I’ve Been Down So Goddam Long That It Looks Like Up To Me

If you know me, you know I love a good word-smith. In music, the best are Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave (and a little Lou Reed. See previous polling post). Jim Morrison is not really one of those word-smiths. In fact, I've discovered, my favourite line (above) from The Doors, was taken from the title of a book, written a few years earlier. Never mind. Their music still has a romping beat.

Joining some of his famous musical contemporaries, Jim Morrison died at the age of 27, in Paris, shortly after that song (album) was released.

For me, visiting Pere Lachaise cemetary was more about seeing the tourist attraction Jim's grave has become than paying homage to a great musician.

Jim is by no means the only famous dead person there. Many artists and musicians have ended their journey at Pere Lachaise, and there are some extraordinary monuments, not so much to the famous, more likely just the want to be noticed – but it's really like an open air museum.

This one was really spooky. Just a family crypt, so why the ghoolish figure reaching in?…

…head all covered. Creepy.

I don't know the story here. Suffice to say, there was no-one around in this section where we saw the open book and the jacket..

Can you show me the way to the next whiskey bar?

Graffiti on the tree near Jim's grave. The 'attraction' of this grave for me, was the way it had been covered in graffiti by adoring fans. The sad part of this story is there is graffiti from these fans all over other graves, all over the huge cemetary, which is such a shame, and then Jimi's grave (and surrounds) are all scrubbed clean – to the point of the different stones actually wearing away like they are being regularly sanded back.

So, no graffiti on the grave, but heaps of 'rubbish'

Back to the word-smiths, though. Oscar Wilde was a dab hand with the English language. When I was at school, 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' was my favourite poem – I'll give you the last few stanzas, as it's quite long.

In Reading gaol by Reading town
There is a pit of shame,
And in it lies a wretched man
Eaten by teeth of flame,
In burning winding-sheet he lies,
And his grave has got no name.

And there, till Christ call forth the dead,
In silence let him lie:
No need to waste the foolish tear,
Or heave the windy sigh:
The man had killed the thing he loved,
And so he had to die.

And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Now, can someone tell me why an openly gay man's grave is covered almost solely in lipstick kisses???