....hmmmm....even though it wasn't "scary", it sure FELT like it.... *"Undercover Of The Night"* , by the Rolling Stones! ...a rarely mentioned tune that caused some controversy in 1983 / 1984...but spooked the HELL outta me! ...ha-HAAA!!
So many of The Doors' songs were uniquely their's. Nothing else really sounded like them. The fit the times well, but you would never mistake a Doors song for anyone else, nor would you mistake anyone else for them. All the members were extremely talented and creative and it showed throughout their music.
I loved the Doors. I was driving back home after a day at the lake when the DJ said Jim Morrison had died. I had to pull over off the road because I couldn't see through my tears. All these years later, it still hurts that he died like that.
How can anyone pick a favourite Doors song? I start thinking 'it's a tie between "People Are Strange" and "L.A. Woman"', but then I remember "Riders", "Roadhouse Blues", "The End", and pretty soon I've listed half the songs they ever wrote!
Well done as usual Professor. Although, I don't think you can talk about "Riders" without mentioning Ray Manzarek's beautifully haunting decending keyboard flourish that takes the listener into the main body of the song. It still gives me chills every time I hear it. Your commentary about Jim Morrison reminded me of a great passage in Steven King's excellent novel "The Stand". In the story, one of the main characters, Stu Redman, recounts an event that happened to him while working the night shift at a lonely desert filling station in east Texas. A mysterious stranger driving an old vintage Cadillac pulls in to fill up, Stu describes him as having long hair and a beard, and after a rather cryptic and short conversation, the stranger drives away into the night. Of course this all happens in the late seventies, years after Morrisons death in France. Only years later does Stu reveal to his girlfriend that he is convinced that the man he met that night was the "late" Jim Morrison. The scene was left out of the subsequent movie adaptations of the book, but being a lifelong Doors fan it always stuck with me. Thanks for everything you do to keep this great music alive!
The most timeless band of all time. Nothing sounds like them and they are were massively creative, original and phenomenal. Backed up by the best front man Jim Morrison who was the epitome of intellect, style and artistry. Thank you for your words Mr. Morrison.❤
The Doors definitely have one of the most mysterious sounds. The organ and guitar made for such a unique sound that only they could create. Clean but gritty at the same time.
The Dead also had an organ in their lineup as did The Animals. But, Manzarek and Morrison had a synthesis that reminded me of the way birds fly in formation and don’t crash into each other🤷🏼♀️
To me, no other song like it. The way it begins and weaves its way through the whole track is just amazing. I'm a huge Doors fan, and honestly its my favorite song of theirs. Just haunting, I always turn it up whenever I hear it.
I was about to say basically the same thing! I fell in love with the Doors when I was still a kid in 7th grade. “Light My Fire” was released in 1967 and it’s the first 45 I ever owned. I think my parents regretted getting it for me because I would play it over and over and over again. Riders on the Storm was another favorite that I played repeatedly. RIP Jim, there will never be another.❤️🎶
This song always makes me think of the Book of Revelations with the threat of the riders and the eerieness of the soulful tune. So haunting yet beautiful.
This is one of my favorite songs by them. Whenever I hear it I have to stop what I'm doing just to listen to it. It takes me on a journey every single time.
The Doors are just awesome! Morrison is a legend. A couple of years ago I went to see The Doors famous concert live at The Hollywood bowl. They were screening it at a nearby theater. I was blown away that there were more highschool kids that went to watch the movie than older folks like myself. It goes to show that The Doors are timeless and will be around for generations to come. Jim may be deceased but his music will live on in many lifetimes.
I’m a high schooler. I’ve listened to the Doors ever since being blown away by Light my Fire in middle school. I’m glad younger generations are realizing just what a great band they were.
When I first saw the movie, 'The Doors' I was absolutely spellbound by 'Riders on the Storm' played for the opening credits. Love it. One of my top 20 songs ever. Cheers ✌
The Doors were absolutely huge in Australia at the time on every radio station daily and rightly so ... Wonderful memories so happy the younger generations have picked up on this amazing man ...Thanks so much for your channel..
The 45 edit was pretty good, but everyone bought the album, which had the long version (and a limited cover). The band didn't tour in 1971, and AM radio didn't play it much during the daytime. It was a huge FM hit, but that didn't make it reach No. 1.
Few moments in cinema are as ominous, haunting, and transcendent as Coppola's use of The End to score Willard's climactic and decisive confrontation with Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. True to the film's appellation, it feels apocalyptic.
I was so waiting for you to cover The Doors. A band and sound ahead of its time, and a man by the name of Jim Morrison, who will forever be rock and roll’s greatest poet, and lizard king 🦎👑
Really great show. The Doors have so many great songs and some all-time classic rock songs. But Riders I think is their contribution to the niche of truly great creative rock songs. Everything about it puts it right up at the very top. Thanks for covering it on your excellent channel.
To me this song has always been a time capsule of the real face of the late sixties. It’s such a haunting, trancey, trippy meditation on the time it was written in. Dark things got real. Perfect in every way, it’s now timeless. Thank you for this!
I remember that song playing on the radio when i was really young, it felt very mysterious and I picked up the 45. It still has that effect when you play it
Huge Doors fan but I had no idea this was the last song he recorded, eerie and haunting lyrics and music , pretty fitting. I have often thought if Jim had lived he would walk away from music and write his poetry. I would have loved to have seen the Doors live and wondered if it would be fantastic or a disaster because he was so unpredictable. The Doors movie was superb Val really captures Jim. More Doors professor always interesting, great episode!!
Also a giant Doors fan, singing Not to Touch the Earth tonight, more or less dressed as Jim. A friend saw part of Absolutely Live recorded in Philly, to this day I don't know why or how I missed it..
This was amazing, The Doors are my all time favourite band as their music is so different and Ethereal that it taps into something cosmic most top 40 rock bands have no idea how to do.
Sadly, Morrison's image and life and death cast such a shadow over The Doors that the other members get skipped over. Ray Manzarek's keyboards here is what really carres this song along.
Bruce Botnick is my moms cousin. He was the Doors engineer until LA Woman, he produced it. I think The End is a more haunting song. Mom told stories of watching the band in their practice studio and on the strip. Bruce went on to produce Eddie Money and the Star Trek movies with Jerry Goldsmith.
I think you're right: "Riders" is atmospheric and moody, but "The End" is truly haunting. To me, it explores the depths of the soul, though the title alone says it all.
In the late 90s I worked a night shift entering Ralph's Club card applications into a database. This album was my favorite to have on my headphones. This song took me away! The rain and the whispering, the eerie tale and imagery. This song is a complete experience. ❤
I fell in love with the Doors when I was still a kid in 7th grade. “Light My Fire” was released in 1967 and it’s the first 45 I ever owned. I think my parents regretted getting it for me because I would play it over and over and over again. But I loved “Riders on the Storm” even more. It was another favorite that I played repeatedly. RIP Jim, there will never be another.❤️🎶
Riders of the Storm is one of the more profound songs of that era. It was transcendent. When it first came out, we were high school age. Friends and I felt Morison had reached his sublime state. A masterpiece. We thought he could “get much higher”. I always thought the “killer on the road” represented a killer of the soul, brought on by depression and drugs. We sat around and got our minds blown by the whispering we heard in the song, and debated its meaning. Some of my overly dramatic friends were freaking out by how spooky it was. Some claimed it was a ghost or demon whispering the words, lol. I loved to listen to it late at night. I was 16, and going through a very dark time in my life with drugs and alcohol, and general disaffection and cynicism I felt about high school. In my neighborhood in West Phoenix, drug abuse was rampant. We felt we were going nowhere. I saw friends and acquaintances disappear from drug overdoses, and later by AIDS. Generation George. But it also introduced me to some intelligent dark and sometimes ethereal (I’m talking Cocteau Twins, not Enya) music later on that ultimately became Goth Music. Can you question why we wore, and some of us still do wear black? Screw the cute and short lived trend of Wednesday Addams fast fashion dresses. We genuinely thought all of us would be obliterated by AIDS or nuclear war.
Ray Man was a nice guy. Back in 2004-2008 I got him and his wife tickets to a couple of different shows here in Las Vegas. It was a great loss to the world of music when he died
I was just a tot when this song came out but I had an older brother who played the Doors, the Beatles, Janis Joplin on the stereo all the time. I was only about 5, but I remember the strong imagery of this song; loved it but thought it was kind of scary. Still one of my favorites today. Thank you, Professor, for all the wonderful back stories of artists and songs! ❤
Riders On The Storm is one of my fav songs of all time. I’ve listened to it hundreds of times, and will listen to it hundreds more, and will never get tired of it. The haunting lyrics, the rain effect, beautiful keyboard, its an absolute masterpiece.
I visited Jim’s grave at Père LaChaise. So many famous people are interred there. I think Jim’s simple grave is much more popular than some of the more elaborate graves. People leave flowers and small gifts. That’s a great song, my favorite Doors song!
My parents took me to a Doors concert when I was four years old. I don’t remember much about it except being terrified of Jim Morrison. In college, I became deeply interested in the Doors and bought all of their albums and many of their songs were strangely familiar to me. One day I was listening to “Riders On the Storm” at my apartment and my dad stopped by. That’s when he told about the concert and when I realized why so many songs were recognizable to me.🖖🏼
I was 11 years old when this song was released. Even, at that age it captured me. I can honestly transport back to the time I first heard the song. It would take some years later until I fully absorbed the Doors as a band. Just about the same time the Doors revival happened. Riders on the storm, was haunting to me when I first heard it as an 11 year old. All these years later, the song is as brilliant and haunting as ever.
You just can't say enough about Jim Morrison and The Doors. I grew up to their music. He was such a great singer. They were so talented and ahead of their time. Riders on the Storm was a great song and to this day I still love listening to it. It's just too bad that you can't do an interview with him. Thanks Professor for another great one...
The thunder and lightning sound effects, and sheer length of the song have made riders on the storm one of my favorite Doors songs along with light my fire. This was a very interesting episode. I had no idea what writers was about or that it was the last song Jim Morrison recorded. Haunting indeed.
So eerie...the music and lyrics take me back to The Twightlight Zone. Picture Rod Serling and Jim Morrison sitting at a Paris cafe writing a new musical based on the series. Miss both for their creative genius.
Great pick. I didn't know they had done a live version on this song. I really wish we could have seen and heard L.A. Woman live. It's just an amazing album.
Jim was one of a kind. Like too many creative, talented, one of a kind artists, he left us way too soon.I was introduced to the Doors at about 8 years old when a neighbor boy started following me around singing, "come on baby light my fire". 😆 I did not hold it against the Doors and several years later became a huge fan!
Such a poetic, atmospheric masterpiece as popular as when it was released. When younger always confused this with 'Ghost Riders...' and it brought to mind some of Pink Floyd. Never knew until older of him being a man on a psychedelic venture into the darkest corners of the human soul. Can only hope he found his way to the light in eternity.
Love The Doors. Never really listened to them until I saw the movie. After that I went back and listened to everything I could find. I had heard their songs before, but hadn't really listened to it. I regret that, but I'm glad I finally found them
I was young but around and listening to music radio when The Doors were recording. I can remember the Beatles, the Monkees, the Beach Boys and others, but somehow I didn't pick up on The Doors. In the late 70s, my musical training being along classical lines, there were not many rock and roll voices I was impressed with. One day at work, Touch Me came on the radio. It immediately caught my attention, and I was stunned by that lyrical baritone voice in the chorus of the song. I said to one of my friends right there, "Wow, a rock singer with a legit voice." He looked at me funny and told me that was Jim Morrison and The Doors. Instant revelation. I had to hear it all at that point and they remain one of my favorite bands. Morrison is, as the Professor discusses here, a very mixed bag. But when he was singing with that natural voice, he was simply amazing. I love all their stuff, but it's the slower, lyrical songs or passages where that voice comes out that are my favorite. Riders on the Storm is a great example, while not my personal favorite. But I'll tell you, Professor, if you have not turned out all the lights, closed your eyes and listened to The End the way you described with Riders, you are in for another great ride!
Doors is my favorite band. I've listened to all their albums many times and LA Women is probably their best (maybe their first). The fact they could make that album at the end when they weren't getting along, etc. is just insane to me. It speaks volumes to their immense talent and skill. If Jim had been able to control his self destruction... sheesh.
Jim Morrison seems so much older than 27 in his persona and if there is a masculinity scale, he would be somewhere around "Burning Man" in the scale. His singing is relentless and driven. His topics reached past the boundaries of normal society but without putting on a show. Alice Cooper, Manson, Ozzie, Kiss, all a show. Jim Morrison was a human being with a sense of agency. His quotes are as fascinating as his songs. "The most loving parents and relatives commit murder with smiles on their faces. They force us to destroy the person we really are: a subtle kind of murder."
I love the Doors music and songs, they were all unique….but Riders On The Storm was my favorite of all, it had something special with it that no one else has come close to it even when others are playing it …. HIGH 5…👍❤️🙏🏼
Arguably the greatest 'American' R&R band in history; output, variety, sincerity, impact, power, popularity, breadth, talent, inspiration, legacy.... Find another that's been so dramatically impactful on music, ever. Cheers.
My favorite Doors song. I was 11 when it was released and can still remember hearing it in the car on my way to guitar lessons. Love the tremolo on the guitar and the thunder/rain sound effect is brilliant.
I think this was one of your very best episodes, along with the one about You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling. I always liked the jazz vibe of Riders On the Storm, as well as the qualities you mention. Morrison was truly unique. Thanks for this!
And I thought this music piece was haunting enough, listening to this one sparks that feeling even more! Thanks for telling one more haunting tale and all details surrounding the recording of this classic!
Ahhh. Hitting on one of my all time favorites. I head to LA often and always head to Venice Beach and chill to The Doors. One day I will stay in the hotel near sunset strip. RIders has such a jazz feel and improvisation. Early days of Prog Rock. I have been to Jim’s gravesite in Paris.
Another great song from my Halloween playlist! 👏👏👏 This song is also on my Feeling Cooler Then I'll Ever Be playlist😆 The Doors are too cool for almost everybody 😎
@@ProfessorofRock I think my favorite fluctuates between ROTS and Roadhouse Blues! But I also love People Are Strange. That one made the Halloween playlist too!🎃 I like to listen to ROTS in the dark too, btw ☺. I did that with all my favorite albums and it's so relaxing to just sit quietly and immerse yourself in good music 🎶 😌!
@@xxlilly_playsxxkiz9980 Its a big list, but I tried to put anything kind of related to Halloween or just mysterious. I have the obvious ones like Somebody's Watching Me, by Rockwell, Home By The Sea, by Genesis, Spooky, By Atlantic Rythm Section, etc. And I've got horror movie themes mixed in as well, like the theme from Halloween and Dracula. I'd link the list for you here, but I'm not sure if I could do that on RUclips☺ It's from my Amazon Music library
I was a very young kid when this song came out. I had a clock radio by my bed that I listened to while going to sleep. When "Riders On the Storm" would come on ,I remember that it actually scared the hell out of me.
This takes me right back to the neighborhood park. I was 14 and had a transistor radio playing this song. It was warm and sunny but this song just gave me a dark, sad, hopeless feeling. It became my least favorite Doors song. Now as an adult, I LOVE taking road trips listening to LA Woman.
I love Morrison's crooning on this song. You can hear Old Blue Eyes singing it! It reminds me of sitting in my big sister's room, painting with water colors, with the smell of frankincence and weed (not eight-year-old me smoking, mind you), and the dulcet tones of Jim and the funky organ of Ray floating around the room. I LOVE Annabel Lamb's cover. I recorded off the radio on "Rock Over London." Much later, I found the 12" single in the city.
Wow, Adam, thanks for this!! You do such a great job, so thorough, talented with words!!! And what a great subject, "Riders on the Storm" - an "otherworldly passage", the sense of surreal, haunting and haunted. "Supernatural swan song!" Beautiful!!!! ❤️
Excellent video! I have always found this song very haunting, especially after he died. I’m happy someone else hears the premonition of this song. It sounds like it was written straight from the heart in very little time. (I have words for those chords) ☮️♥️
I believe humans have a simple fascination for art produced by self-destructive individuals. It's why Van Gogh's paintings are priceless, and why we still listen to the music of The Doors and Joy Division and Amy Winehouse.
Their soul was in torment and turmoil!! Even Stephen King wrote so very differently sober than he did when he was struggling with Addiction! Still great but from a different place!
I understand that you are from the same state I am. You are just one more reason why the state I live in is the coolest state in the nation that no one knows anything about. (And we like it that way) Keep up the great work, Professor!
One of the best doors albums came out in 78. An American Prayer. The band had putt music to Jim's spoken words and created an awesome ride through LA. One of my faves... I still have the copy I bought when it came out in 1978. I was 18 and a big doors fan and a fan of the music of the 60s, growing up in that time in So. CAL,when KHJ and AM was king.
Our house is on a steep hill with a forest of trees overlooking a river. Our livingroom has huge sliding glass windows that take up the entire room. Saturday morning, Mom's at work so Dad turns on the stereo LOUD. Sliders are open it's cloudy and ominous. He puts on Riders on the Storm. He had a high tech stereo. Polk Audio speakers taller than me! What a thrill and a memory I will never forget! Jims haunting voice. The atmosphere was other worldly. Chest was pounding cuz it was so loud and a huge hawk started to fly in view! Just awesome!
I started listening to rock music religiously in 1968 on a little transistor radio. The first album I ever bought was Waiting for the Sun. Riders on the Storm is easily in my top five favorite songs of all time. It is right up there with Barracuda or Tom Sawyer. Thanks for the new perspective on this true classic
I love Morrison's voice. He had that real smooth and deep resonance. The best image that captures him to me is that airport video where he is asked by a reporter his name and he says Jim Morrison and then his occupation and he looks out at the camera. Oh boy.
Jim (Mojo Rising) Morrison died a few months before I was born, but The Doors were still big into the '80s (another band name on notebooks and jr high desks) and heard on 'BCN radio here. The only understanding I had of them, though, was when the movie came out in '91. For several years starting in the early '00s, I lived just below the Sunset Strip and Laurel Cyn. No matter how much the area changes, though, you can still hear the sounds of that musical era and from one of the bands that defined it w/songs like "LA Woman". As for "Riders on the Storm", there's nothing like driving those lonely cyn roads in the rain at night while listening to it. While the spectre of CA serial killers is spooky, I always imagined the song to be more about the darkness within and what one may find there, loneliness, solitude or truth, in times of trouble. Anyway, another great video, Adam, and just in time for Halloween and Día de los Santos.👻🎃☮️ *One thing you forgot to mention, though, and I can't find anywhere online: Back in the '80s (maybe the Dr. Demento radio show?), I remember a spoof of Elmer Fudd playing Jim Morrison. He was singing/warbling this song, getting arrested, and saying "kyl the waaabit", then "ohhh, I'm having a bad acid twip!"😂
I didn’t discover The Doors until the 1980’s when I was a teenager and going through a huge 60’s phase. I have this album on vinyl, it’s an original from the 1960’s. Great song.
I took the song literally. Back in those days there was quite a lot of hitch-hiking. A girl in a sorority next to mine and disappeared after she did a ride-share to get home for the holidays.
Growing up, I wasn't the biggest Doors fan. Don't get me wrong, it's not I was turning the channel when they came on the radio or anything like that! But as I got older, I did appreciate their music more. "Riders on the Storm" is an eerie, yet weird song. Ray Manzarek and Robbie Krieger really set the tone of the song from the opening chords. Manzarek gives you the feeling of being in the rain with his keyboards, while Krieger's guitar is haunting and ethereal. If the lyrics weren't so...disturbing, the song would be quite mellow. The part about the brains squirmin' like a toad is really out there. It's a true classic, and a sad "ending" to the Doors.
Wow! I didn't know this was the last song he recorded. Man, I was a Morrison disciple in my 20s and 30s in the 80s and 90s. I took on his persona, all of the partying and thought I was deep and introspective. I watched the movie 100s of times, and would always quote it. I think people just thought I was an idiot. There's one thing he had that I didn't. The coolness factor lol. I've since got clean and sober and moved on from that, but I still love me some Doors! Oh, and I still want that '68 Boss GT 500 Mustang he had. Good show as always Prof!
There are some songs that on some level, I have always understood. This is perhaps the best example. I say this despite being eight years old when it was released. I enjoyed this dive into a favorite. Quite a few of The Doors songs leave me with a desire to point the nose of something large, powerful and beautiful like a Riviera of the late '60s, west and put the gas pedal firmly to the floor. Along that highway, if you find a roadside motel, neon sign pointing the way in, stop for the night...
I remember driving our van back from Amsterdam to the Hague around 3am in the morning after being in a Bar in the Red light District all night back in 78. It was sleeting and dark and Riders on the Storm came on the radio. Eerie fantasy right there.
Poll: What is the SCARIEST song of the rock era? A song that sends shivers up your spine?
Beat It. MJ
Hallowed Be Thy Name Iron Maiden
Iron Man
....hmmmm....even though it wasn't "scary", it sure FELT like it.... *"Undercover Of The Night"* , by the Rolling Stones! ...a rarely mentioned tune that caused some controversy in 1983 / 1984...but spooked the HELL outta me! ...ha-HAAA!!
any song where you can hear Yoko Ono singing
Boomtown Rats "I Don't Like Mondays"
So many of The Doors' songs were uniquely their's. Nothing else really sounded like them. The fit the times well, but you would never mistake a Doors song for anyone else, nor would you mistake anyone else for them. All the members were extremely talented and creative and it showed throughout their music.
I loved the Doors. I was driving back home after a day at the lake when the DJ said Jim Morrison had died. I had to pull over off the road because I couldn't see through my tears. All these years later, it still hurts that he died like that.
I freaking LOVE The Doors! It's hard to pick a favorite song, but Riders is definitely among them!
My favourite is definitely "Light My Fire", but "Riders on the Storm" is up there!
How can anyone pick a favourite Doors song? I start thinking 'it's a tie between "People Are Strange" and "L.A. Woman"', but then I remember "Riders", "Roadhouse Blues", "The End", and pretty soon I've listed half the songs they ever wrote!
Let me tell you about Texas radio and the big beat
I think mine has to be The Crystal Ship.
For me, one of my favorites is “Indian Summer.”
Well done as usual Professor. Although, I don't think you can talk about "Riders" without mentioning Ray Manzarek's beautifully haunting decending keyboard flourish that takes the listener into the main body of the song. It still gives me chills every time I hear it. Your commentary about Jim Morrison reminded me of a great passage in Steven King's excellent novel "The Stand". In the story, one of the main characters, Stu Redman, recounts an event that happened to him while working the night shift at a lonely desert filling station in east Texas. A mysterious stranger driving an old vintage Cadillac pulls in to fill up, Stu describes him as having long hair and a beard, and after a rather cryptic and short conversation, the stranger drives away into the night. Of course this all happens in the late seventies, years after Morrisons death in France. Only years later does Stu reveal to his girlfriend that he is convinced that the man he met that night was the "late" Jim Morrison. The scene was left out of the subsequent movie adaptations of the book, but being a lifelong Doors fan it always stuck with me. Thanks for everything you do to keep this great music alive!
The most timeless band of all time. Nothing sounds like them and they are were massively creative, original and phenomenal. Backed up by the best front man Jim Morrison who was the epitome of intellect, style and artistry. Thank you for your words Mr. Morrison.❤
The Doors definitely have one of the most mysterious sounds. The organ and guitar made for such a unique sound that only they could create. Clean but gritty at the same time.
Exactly. Have a great weekend RC32!
Definitely a unique and great group of talented musicians/artists.
They knew how to create atmosphere in their songs!
The Dead also had an organ in their lineup as did The Animals. But, Manzarek and Morrison had a synthesis that reminded me of the way birds fly in formation and don’t crash into each other🤷🏼♀️
As the years roll on, Riders on the Storm is gradually supplanting Light My Fire as the Doors’ signature song. A haunting, brilliant piece of work.
To me, no other song like it. The way it begins and weaves its way through the whole track is just amazing. I'm a huge Doors fan, and honestly its my favorite song of theirs. Just haunting, I always turn it up whenever I hear it.
It's so haunting and atmospheric. I agree. Nothing else like it in the world.
My favourite is definitely "Light My Fire", but "Riders on the Storm" is up there!
It’s one of the best songs ever!
I was about to say basically the same thing! I fell in love with the Doors when I was still a kid in 7th grade. “Light My Fire” was released in 1967 and it’s the first 45 I ever owned. I think my parents regretted getting it for me because I would play it over and over and over again. Riders on the Storm was another favorite that I played repeatedly. RIP Jim, there will never be another.❤️🎶
This song always makes me think of the Book of Revelations with the threat of the riders and the eerieness of the soulful tune. So haunting yet beautiful.
This is one of my favorite songs by them. Whenever I hear it I have to stop what I'm doing just to listen to it. It takes me on a journey every single time.
Jim was an exceptional writer/singer/frontman, but musicianship of the other 3, cannot be overlooked. They really were phenomenal
As a kid the other three members were the big draw for me.. appreciating Jim came much later
I have always thought that this song is The Doors' finest masterpiece.... I get lost in this atmospheric song without the need for any drugs.
The Doors are just awesome! Morrison is a legend. A couple of years ago I went to see The Doors famous concert live at The Hollywood bowl. They were screening it at a nearby theater. I was blown away that there were more highschool kids that went to watch the movie than older folks like myself. It goes to show that The Doors are timeless and will be around for generations to come. Jim may be deceased but his music will live on in many lifetimes.
I’m a high schooler. I’ve listened to the Doors ever since being blown away by Light my Fire in middle school. I’m glad younger generations are realizing just what a great band they were.
Many lifetime's! True well put!
I am a gen x' er, so I was not able to see them in their heyday. But I saw a Doors cover band back in the 90's. It was great.
@@xxlilly_playsxxkiz9980what high school do you attend? I know you once told me you were from or still in NE Ohio. Canton Timken Trojan '84 here
@@melanieshaw3210 I prefer not to say on here, but I reside on the East Coast rather than Ohio!
When I first saw the movie, 'The Doors' I was absolutely spellbound by 'Riders on the Storm' played for the opening credits. Love it. One of my top 20 songs ever. Cheers ✌
The Doors were absolutely huge in Australia at the time on every radio station daily and rightly so ... Wonderful memories so happy the younger generations have picked up on this amazing man ...Thanks so much for your channel..
Riders Upon The Storm was my favorite song by The Doors! I was absolutely amazed by the lyrics. Quite definitely a song that should have been #1.❤
It simply needed to be to change the world.
The 45 edit was pretty good, but everyone bought the album, which had the long version (and a limited cover). The band didn't tour in 1971, and AM radio didn't play it much during the daytime. It was a huge FM hit, but that didn't make it reach No. 1.
One of the most haunting aspects for me is Jerry Scheff's bass on the track. It's a phenomenal and underrecognised contribution.
That bass is the incredible
Few moments in cinema are as ominous, haunting, and transcendent as Coppola's use of The End to score Willard's climactic and decisive confrontation with Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. True to the film's appellation, it feels apocalyptic.
This Is The End, my favorite Doors song followed by Riders On The Storm 🖤🖤🖤
No other band had their sound, no other singer had that voice. I'm glad to have lived a life listing to their music.
Hi I saw Ray Manzarek with The 21st Century Doors, Robbie also. Ian also. A warm up gig before the tour started.
When did you see em?
I was so waiting for you to cover The Doors. A band and sound ahead of its time, and a man by the name of Jim Morrison, who will forever be rock and roll’s greatest poet, and lizard king 🦎👑
Amen! Love this band. What's your favorite track by them?
@@ProfessorofRockit’s a toss up between Soul Kitchen and Peace Frog. They just had so many great tunes, it’s hard to pick just one!
Apparently, he really liked lizards.
The one and only Break On Through
Really great show. The Doors have so many great songs and some all-time classic rock songs. But Riders I think is their contribution to the niche of truly great creative rock songs. Everything about it puts it right up at the very top. Thanks for covering it on your excellent channel.
To me this song has always been a time capsule of the real face of the late sixties. It’s such a haunting, trancey, trippy meditation on the time it was written in. Dark things got real. Perfect in every way, it’s now timeless. Thank you for this!
I remember that song playing on the radio when i was really young, it felt very mysterious and I picked up the 45. It still has that effect when you play it
Most importantly, it hasn’t aged a day.
@@xxlilly_playsxxkiz9980 It still is so unique for sure!
Huge Doors fan but I had no idea this was the last song he recorded, eerie and haunting lyrics and music , pretty fitting. I have often thought if Jim had lived he would walk away from music and write his poetry. I would have loved to have seen the Doors live and wondered if it would be fantastic or a disaster because he was so unpredictable. The Doors movie was superb Val really captures Jim. More Doors professor always interesting, great episode!!
Thanks My Name!
Also a giant Doors fan, singing Not to Touch the Earth tonight, more or less dressed as Jim. A friend saw part of Absolutely Live recorded in Philly, to this day I don't know why or how I missed it..
@@darrylmars how cool is that!! I go see Peace Frog , a great doors cover band out of California, every year and it is always a great show.
The fact that this was the last song he ever recorded makes it all the more disturbing. The music was haunting enough!
@@xxlilly_playsxxkiz9980 so many of Jim's songs had dark themes and his last one may have been the darkest
The Doors. My all time favorite band. Always will be......
This was amazing, The Doors are my all time favourite band as their music is so different and Ethereal that it taps into something cosmic most top 40 rock bands have no idea how to do.
Me too
Sadly, Morrison's image and life and death cast such a shadow over The Doors that the other members get skipped over. Ray Manzarek's keyboards here is what really carres this song along.
Bruce Botnick is my moms cousin. He was the Doors engineer until LA Woman, he produced it.
I think The End is a more haunting song.
Mom told stories of watching the band in their practice studio and on the strip.
Bruce went on to produce Eddie Money and the Star Trek movies with Jerry Goldsmith.
Would love to interview him. Are you in contact with him?
@@ProfessorofRock - I will contact him and let him know of your Chanel and interest in talking with him.
I think you're right: "Riders" is atmospheric and moody, but "The End" is truly haunting. To me, it explores the depths of the soul, though the title alone says it all.
Did your mom ever meet them or get invited into the studio?
@@xxlilly_playsxxkiz9980
Yes. Both.
I love the Doors. For me, they're right up there with the best bands in the world. I never get tired of their timeless music.
Jim Morrison was soooo ahead of his time. It can be the year 2050, and we will still be wondering about his lyrics……
In the late 90s I worked a night shift entering Ralph's Club card applications into a database. This album was my favorite to have on my headphones. This song took me away! The rain and the whispering, the eerie tale and imagery. This song is a complete experience. ❤
I fell in love with the Doors when I was still a kid in 7th grade. “Light My Fire” was released in 1967 and it’s the first 45 I ever owned. I think my parents regretted getting it for me because I would play it over and over and over again. But I loved “Riders on the Storm” even more. It was another favorite that I played repeatedly. RIP Jim, there will never be another.❤️🎶
I've always felt that Jim was saying parting words to us all. This was his farewell song.
Riders of the Storm is one of the more profound songs of that era. It was transcendent. When it first came out, we were high school age. Friends and I felt Morison had reached his sublime state. A masterpiece. We thought he could “get much higher”. I always thought the “killer on the road” represented a killer of the soul, brought on by depression and drugs. We sat around and got our minds blown by the whispering we heard in the song, and debated its meaning. Some of my overly dramatic friends were freaking out by how spooky it was. Some claimed it was a ghost or demon whispering the words, lol. I loved to listen to it late at night. I was 16, and going through a very dark time in my life with drugs and alcohol, and general disaffection and cynicism I felt about high school. In my neighborhood in West Phoenix, drug abuse was rampant. We felt we were going nowhere. I saw friends and acquaintances disappear from drug overdoses, and later by AIDS. Generation George. But it also introduced me to some intelligent dark and sometimes ethereal (I’m talking Cocteau Twins, not Enya) music later on that ultimately became Goth Music. Can you question why we wore, and some of us still do wear black? Screw the cute and short lived trend of Wednesday Addams fast fashion dresses. We genuinely thought all of us would be obliterated by AIDS or nuclear war.
Ray Man was a nice guy. Back in 2004-2008 I got him and his wife tickets to a couple of different shows here in Las Vegas. It was a great loss to the world of music when he died
Killer show thanks Professor. I have always felt the Doors were one of the best bands in history, nobody sounds quite like the Doors!⚡💫
I was just a tot when this song came out but I had an older brother who played the Doors, the Beatles, Janis Joplin on the stereo all the time. I was only about 5, but I remember the strong imagery of this song; loved it but thought it was kind of scary. Still one of my favorites today. Thank you, Professor, for all the wonderful back stories of artists and songs! ❤
Riders On The Storm is one of my fav songs of all time. I’ve listened to it hundreds of times, and will listen to it hundreds more, and will never get tired of it. The haunting lyrics, the rain effect, beautiful keyboard, its an absolute masterpiece.
There are so many who made their own version of this but nothing beats the original that is so haunting and fascinating.
I visited Jim’s grave at Père LaChaise. So many famous people are interred there. I think Jim’s simple grave is much more popular than some of the more elaborate graves. People leave flowers and small gifts. That’s a great song, my favorite Doors song!
I was one of those people leaving gifts!! hehehe
@@kcii78 I think that’s really sweet! 😃
@@californiahiker9616 Thanking you! Pere LaChaise is such an enchanting place. Wish I had more time to explore it and the rest of Paris too lol
My parents took me to a Doors concert when I was four years old. I don’t remember much about it except being terrified of Jim Morrison. In college, I became deeply interested in the Doors and bought all of their albums and many of their songs were strangely familiar to me. One day I was listening to “Riders On the Storm” at my apartment and my dad stopped by. That’s when he told about the concert and when I realized why so many songs were recognizable to me.🖖🏼
What was it about Jim Morrison that terrified you? Do you remember
Jim was a mysterious man!
I was 11 years old when this song was released. Even, at that age it captured me. I can honestly transport back to the time I first heard the song. It would take some years later until I fully absorbed the Doors as a band. Just about the same time the Doors revival happened. Riders on the storm, was haunting to me when I first heard it as an 11 year old. All these years later, the song is as brilliant and haunting as ever.
You just can't say enough about Jim Morrison and The Doors. I grew up to their music. He was such a great singer. They were so talented and ahead of their time. Riders on the Storm was a great song and to this day I still love listening to it. It's just too bad that you can't do an interview with him. Thanks Professor for another great one...
My Favorite Doors song is "Riders On The Storm" The combination of Jim Morrison's haunting singing and Ray Manzarek's keyboards just Phenomenal!
The thunder and lightning sound effects, and sheer length of the song have made riders on the storm one of my favorite Doors songs along with light my fire. This was a very interesting episode. I had no idea what writers was about or that it was the last song Jim Morrison recorded. Haunting indeed.
The Doors was such a great band. Our kids are in their 30s. Riders of the Storm still scares them.
So eerie...the music and lyrics take me back to The Twightlight Zone. Picture Rod Serling and Jim Morrison sitting at a Paris cafe writing a new musical based on the series. Miss both for their creative genius.
Great pick. I didn't know they had done a live version on this song. I really wish we could have seen and heard L.A. Woman live. It's just an amazing album.
I agree. Thanks for watching. !
I would go back to 1971 just for that!
Jim was one of a kind. Like too many creative, talented, one of a kind artists, he left us way too soon.I was introduced to the Doors at about 8 years old when a neighbor boy started following me around singing, "come on baby light my fire". 😆 I did not hold it against the Doors and several years later became a huge fan!
There just simply will never be another like Jim, his style was all unto his own and just insanely unique to him
He had a great voice, and a great look.
Such a poetic, atmospheric masterpiece as popular as when it was released.
When younger always confused this with 'Ghost Riders...' and it brought to mind some of Pink Floyd.
Never knew until older of him being a man on a psychedelic venture into the darkest corners of the human soul.
Can only hope he found his way to the light in eternity.
In one of his final interviews Jim said his favorite band at the time was Pink Floyd.
Love The Doors. Never really listened to them until I saw the movie. After that I went back and listened to everything I could find. I had heard their songs before, but hadn't really listened to it. I regret that, but I'm glad I finally found them
I was young but around and listening to music radio when The Doors were recording. I can remember the Beatles, the Monkees, the Beach Boys and others, but somehow I didn't pick up on The Doors. In the late 70s, my musical training being along classical lines, there were not many rock and roll voices I was impressed with. One day at work, Touch Me came on the radio. It immediately caught my attention, and I was stunned by that lyrical baritone voice in the chorus of the song. I said to one of my friends right there, "Wow, a rock singer with a legit voice." He looked at me funny and told me that was Jim Morrison and The Doors. Instant revelation. I had to hear it all at that point and they remain one of my favorite bands. Morrison is, as the Professor discusses here, a very mixed bag. But when he was singing with that natural voice, he was simply amazing. I love all their stuff, but it's the slower, lyrical songs or passages where that voice comes out that are my favorite. Riders on the Storm is a great example, while not my personal favorite. But I'll tell you, Professor, if you have not turned out all the lights, closed your eyes and listened to The End the way you described with Riders, you are in for another great ride!
Doors is my favorite band. I've listened to all their albums many times and LA Women is probably their best (maybe their first). The fact they could make that album at the end when they weren't getting along, etc. is just insane to me. It speaks volumes to their immense talent and skill. If Jim had been able to control his self destruction... sheesh.
Love the Doors ! Blown away every time I hear the electric poet ! Always makes you think and feel !
Jim Morrison seems so much older than 27 in his persona and if there is a masculinity scale, he would be somewhere around "Burning Man" in the scale. His singing is relentless and driven. His topics reached past the boundaries of normal society but without putting on a show. Alice Cooper, Manson, Ozzie, Kiss, all a show. Jim Morrison was a human being with a sense of agency. His quotes are as fascinating as his songs. "The most loving parents and relatives commit murder with smiles on their faces. They force us to destroy the person we really are: a subtle kind of murder."
Men back then just had more testosterone, thats why they all look older. A 35 year old today looks like 25 year old back then
@@adamclark9004It's all the soy and other chemicals in the foods these days.
@@adamclark9004 Is that what it is?
@@peterd.9978 Nonsense. Vegan men have more testosterone than non-vegan men. Explain that.
I agree with everything, up until the quote.
What a crock. Sounds like charlie’s “logic”.
Poor little victim hood addicts.
I love the Doors music and songs, they were all unique….but Riders On The Storm was my favorite of all, it had something special with it that no one else has come close to it even when others are playing it …. HIGH 5…👍❤️🙏🏼
Arguably the greatest 'American' R&R band in history; output, variety, sincerity, impact, power, popularity, breadth, talent, inspiration, legacy.... Find another that's been so dramatically impactful on music, ever. Cheers.
My favorite Doors song. I was 11 when it was released and can still remember hearing it in the car on my way to guitar lessons. Love the tremolo on the guitar and the thunder/rain sound effect is brilliant.
Hello Professor it’s Wayland Iam still watching your work ! Love it 🙏
Awesome! Thank you!
I think this was one of your very best episodes, along with the one about You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling. I always liked the jazz vibe of Riders On the Storm, as well as the qualities you mention. Morrison was truly unique. Thanks for this!
Well done on the unassuming "Yeeeeeeeeeeahhh" Professor! 🤙 Sounded just like Jim! 🫡👏🏼
And I thought this music piece was haunting enough, listening to this one sparks that feeling even more! Thanks for telling one more haunting tale and all details surrounding the recording of this classic!
Ahhh. Hitting on one of my all time favorites. I head to LA often and always head to Venice Beach and chill to The Doors. One day I will stay in the hotel near sunset strip. RIders has such a jazz feel and improvisation. Early days of Prog Rock.
I have been to Jim’s gravesite in Paris.
Thanks for sharing.
The chords are definitely jazzy.
Another great song from my Halloween playlist! 👏👏👏
This song is also on my Feeling Cooler Then I'll Ever Be playlist😆 The Doors are too cool for almost everybody 😎
I agree 1000% Such a great track. Is it your favorite by them?
@@ProfessorofRock I think my favorite fluctuates between ROTS and Roadhouse Blues! But I also love People Are Strange. That one made the Halloween playlist too!🎃
I like to listen to ROTS in the dark too, btw ☺. I did that with all my favorite albums and it's so relaxing to just sit quietly and immerse yourself in good music 🎶 😌!
What else is on it?
@@xxlilly_playsxxkiz9980 Its a big list, but I tried to put anything kind of related to Halloween or just mysterious. I have the obvious ones like Somebody's Watching Me, by Rockwell, Home By The Sea, by Genesis, Spooky, By Atlantic Rythm Section, etc. And I've got horror movie themes mixed in as well, like the theme from Halloween and Dracula. I'd link the list for you here, but I'm not sure if I could do that on RUclips☺ It's from my Amazon Music library
I was a very young kid when this song came out. I had a clock radio by my bed that I listened to while going to sleep. When "Riders On the Storm" would come on ,I remember that it actually scared the hell out of me.
My wife and I just returned from a trip to Paris. Morrison's grave was a must visit. Thanks for another great episode!
BRILLIANT Insight to a GENIUS
Song! RIP Jim Morrison "Forever 27" ...Newk from Kentucky
Thank you, Professor! Fascinating, as always, and one of my favorite songs.
This takes me right back to the neighborhood park. I was 14 and had a transistor radio playing this song. It was warm and sunny but this song just gave me a dark, sad, hopeless feeling. It became my least favorite Doors song. Now as an adult, I LOVE taking road trips listening to LA Woman.
I love Morrison's crooning on this song. You can hear Old Blue Eyes singing it! It reminds me of sitting in my big sister's room, painting with water colors, with the smell of frankincence and weed (not eight-year-old me smoking, mind you), and the dulcet tones of Jim and the funky organ of Ray floating around the room. I LOVE Annabel Lamb's cover. I recorded off the radio on "Rock Over London." Much later, I found the 12" single in the city.
One of the best songs to drive to, at night..... on a lonely highway.
I still travel it today....
My first thought was "People are Strange " pretty haunting, but yeah "Riders on the Storm" more so! What an incredible band! Jim was a master poet!
Wow, Adam, thanks for this!! You do such a great job, so thorough, talented with words!!! And what a great subject, "Riders on the Storm" - an "otherworldly passage", the sense of surreal, haunting and haunted. "Supernatural swan song!" Beautiful!!!! ❤️
Excellent video! I have always found this song very haunting, especially after he died. I’m happy someone else hears the premonition of this song.
It sounds like it was written straight from the heart in very little time.
(I have words for those chords)
☮️♥️
I believe humans have a simple fascination for art produced by self-destructive individuals. It's why Van Gogh's paintings are priceless, and why we still listen to the music of The Doors and Joy Division and Amy Winehouse.
Their soul was in torment and turmoil!! Even Stephen King wrote so very differently sober than he did when he was struggling with Addiction! Still great but from a different place!
I understand that you are from the same state I am. You are just one more reason why the state I live in is the coolest state in the nation that no one knows anything about. (And we like it that way) Keep up the great work, Professor!
One of the best doors albums came out in 78. An American Prayer. The band had putt music to Jim's spoken words and created an awesome ride through LA. One of my faves... I still have the copy I bought when it came out in 1978. I was 18 and a big doors fan and a fan of the music of the 60s, growing up in that time in So. CAL,when KHJ and AM was king.
Always loved this song, never knew it was the last one he recorded. Kind of makes it all the more haunting, in a good way.
Our house is on a steep hill with a forest of trees overlooking a river. Our livingroom has huge sliding glass windows that take up the entire room. Saturday morning, Mom's at work so Dad turns on the stereo LOUD. Sliders are open it's cloudy and ominous. He puts on Riders on the Storm. He had a high tech stereo. Polk Audio speakers taller than me! What a thrill and a memory I will never forget! Jims haunting voice. The atmosphere was other worldly. Chest was pounding cuz it was so loud and a huge hawk started to fly in view! Just awesome!
My absolute favourite Doors song, by far!
Always loved The Doors. Discovered them as a teen in the early 90s. Riders and The End are amazing and haunting songs.
Captivating song. RIP Jim
Everything about their music was so distinct and provocative, it all holds up. This song is particularly mesmerizing.
I started listening to rock music religiously in 1968 on a little transistor radio. The first album I ever bought was Waiting for the Sun. Riders on the Storm is easily in my top five favorite songs of all time. It is right up there with Barracuda or Tom Sawyer. Thanks for the new perspective on this true classic
I love Morrison's voice. He had that real smooth and deep resonance. The best image that captures him to me is that airport video where he is asked by a reporter his name and he says Jim Morrison and then his occupation and he looks out at the camera. Oh boy.
I agree.
Very unique in the rock and roll pantheon.
😮
Jim (Mojo Rising) Morrison died a few months before I was born, but The Doors were still big into the '80s (another band name on notebooks and jr high desks) and heard on 'BCN radio here. The only understanding I had of them, though, was when the movie came out in '91.
For several years starting in the early '00s, I lived just below the Sunset Strip and Laurel Cyn. No matter how much the area changes, though, you can still hear the sounds of that musical era and from one of the bands that defined it w/songs like "LA Woman". As for "Riders on the Storm", there's nothing like driving those lonely cyn roads in the rain at night while listening to it. While the spectre of CA serial killers is spooky, I always imagined the song to be more about the darkness within and what one may find there, loneliness, solitude or truth, in times of trouble. Anyway, another great video, Adam, and just in time for Halloween and Día de los Santos.👻🎃☮️
*One thing you forgot to mention, though, and I can't find anywhere online: Back in the '80s (maybe the Dr. Demento radio show?), I remember a spoof of Elmer Fudd playing Jim Morrison. He was singing/warbling this song, getting arrested, and saying "kyl the waaabit", then "ohhh, I'm having a bad acid twip!"😂
When I was a teenager, I was in love ❤ with Jim and had a poster of him in my room.
I didn’t discover The Doors until the 1980’s when I was a teenager and going through a huge 60’s phase. I have this album on vinyl, it’s an original from the 1960’s. Great song.
It's one of my favorite songs from the Doors. Late 60s early 70s was a great time in music.
Brilliant, in every way, in all aspects: The Doors, the song, and Profs report.
I took the song literally. Back in those days there was quite a lot of hitch-hiking. A girl in a sorority next to mine and disappeared after she did a ride-share to get home for the holidays.
Growing up, I wasn't the biggest Doors fan. Don't get me wrong, it's not I was turning the channel when they came on the radio or anything like that! But as I got older, I did appreciate their music more. "Riders on the Storm" is an eerie, yet weird song. Ray Manzarek and Robbie Krieger really set the tone of the song from the opening chords. Manzarek gives you the feeling of being in the rain with his keyboards, while Krieger's guitar is haunting and ethereal. If the lyrics weren't so...disturbing, the song would be quite mellow. The part about the brains squirmin' like a toad is really out there. It's a true classic, and a sad "ending" to the Doors.
It’s amazing, you can practically hear the raindrops in your brain while Manzarek’s keyboard line is playing.
Wow! I didn't know this was the last song he recorded. Man, I was a Morrison disciple in my 20s and 30s in the 80s and 90s. I took on his persona, all of the partying and thought I was deep and introspective. I watched the movie 100s of times, and would always quote it. I think people just thought I was an idiot. There's one thing he had that I didn't. The coolness factor lol. I've since got clean and sober and moved on from that, but I still love me some Doors! Oh, and I still want that '68 Boss GT 500 Mustang he had. Good show as always Prof!
Thanks for sharing.
@@ProfessorofRock You got it!
I’m sure he owned a lot of things we wish we did!
There are some songs that on some level, I have always understood. This is perhaps the best example. I say this despite being eight years old when it was released.
I enjoyed this dive into a favorite.
Quite a few of The Doors songs leave me with a desire to point the nose of something large, powerful and beautiful like a Riviera of the late '60s, west and put the gas pedal firmly to the floor.
Along that highway, if you find a roadside motel, neon sign pointing the way in, stop for the night...
Morrison, beautiful voice...
I remember driving our van back from Amsterdam to the Hague around 3am in the morning after being in a Bar in the Red light District all night back in 78. It was sleeting and dark and Riders on the Storm came on the radio. Eerie fantasy right there.
Very cool story Professor! So sad, a life taken too soon! What could have been? Can’t wait for the next story!🤘🔥
Glad you enjoyed it!
I know, right? What if?
I've always wondered about that...same with Jimi Hendrix, Janis, Stevie Ray Vaughn, etc.