Jim completed his studies at UCLA and again got his diploma through the mail by the spring of 1965. 1965 was a transitional period in the sixties. The youth culture was slowly transforming from the beat generation to a generation of hippies. Jim’s own life was in a period of evolving as well. He had told fellow classmates that he was going to New York to see what he could do to break into the film industry on the east coast. He had a last minute change of mind, and decided to stay in LA and pursue other interests, and enjoy a summer of soaking up the sun on the Venice Beach. He was broke, so he resided sparsely but comfortably on the rooftop of a friend’s apartment complex. Morrison was girded for work with his ever-present notebooks, and late at night, created poems and songs by moonlight, influenced frequently by acid. He ate little, existing mainly on LSD, alcohol, and water according to even his own account. In the interim he lost thirty pounds. The drug-induced diet had sculpted a new appearance for Jim that gave him a confidence he’d never possessed before. During the hot summer nights, moved by drugs and the quiet solitude of the moonlit evening, Jim wrote many of the tunes that comprised the Doors’ first two albums. The words and music poured into him from a source he could never identify or understand. He explained later, “I heard a whole concert situation with a band, singing and an audience, a large audience. The first five or six songs I wrote, I was just taking notes at a fantastic rock concert that was going on inside my head. And once I had written all the songs, I had to sing them.” This was when Jim first realized that rock and roll was central to the shaman’s panoramic cosmic scheme.

Simultaneously, Ray Manzarek had also completed his education and was hanging idly about the sunny Venice Beach, trying to figure out what to do with his own life. It was one of those lazy hot summer days that saw Jim wondering towards him across the steamy sands beside the large wavy body of water. At first, Ray was uncertain if it was his old college friend. “He was lean and hard as a brick,” Ray recalls, “and his hair had grown. It’s Jim, looking absolutely transformed.” Ray also sensed an aura of confidence, and a suave assurance about the man that he had never detected before. All he could do was dumb-foundedly say, “Jim! I thought you had gone to New York!” Jim explained that he’d been on a rooftop writing lyrics and poetry for songs. This surprised Ray because he ‘d never known Jim to be that serious about poetry before. He asked for a demonstration, and Jim willingly sung the lyrics to one he favored called, “Moonlight Drive,” concerning a young man standing helplessly by while his girlfriend drowns. Ray was bowled over by the lyrics, as well as he should be. “Those were the best damn lyrics I’d ever heard,” he said years later in a number of interviews. Death by drowning was an original, albeit sullen subject for a period when the Beach Boys were scoring big with songs like, “California Girls” and “Surfin’ U.S.A.”