Rothschild said The Doors RAPED Jim w/ American Prayer

BAM: What do you think of An American Prayer, the posthumous poetry album put out in '78?

PR: I think anything that was done during Jim's lifetime that might have offended him would DISAPPEAR into total insignificance compared to what I'm POSITIVE would have been his reaction to An American Prayer. That album is a RAPE of Jim Morrison. It was HEAVILY edited. I have a tape of Jim reading most of that poetry in the style and meter that he intended. Jim and I discussed poetry a great deal. I got him to listen to poets like Dylan Thomas reading his own works, and Jim definitely got things out of it. Jim was always talking to me about the progress of words, their meter, their sequence, their flow. He was very concerned about how he presented his poetry. When I listen to that original tape, I hear something compelling. To Doors fans - and there are a few who have heard it - the poetry is chilling.

To me, what was done on An American Prayer is the same as taking a Picasso and cutting it into postage stamp sized pieces spreading it across a Supermarket wall. All Jim's poetry has been cut into bits and spread across a long instrumental composition that is irrelevant. Jim never intended this kind of approach to be done with his poetry. When he went into the studio to record it, it was to get AWAY from the Doors. In a way, it was his signal to the other Doors that he was moving away from them. He definitely wouldn't have used Doors' music. He was talking to people as diverse as Lalo Schifrin, whom he wanted to write some very avant-garde classical music. He wanted it to be sparsely orchestrated.