It turns out that the other godfather of the British New Wave is Jim Morrison. It's like this: lots of these boys are crude alright and most of them are angry with it, but not all of them have that Authentic Working Class Pfazz like, say, The Clash (whose album, by the way, is the best New Wave commodity so far). I mean, there are ex-hippies involved, hoping for better luck this time, and there are public school boys and sixth formers and trainee teachers. There are the Stranglers, straight into the album charts at number 4, an obnoxious lot who hate women and haven't quite made it out of the classroom. Which is where Jim Morrison comes in.

When I went to the States in 1967 the first two bands I saw were the Grateful Dead and the Doors. Both were dreadful. The Dead were scruffy and speedy and hadn't a clue as to how a pop group should either look or behave—they could just as easily have been members of the audience. But the Doors were worse because they yjete so unutterably boring. "Light My Fire" was a huge hit just then and is still one of the finest singles there ever was, but in performance what one hit wonders they were! Until that magic riff started the whole audience was in a gentle doze, and I could understand, later on, why Morrison had to resort to flashing —to see if anyone in Florida still had their eyes open.