Jim Morrison was only 23-years-old when The Doors played “Light My Fire” on the Ed Sullivan show.

Jim Morrison was only 23-years-old when The Doors played “Light My Fire” on the Ed Sullivan show.

Even though they offended Sullivan and made sure they never played his show again by refusing to change the lyrics of their song, the band catapulted themselves to super stardom. Morrison was troubled by the song’s success, but the track afforded him an excuse to stay out and carouse every night.

Morrison didn’t handle stardom well. He tripped on LSD and and drank until he blacked out. Supposedly he was such a bad drinker that Janis Joplin got annoyed with him at a party and smashed a bottle of Southern Comfort over his head. As often as he misbehaved, Morrison loved to perform. He felt it was duty to take the audience on a trip with him. He told Albert Goldman from Life Magazine: 

We’re really politicians. You could call us erotic politicians… a Doors concert is really a public meeting called by us for a special kind of dramatic discussion and entertainment. [The audience] go home and interact with their reality, then I get it all back by interacting with that reality.