummated (unless this particular prostitute prefers to undress afterwards). But we’ve already gotten much farther than some killer walking on down the hall with his boots on, screaming incoherently, with no evidence that he even got as far as first base with his mother.
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Why do you suppose it’s his mother? If he’s really attached to fine women (he says he has slept with the best and drink with the rest). Why would he go with a women 20 years older than him. Have you considered it’s his sister who inherited the locket from her mother? Assuming this sailor is now 30-40 if not older, that means his mother is likely 50-60 if not older. Lockets don’t lay gleeming upon women’s breast at that age.
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