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‘No One Here Gets Out Alive’ is My Favorite Book About Music
Mr. Mojo Risin’ grabbed my attention at a young age
When Pierce McIntyre issued the March writing prompt for Plethora of Pop, he probably thought he knew what I’d be writing about. With a topic like “Your Favorite Books About Music,” surely I’d be writing about Springsteen’s magnificent 2016 autobiography, Born to Run. It will surprise many here that while I may get to that literary masterpiece someday, today is not that day.
That’s because my favorite book about music grabbed that top position over 40 years ago and is not likely to ever surrender it. The books, films and music that impact you at an early age tend to leave a lifelong mark, and just as hearing “Born to Run” for the first time at nine years old changed me forever, so did reading No One Here Gets Out Alive during Christmas break of my freshman year of high school. If you’ve never heard of it, it was the first biography of the lead singer of The Doors, the Lizard King himself: Jim Morrison.
What possessed my mother, who at the time mainly listened to country and western legends Charley Pride and Charlie Rich, to buy me a book about the most notorious member of the 27 Club right before I turned 15 remains a mystery. I had discovered The Doors on the album rock radio stations that I listened to…
