Please check out ‘MAN A.WO.L: Searching for Jim Morrison in All the Wrong Places’ in this week’s edition of the International Times (IT). It’s my response to Jeff Finn’s recent docu-series Before The End, including an analysis of the intriguing clues to be found in the L.A. Woman album’s cover and lyrics.

In this week’s International Times, we dive into “MAN A.WO.L: Searching for Jim Morrison in All the Wrong Places,” my rebuttal to Jeff Finn’s provocative docu-series Before The End. While Finn pivots on a sensational premise—suggesting Morrison faked his death, eluding the public eye—my analysis returns to the most compelling source: L.A. Woman itself.

From the moment Finn posits that Jim eluded death in Paris to vanish into obscurity, his series tiptoes into conspiracy-theory terrain, trading artistic legacy for speculative headlines. In contrast, my essay steers readers back to the raw, unfiltered expression found in L.A. Woman’s cover and lyrics—elements already thick with encoded farewells and ominous foreshadowing.

Take the striking album cover: Morrison, hemmed in by deep, surreal reds and yellows, framed like a man on the verge of retreat. He appears simultaneously present and spectral—an involuntary visual metaphor for a life emerging from Los Angeles’s blazing neon into the shadowy unknown. This image isn’t a promotional haze; it’s an orchestrated signal.

Then there’s the iconic lyric, “Well, I just got into town about an hour ago”—a declarative opening that feels less like a rock ‘n’ roll entrance and more like a cinematic reprise. Los Angeles is personified as both seductive and suffocating. “Hills are filled with fire,” “earthquake roads,” “motel money, murder madness”—these are no mere poetic flourishes. They are Williamsburg noir, painted in blues and jagged neon, emblematic of Morrison’s ambivalence toward fame, addiction, and identity.

“Mr. Mojo Risin’,” reversed anagrammatically, signals Morrison’s own alter ego. With its erotic blues cadence and brooding tempo, it resonates with drummer John Densmore’s description of the track as a slow-burning sign-off. The layers deepen when we consider the intimate recording techniques—captured in a bathroom to heighten resonance—hinting at Morrison’s desire to leave behind a genuine imprint, not a glossed-over legacy.

In framing L.A. Woman as Morrison’s final statement—his coded farewell, both visual and lyrical—my essay challenges Finn’s conjectures. Rather than chase ghosts across continents, we should listen to his words, see his imagery. That, to me, is where Jim Morrison truly lies: on the grooves of L.A. Woman, not in the shadows of conspiracy.