“Jim would come in too drunk to sing decently. Sometimes it was a phrase at a time”: The tortured story of The Doors’ Waiting For The Sun, the album that set Jim Morrison on the path to destruction

The Doors posing for a photograph in 1968.

In Joan Didion’s 1979 book The White Album, the cultural essayist finds herself at a recording session on Sunset Boulevard in Spring 1968. and she’s watching The Doors and producer Paul Rothchild work up a track for their third album, Waiting For The Sun. Everything seems as it should be, except for one thing: the lead singer is missing.

At one point, Ray Manzarek looks up from his keyboard: “Do you think Morrison’s going to come back?” No one answers. Jim Morrison eventually wanders in, sits on a leather couch and closes his eyes. Nobody even acknowledges his presence. An hour or so passes. Morrison suggests heading out to West Covina later, but his conversation with Manzarek quickly peters out.