When Jim Morrison says, “Where’s the feast we were promised?”, he’s expressing a sense of disillusionment and betrayal, likely toward societal or cultural expectations. This line appears in “An American Prayer”, a posthumously released spoken word album by The Doors, where Morrison blends poetry, philosophy, and social commentary.
Interpretation:
1. Disillusionment with the American Dream:
The “feast” can be seen as a metaphor for the promised rewards of life in America—freedom, prosperity, fulfillment. Morrison, like many artists of the 1960s and ’70s, often questioned whether those promises were ever real or just illusions used to pacify people.
He’s asking: Where is the joy, the meaning, the abundance we were told life would offer?
2. Spiritual and existential hunger:
Morrison was deeply influenced by existential philosophy and mysticism. The “feast” could also refer to a spiritual or emotional fulfillment—a deeper truth or enlightenment that society promised but never delivered.
3. Critique of authority and institutions:
The line can be read as a critique of religious, political, or cultural institutions that claim to offer meaning, progress, or salvation, but end up delivering disappointment or control instead.
In essence:
“Where’s the feast we were promised?” is a haunting, rhetorical demand for the authentic experience or fulfillment that Morrison—and by extension, a generation—felt was missing in modern life. It encapsulates the emptiness beneath surface prosperity, and the gap between promise and reality.