Riders On My Wall

As we grow older, we filter our memories so that the happiest stay with us. One of my abiding memories is driving towards a campsite  on a hot summer night somewhere in the north of France. I was probably about five, and I was lay across my sleeping brothers on the back seat of my parents' old Vauxhall Carlton. I can remember the paneled lighting of the motorway streetlights sliding across the face of my dad, past the darkened sun roof and then gone, left behind us.

I can also remember the music my dad was playing. The ripple of thunder. The crackling rain. The trickled organ. And then, Jim Morrison's voice... 'Rider's on the Storm.'

It's my first memory of hearing The Doors, and it's one that will stay with me until I'm old and grey.  Hearing that song now, no matter where I am, relaxes me. It takes me back to that five-year-old sleepily asking his mum for a wine gum at 3am as our car rolled off the ferry. I suspect everyone has a song like that.

And so The Doors have stuck with me. Perhaps in a way they wouldn't have had I never heard Ray Manzarek's descending scales over the crackle of a storm and Morrison's whispered vocal track.

So, with all that in mind, you can imagine how pleased I was recently when my brother presented me with a framed poster wrapped in parcel paper and it turned out to be a collection of my favourite Doors' lyrics. Better than any of the official posters and re-prints I've tracked on eBay, it has been designed by him with me in mind.

 
I don't hang straight, but what man does?

So now it sits pride of place on my wall, across from the Forrest Gump one he made for me a few months ago. My own piece of Doors fan art, there to appreciate, whenever the rain starts pattering and the organ starts playing.

* if you're interested in your own custom-designed fan art, get in touch with Tom Wood via Twitter (@TomWood1987).