What can you possibly do bigger than a write, compose and play a song that can be played at the end of all that is known...... this song is singularity.
Yeah its sort of a waste to hyperfocus on lyrics the first listen, especially Jim's. lol It's supposed to be an experience. One that will evolve the more you listen to it. Gain your own interpretations without worrying too much if its the correct one. But at the end of the day, there is no law on how to listen to music, but there are preferred ways. lol
Even the band themselves were totally caught off guard when Jim first did the Oedipus section. Morrison was an extremely well read individual with a passion for greek tragedies
Hey, it’s about an insane and tragic ending to society. Bizarre stuff would happen in the world this song creates. Few musicians would think to go there but it drives the mood of the song home in a personal way. Not much more that could drive home the idea of tragic insanity. But, if Freud is right, this could be where humans go when society completely devolves and all egos are completely broken.
it's funny, that this was so "controversial" when he was literally quoting classics... things that are obscene on their face but in the context of the Oresteia are OK because it is greek... I think Jim loved the duality of it all, the absurdity, including his own humanity
The End and Apocalypse Now are forever fused in my mind, I can't think of one without the other. Jim was a poet as well as a singer, and he abused a LOT of substances. The result of this combination was fantastic and weird and lush. I'm told that this song is quite an experience when the listener is on drugs.
If you look in the tree line as the napalm rips across the lower left side Francis Ford Coppola placed Morrison's face looking up with his mouth open. Ray Manzarek and Jim Morrison of The Doors both met at UCLA film school. Another enrolee at the time was none other than Coppola. This connection meant that Coppola was more aware of their music on a personal level and as such when he stumbled across the album lying there it seemed like a bolt from the past.
@@jbbj9720I was on lsd out in the mountains by these huge waterfalls an I was going through this forest slowly listening to this song and in my head I was in Vietnam it was an incredible experience I’ll never forget
@@bobbyflay7217 There actually no autopsy performed so the actual cause is speculative but many believe it was brought on from many years of abuse of multiple drugs. We’ll never know for certain.
Nope noone ever saw his body and tje autopsy has been shot to shit. You are stupid you are getting bogus info he died in a club and was brought back to the room they put him in a hot bath so temperature of his body would trow them off
The song started as a farewell/breakup song, but evolved over time as they played it live. Jim was interested in Mythology hence the Oedipus references (killing Father Sex with Mother). The Vietnam War was happening at the time and when you were drafted a "BLUE BUS" picked you up to take you off to Basic Training.
@ jdm1066 And a few months later as a nineteen year old kid you were a gladiator 'lost in a Roman wilderness of pain and all the children are insane' so you 'took a face from the ancient gallery' and used your most basic instincts to 'kill, ....... kill, ...... kill'.
@@jdm1066 I am very familiar with a Colonel Walter Kurtz, descendent of Captain Paul Voulet with whom I shared similar influences and experiences, but I've never heard of 'Coronel'. Is he an honest man? Is he a good man? What will they say about him when he's gone?
It was crazy time for me as they were pulling kid's from their parents and sending us to a place were no one came home alive from and then cam my turn and here came the bus and all the crying, I was sad by a election. FORD
This is one of the funniest reactions by Brad and Lex. Brad is trying to figure out what Jim is talking about in detail, which is nearly impossible here. Lex, at least during the song, is grooving like she dropped a hit about two hours prior, which is the way this song was intended to be enjoyed in my opinion.
Exactly. I don't understand all of these people agonizing to try and figure out the one and only true meaning of all of these classic rock songs from a half century ago. The lyrics of a great song can often mean different things on different levels to different people. If the writer/performer had one specific meaning in mind, you can probably find that out through some research. But to sit there and waste your time trying to come up with the one & only meaning all by yourself seems a bit moronic to me. Just enjoy the song, and maybe tell what you liked about it ....
Lex you were so intuitive with this one (as you are with many others but to be intuitive with this one was especially enjoyable from the viewer standpoint), loved how you expressed his voice feeling like a time capsule of that energy, it’s a weird thought to consider how Jim would’ve been if he lived to be older, almost feels like it wasn’t in the cards for him and he felt it as well but walked the path with a weird confidence and self awareness, great reaction guys, loved watching Brad try and figure these lyrics out!
Brad always tries to make literal sense out of every song he heres and Lex's theories get way out there, but usually she's a lot closer than he is. I'd like to what they'd make out of 'I Am The Walrus'.
I asked my grandmother, who was 83 at the time, to listen to this with me. She was a trooper and listened. When I asked her what it was about, she said, "this guy is on drugs."
He had it all in his head for years. I would guess lsd opened the vault. Smart people can handle lsd. Mushrooms. It opens doors of thought. Morons have bad trips.
As a combat veteran of the Vietnam War this song speaks to me. As a 19 year old helicopter door gunner I was one of those insane children. Before the insanity I did not know that blood had an actual odor. Cleaning that substance from the choppers deck with an ammo can filled with rice paddy water taught me that it most certainly did.
Thank you for being there. I can't fathom the times. My father served and my uncle died there (ironically on a helicopter that landed on a mine). Pop hardly ever talked about it and my mom (my uncle's sister) hates LBJ, Jane Fonda, and everything Vietnamese to this day...we should have never been there, but again, I thank you and apologize for you having to go...
Thanks for your service sir. I drive the bus here in vegas and i see a lot of veterans sleeping on the streets and at times I have to refrain from dropping a tear. Thank you sir and you’re my hero.
This song took on a whole other life when it was used in Apocalypse Now. AN is one of the greatest films of all time. By the time you get to this song at the end of the journey into insanity it is like they were made for each other.
Watching the movie "Apocalypse Now" in the theaters, at about the age of 18, I began to fear after the first 20 minutes that I'd be a different person when I finished the movie, never getting my previous self back!! And this song made it all the scarier.
yes this song has definite apocalyptic vibes. other than the whole fixation with death, its obsessed with visions of doom in strange forms - of snakes, children, blue busses, fire and fury. Read the book of revelations afterwards and you can just see there was a jim morrison clone born 2000 years ago that had the same state of mind when he wrote that down.
And to think this was released in 1967. Mind blowing for that period in music. (Wow Andy, good to see one of my favorite reactors giving a shout out to such a great couple.)
@Mas Dito Oh I’ve heard that one while in a spiritually induced inebriated state, and it was freaking killer, I still think I think the end more but your point in bringing that track up is very valid
Brad nailed it. This song was originally written as a break up song, but has since been co-opted for a multitude of meanings. Most notably as the bookend of Apocalypse Now, where the movie starts with this song as napalm scorches the Vietnamese jungle, and ends the movie as Captain Willard fulfills his mission.
My favorite all time band please go down this rabbit hole! Jim was the greatest rock star in history....... brilliant with a genius IQ, good looking, rebel, died young, literally checks off all boxes The Doors is an amazing group that pushes your boundaries, i can honestly say they changed my life
A friend and I found this in a shed we shouldn't have been in, back in like, '79. Took it to his room and played it. Was was a great A side. then we flipped it over... Holy hell. had to keep moving the needle. He seemed to take it to a dark place. Changed both are lives.
The End is simply death, although the song also deals with Jim Morrison's parents and contains Oedipal themes of loving his mother and killing his father. And, you were prophetic about the bathtub Lexi. Jim died in Paris, in 1971, in a bathtub as a result of a heart attack brought on by years of drug and alcohol abuse… sadly, he is a member of the well known “27 Club”
@@fishhookism Follow along, a sec. Jim was a heavy drinker. Chronic alcohol abuse can lead to stomach ulcers and acid reflux. Acid reflux can cause hiccups. In the weeks/days before his death, he had been having sever bouts of hiccups. He vomited blood in the bathtub several times, and Pam had to keep changing the water because of it. MY theory: A ruptured stomach ulcer was, at least in part, a contributing factor to his death. Did the heroin overcome him? Did he die of blood loss from that ulcer? Was it all too much for his heart to handle? We don't know. All we need to know is that he messed himself up real bad.
I'm not buying that, not at all. I've chewed up obscene amounts of oxycodone pills and washed them down with a fifth of whiskey many times and I'm just fine. There's no way he died of heart failure at 27, atleast not from that. Possibly a full-on overdose, but that doesn't sound rational either considering he was a very experienced drug user who knew what he was doing. He was more than likely poisoned some how and then placed in the tub. He didn't die in that bathtub, it just doesn't sound right. None of it does.
She did it again!! Lex did it again - she hits the nail on the head 8:30, and coupled with her body movement during this song made Mr. Mojo Risin very happy.
I used to listen to a rock station that was going country. The DJ knew she didn't have a job after midnight. She threw out the play list, Playing only long form songs. The last two songs were When the Music is Over, and The End. The last note was the end of that station as a rock station. I always thought that was appropriate end.
"The End" began as Jim Morrison's farewell to Mary Werbelow, his girlfriend who followed him from Florida to Los Angeles. Morrison was always vague as to the meaning, explaining: "It could be almost anything you want it to be."
The lyric "Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain and all the children are insane" came about after Morrison was in San Francisco and witnessed the utter destitution and decay of the so called love generation. It was his indictment of that movement.
excellent Sampson 95 !! I spent a couple days/nights on Haight/Ashbury in my college days (70-71). What I thought would be bliss/love/peace (according to news reports and songs of the era) was in reality a Lou Reed Walk on the wild side "with a hustle here and a hustle there". Everyone out for themselves. This experience was a catalyst for my "growing up" phase.
It is also a reference to Tacitus Annals V 'Ubi solitudinum facing pace appellant'...'when they make a wilderness they call it peace'. They are the words of a Scottish tribal leader before a battle with the Romans.
He knew the hippies were completely full of shit. Jimi Hendrix didn’t care if they cut off all their hair, either and Touch (one of my fave unknown bands of that era) wanted California to fall into the sea. No hippie had the work ethic to create these kinds of tunes.
Lead singer Jim Morrison initially wrote the lyrics about his break up with an old girlfriend, Mary Werbelow. But it evolved through months of performances at the Whisky a Go Go into a much longer song. very time I hear that song, it means something else to me. I really don't know what I was trying to say. It just started out as a simple goodbye song ... Probably just to a girl, but I could see how it could be goodbye to a kind of childhood. I really don't know. I think it's sufficiently complex and universal in its imagery that it could be almost anything you want it to be.[10] Promotional photo of the Doors in late 1966, a few months after recording "The End" in August When interviewed by Lizze James, he pointed out the meaning of the verse "My only friend, the End": Sometimes the pain is too much to examine, or even tolerate ... That doesn't make it evil, though - or necessarily dangerous. But people fear death even more than pain.
This is the song everyone knows from the Doors, but they have like 50 other great songs. Break on Through, Moonlight Ride, When The Music's Over...you can go down a deep Doors rabbit hole.
Light My Fire (by far) and then Break on Through... I don't think this one is at all the one people know the Doors from.. maybe they should in a good world as this really shows the breadth of them. I love to turn people on to Peace Frog because that is just so damn fun.
Portraying Oliver Stones Jim only showed his Destruction side, can't make that much music in the short time they did being always a Drunk and Drug asshole And never burnt his woman in a closet, yes they had an open relationship but loved her any way Oliver stones the Doors was made to fuel his Cocaine blowing and Jim was a much better person I know because Ray said so, but still I love the Movie
@@betsyduane3461 Rejected for the role, were ya ? Well don’t cry about it forever. You Oscar is waiting on that perfect performance hidden somewhere deep inside.
This song initially was written by Jim Morrison as a break up song regarding his girlfriend, but had kept adding lyrics that had nothing to do with a breakup anymore as they played it live. Eventually they released it with all the alternate lyrics except for the foul language he used in concert.
I love this song and I was so happy to watch you react to it on the live stream. I always took the song to mean the "end of 1960's innocence" as Morrison realized that the hippie generation who naively thought they were going to bring about a paradise on earth instead descended into a form of emotional nihilism by caring about little other than getting high and feeling good. His reference to the Oedipus Complex is to remind us that we are really just animals that kill & f*ck - and everything else is just lofty idealism. My 2 cents. Anyway - thanks for your reactions.
Jim Morrison got about 75 years worth of livin' out of his 27 years on this Earth. Not saying it was all good, or right, but whose is? And 50 years later none of us can stop talking about him, or listening to his music.
Morrison was the ultimate poet, we didn't get so hung up on the details when the songs were released, we just enjoyed the instrumental sounds and the phrasing of the lyrics. Drugs / peyote / booze / etc. As someone else mentioned, you should really watch the movie "The Doors", Val Kilmer is incredible, and you get an idea of the vibes of the times. FYI - the original album recording didn't have all the F words etc towards the end, they were apparently edited out at the time.
i enjoyed some scenes and how trippy it was but its widely disliked by doors fans (including me) for its inaccurate and unfair portrayal of jim (although Val Kilmer played him nearly perfectly)
She was on point on the meaning from beginning to end besides Oedipus section. Watching her feel the composition made me feel like a teenager in the 90's again, that's when I discovered them. This whole band is a sound beyond it's time and will forever be popular even though they only existed for 3 years. “I see myself as a huge fiery comet, a shooting star. Everyone stops, points up and gasps, “Oh, look at that!” Then - whoosh, and I’m gone… and they’ll never see anything like it ever again - ever.” ~Jim Morrison
This song at the beginning of Apocalypse Now brought The Doors back to popular culture 12 years after it was recorded. Was the perfect song to bring you back to the vibe of the late 60s with the war hanging over our heads.
In the movie The Doors Val Kilmer plays Jim Morrison and does the singing and he really does an amazing job in the part, considering Oliver Stone took a lot of liberties with the story. Meg Ryan was a doll as Pam even though it was a small part for her at the time. The Doors Live At The Hollywood Bowl is one of my favorite concerts and if I had a time machine that is definitely one of the stops I'd make in it!
The most historically accurate movie Stone was involved with was "Conan". He really captured the Hyborian age better than any other historical epoch he covered.
Yes, I LOVED this song in my early 20s. I actually worked at the AMC cinema when the movie "The Doors" came out with Val Kilmer. I literally saw parts of this movie over and over. Such an ecstatic experience to see over and over again. After awhile all the workers were making all kind of acid Jim Morrison jokes constantly. Such a great song.
Y'all, I've been listening to these guys for 40 years. Read the cover off of "Lords and the New Creatures" way back in high school, and tripped on lsd to this song as well as others. Phenominal jam. All of The Doors music is amazing. "Crystal Ship", ffs. I mean I lived Jim Morrison to the extent that I had a poster of his grave in Paris on my wall. Glad to see you've posted this. Peace.
Morrison was a poet first and foremost, and that informed his songwriting. It's not going to be direct narrative, everything is about evoking imagery and emotion, painting a vivid picture with word choices, things that will resonate with life experiences. As Lex says, definitely a vibe. A lot of music comes down to playing with words like paints, a medium to create something beautiful or moving, even if there's not much narrative or messaging behind it
This is in my opinion one of the most interesting and impressive rock songs ever made. To me it sounds like church music of a some kind of "dark church".
Here's what the song's about: "Roman wilderness of pain" = Those of us alive today. "Waiting for the summer rain" = the Apocalypse. (It also puns with "reign", a reference to someone who appears later in the song). "Ride the King's Highway" = an ancient caravan route through the Levant, which began in Mesopotamia, skirted Israel on the East of the Jordan River, and passed Westward into Egypt. (Egypt is the house of slavery Moses led the Israelites out of) "Ride the Snake; the Snake is long, Seven Miles" = The serpent from the Garden of Eden. The "seven miles" = the seven thousand years since. (We're at the sixth today) "to the Lake . . . the ancient Lake" = the Lake of Fire prepared for the Devil and his angels (see Matthew 24). "The Killer awoke BEFORE dawn . . . He put his boots on." This is Satan. The "boots" speak of his incarnation during the coming seven year tribulation period. The "face" from the gallery speaks of the masking of intent, i.e., deception. The "father" = Jesus (see John 14) The "mother" seems to match the woman in Revelation 17. No, this song's not about drugs. It's an invitation to Hell, a temptation long in the offing. Morrison was an artistic genius who chose poorly. He left clues of his destination in other songs, such as "When the Music's Over". He appeared to be well versed in literature and Bible prophecy. If he wasn't, then this song was written by someone who is.
Mask from the ancient gallery is reference to Greek actors in ancient Greece who held a mask on a stick in front of their face. The mask was the visage for the characters being portrayed. Oedipus Rex was an ancient Greek tragedy that Sigmund Freud used to describe his theory about the oepipal complex. If you do a google search for the Greek play Oedipus Rex you can get the plot of the play; then the section in the song about the father and the mother will make sense.
LEX YOU ARE DEAD ON WITH YOUR ASSESSMENT OF THE DOORS I MEAN YOU TOTALLY WENT THERE IN YOUR MIND EVEN THOUGH YOU SAID YOU WEREN'T BORN THEN BUT YOU TALKING ABOUT THE BELLY DANCERS AND SOMEONE DYING IN THE BATHTUB AND JUST THE WHOLE VIBE OF THEIR MINDSET AND THAT TIME FRAME YOU HIT IT DEAD ON GOOD JOB
It was a keyboard not an organ you should watch he actually has videos some of his songs or some of his songs excuse me but yeah you should go back and actually watch the movie and watch some of his videos
"blue bus" was a street name for a powerful painkiller called oxymorphone in the 60’s, but it’s also referring to public transit known as the blue bus and also possibly the earth. Jim Morrison liked to use double meanings like most poets.
I'd never heard this song before, but wow, Jim Morrison's voice, the lyrics, the instrumentation, all of it is just pure Doors musical magic. And it may not make much sense, but it sounds amazing.
Well then this might not help or maybe bring it all into focus. Think of the lyrics as metaphoric to convey a picture that is just behind your eyes. A picture so clear in your mind yet your eyes will never focus.
The Doors were the house band at the Whisky a Go Go in LA back in 1966. They did this song one night and Morrison whipped out the Oedipal section for the first time (even the band hadn't heard it before). That time, Morrison completed the sentence "Mother, I want to" with exactly what Brad thought he was alluding to - and they were fired at the end of the set. The original release of the album edited out Jim's f-bombs in the fast section, and also took out "high" from "She gets high" in Break On Through. Those edits weren't restored until well into the digital era. The Doors were definitely pushing boundaries in their time.
Peyote (an extreme hallucinogen derived from a cactus) has a blue tint. I assume that's the blue rock he is speaking of. Jim had a profound experience while taking peyote in the desert. The Doors movie said the whole band did it one day, but I believe it was only Jim in reality. That's according to Robbie Kreiger, he played the guitar in the band so I would say he would know..
The End started off as a simple 'end of relationship song' vaguely implying death. But during early live performances Jim Morrison would improvise lyrics in the middle section, usually catching the band members by surprise. So the song evolved over time into this poetic epic. Always fun watching people try to decipher its meaning.
This song is from their FIRST album. The Doors are a great American band. There are many different versions of this song. This particular one is one I haven't heard before. I heard the one you can play on the radio. Morrison's lyrics are using the psychological tropes of the day, in this case referring to the Oedipus complex. (Kill your father and have sex with your mother.) I can see why they label this "psychedelic" music. The Doors are a psychedelic blues band. If you were wondering what that combination sounds like, well ... now you know. :)
@ JH - This version with the “Fuck Yeah and Kill” lyrics first appeared in the Francis Ford Coppola movie “Apocalypse Now. The 1967 album release had the lyrics buried in the mix. When Coppola asked to use the song in his movie, Elektra accidentally gave him the original censored version by mistake for his 1979 movie.
These are mixes from one of the Anniversary rereleases. They brought up the "F's" which were buried in the percussion. They also restored the "she gets HIGH", to the song "Break On Through"
Sex is often a metaphor for death, finishing and the end. So he's basically saying the same thing to both his father and mother but in a different way. But ultimately the song is not just a sex or drug thing but an allegory or metaphor, a feeling about life itself and where it all ends, and there are no answers, and not even any questions where the end itself is his only friend.
One thing I really like about the Doors, guitarist Robby Krieger in particular, is the regular use of what we'd consider "Eastern"-type musical scales and instrumental motifs.
Lex's smile and laugh always makes my day, then to react to one of the songs i would play as a teenager going to sleep everynight. You guys make Christmas Eve even better. Oh the memories.
This song is a musical masterpiece and I love it, but it is really really dark. Brad, you are correct, that part was about his mother, regardless of who he was doing. You should also watch the video version of this from Apocalypse now.
wow, Lex, your description of Jim and this song is spot on.....so cool from someone who wasnt alive when it was written. I love hear both of your perspectives to music...so cool
I read that when they did this at the Whiskey A Go Go in the mid 60s, all the activity in the club stopped. Everyone was kind of transformed. Even the dancers stopped to stare.
Yeah and when he said the "mother.. I want to f*** you" line after the "father.. I want to kill you" line the owner of whiskey A go go was so appalled that he had the band thrown out and fired lol but lone behold there was a record executive or somebody from Electra records at that show that night that signed the band on the spot and that's how they got their big break!!
"The End" has been characterized as a precursor of the gothic rock genre. In a review published in The Williams Record in October 1967, critic John Stickney described the Doors collation as "gothic rock", which was one of the first pronounces of the term.
@@jasonhaynes2952 doors werent hippies. correction, jim wasnt. ray & john were much more. but they didnt write the songs or set the theme. morrison was a beat. politically libertarian & observation things in a way that penetrated beyond the politics of it.
@@kelvinkloud Agreed! They get lumped in with Hippies or Hippie music though, which is what my point is. But they were way more in tune with the darker side of life. Real fans of the doors understand this.
I knew Lex's reaction was going to be interesting. She has a feel for the music. I'm from this era and this song makes me think of my two uncles who served in infantry combat units in Vietnam.
I'm a musician from that period, and WOW excellent reaction! you're both really intuitive, and accurate.. Jim Morrison WAS the voice of that youth revolution. Amazing you could hear that! And yeah, it's the Greek myth, Oedipus.. the son's a problem.
The profanity was buried in the percussion in the original mix. They also restored "She gets HIGH" lyric in their song "Break On Through". Back to Lex's original thought about someone ending it in a bathtub...Jim Morrison died in a bathtub. Not a suicide though. He, Janis Joplin, & Jimi Hendrix all died in about the span of a year at the same age of 27. Jim even told a friend "your looking at number three".
This song always reminds me of a magical week with my GF back in the early 80's at an isolated spot (needed a 4x4 to get there so, not much chance of anyone else coming along and ruining our vibe) at the shore of Lake Mead, dropping acid, "doing it" drinking a LOT of beer and tripping out to an awesome playlist that was heavy on the acid rock, swimming naked in the moonlight and just enjoying the desert.
It's a great tune the drums are amazing I think John is definately forgotten about but songs like this show how great he was on the drums, the guitar is amazing but that intro is so nice, Jims vocals are amazing I'd have loved to have seen the doors in the studio recording this
Their first hit was LIGHT MY FIRE . This is from the same album . It gives a stronger hint of where they were heading . That place was not fluffy pop songs .
Jim Morrison was part poet, and part Rock Star front man. That dude was complicated, to say the least. That's what made their music, and the Band one of the greatest of the 1960s "Classic Rock" era. They can play every genre of music. Blues, Hard Rock, soft rock, Ballads whatever. Just one of the best Bands ever.
This is delving into the deep end. This is graduate level stuff here, only to be listened to after years of preparation. I hope no brain cells were hurt in the making of this video.
Yeah, im honestly worried it might turn them off from the band. I wish people would think about the big picture when they make recommendations, i feel like instead they're just like "this is going to be hilarious". I don't know i might be talking out of my ass but, I feel like if they wanted something a bit more "trippy" they could have gone with The Crystal Ship.
@@kutark no one ever knows what they are getting into when first listening to a Doors song even when you've heard all their songs but one, do you really know what you're going to get into with that last song?
Lol I love this song but I wouldn't call the amateur poetry of a strung out junkie "graduate level". Just because something makes no sense or can be interpreted multiple ways doesn't mean it is intelligent. Love Jim Morrison. I think he is underrated by critics and snobs but equally overrated by stoner wannabe philosophers.
One of the best examples of an atmosphere-creating song (not just from the Doors but from anyone) is the Doors "Riders on the Storm", arguably grew into being their most well-known song all these years later. After Riders on the Storm, you could check out "Break on Through" also by the Doors. Love you two and your videos!!
Ok guys, Brad, this is a song that YOU can do some research on and see what others think of the story. I know this is stumping you...take it to the next level, listen over and over and get it man
To me it fits this modern Rome that's on fire, the painful trajectory, the writings on the wall, the sheep mislead, etc. Fret not, there is relief to a perfect peace...and imagining what that may be like...but realizing these revelations, maybe hopefully it's just a dream... engaging in again...an escape in a life cycle. Life....death......repeating....................................last breathe ! He had a genius IQ, he was a veracious reader...and he was slap dab in the middle of the psychedelic experimental period.
The End Live is perhaps a performance for the ages... BTW dying in a bathtub was very a propos Jim died "allegedly" of an overdose of the one drug he avoided for the most part. He was a poet that found his outlet with a free form rock/blue/jazz free form band that had a crazy synergy. IIRC according to a biography, Jim wrote a bunch of the poetry than ended up on the first 2 albums on week long fast, subsisting on water and LSD taking a existential journey on top of an abandoned Venice Beach office building roof. He was in film school atUCLA when he met Ray "keyboards". Other odd fact, he was the son of a US Admiral. Was also on FBI/Gov Agency priority watch lists for being a counter culture subversive. Died with three other "counter culture subversives" in a short period of time of apparent drug overdoses all at the same age. Janice Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison It wasn't a fashion statement or trend, it was an actual movement that spanned art, philosophy, science, culture, media etc. This is very much a sample of the music from that era.
Simply put Jim was on hallucinogenic drugs more than he was sober. Take that and add his musical genius, and you get a doorway into his subconsciousness.
He was on booze and coke a lot more that hallucinogens. You build a tolerance to psychedelics extremely fast to the point where after a couple days of use they will not have an effect on you anymore until you give your body at least 14 days to recover. I feel like most people don't realize this. You can't just take acid every day and trip out...quickly they will stop working.
The Doors what a great band. I wish I was around when the band was going. That how Jim Morrison passed away, in a bath tub in Paris, France, aged just 27 years old. 3rd July 1971. People say that he saw his own death. You need to watch the the movie of The Doors. Val Kilmer plays Jim Morrison.
In this episode of Brad & Lex, the slow build builds a building full of anticipation before Jim Morrison's one of a kind vocals seduce the song. Shortly after allowing the mood to engulf the couple, Brad coins the term "Kill billy" as a descriptive term before diving back into the sound pool not without shutting down his signature "side to side sway". Only slowed down this episode. Lex's "bop" is non existent as she showcases a slow snake like "trance sway" until the uptempo portion of this dish brings her a "trance like swift hippy bop" before the pace slows and she returns to peace.
Ohhhh… he finished. This was one of your best reactions. A CLASSIC study in human nature. Lexy completely gets it and was vibin’ through the whole thing, while my man Brad was lookin’ like he was on planet Neptune. First off, never try and take Jim Morrison literally, especially pieces of a poem. His last recording is a not so subtle take on Freud’s (I know it’s in the title) theory of the Oedipus complex. Morrison was extremely intelligent and well-read. GREAT reaction kids!
This is about the Ending of Civilization. It was the depth of the Vietnam War, when the Postman could bring your Death Sentence in the form of your Draft Notice. Many believed a Nuclear War was inevitable, and on a number off
Morrison's Father was the Admiral in charge of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, where the US falsley claimed they were attacked by North Vietnamese Forces, leading to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the Bombing of North Vietnam.
I am old enough to remember the 60s and 70s. And I have listened to this song numerous times and certainly been intrigued by it both musically and lyrically. I gotta say, I would never have made the connection that Lex did about the lying in a bathtub setup but that's brilliant! In fact, thinking of that setup as both the beginning and end of the song while the middle section of the author's mind journeying through his life using both and confusing both literal and western philosophical metaphors gives me total new meaning after decades of experiencing this piece. Jim Morrison was unique. He is a vibe. Thank you both for your channel and interesting insights. Nice job.
yeah maybe while he wrote the song but then there was a time that elapsed where they finally got to the studio worked on the song and sung the song. Recorded it. Another words he had plenty of time to change it but didn't. The question remains, why?
Did you guys know that the Doors didn’t have a bass player? The organist was playing lead with one hand, and bass keys with the other. Very, very difficult thing to do. Remarkable band. Almost every song took you on a journey.
One of the greatest songs ever written. A freaking masterpiece.
Nothing today comes even close to this.
What can you possibly do bigger than a write, compose and play a song that can be played at the end of all that is known...... this song is singularity.
Fucking masterpiece*
The way Lex closes her eyes and go along for the ride! That's how this song should be experienced, in my opinion.
Yeah its sort of a waste to hyperfocus on lyrics the first listen, especially Jim's. lol It's supposed to be an experience. One that will evolve the more you listen to it. Gain your own interpretations without worrying too much if its the correct one. But at the end of the day, there is no law on how to listen to music, but there are preferred ways. lol
"Ride the snake"
Even the band themselves were totally caught off guard when Jim first did the Oedipus section.
Morrison was an extremely well read individual with a passion for greek tragedies
And the first time he sang that part was in front of a live audience
Hey, it’s about an insane and tragic ending to society. Bizarre stuff would happen in the world this song creates.
Few musicians would think to go there but it drives the mood of the song home in a personal way. Not much more that could drive home the idea of tragic insanity.
But, if Freud is right, this could be where humans go when society completely devolves and all egos are completely broken.
it's funny, that this was so "controversial" when he was literally quoting classics... things that are obscene on their face but in the context of the Oresteia are OK because it is greek... I think Jim loved the duality of it all, the absurdity, including his own humanity
At the Whiskey.
I nice guy........in Camden,. London....,.,excellent.........
The Doors isn’t just music. It’s a state of mind.
Just like Russia
Agreed. I'm 60 and have been listening to the doors since I was 15 and the songs still have many meanings for periods of life.
Exactly
Especially after a few tokes.
Like Pink Floyd, except the Doors are better. The best.
The End and Apocalypse Now are forever fused in my mind, I can't think of one without the other.
Jim was a poet as well as a singer, and he abused a LOT of substances. The result of this combination was fantastic and weird and lush. I'm told that this song is quite an experience when the listener is on drugs.
Same here. I hear this song and see napalm tumbling and hitting in slow motion.
you have never heard this on lsd?? damn.
@@jbbj9720 Lol, no, I've never taken recreational drugs. Or smoked anything. Or had alcohol.
I'm boring. 😇
If you look in the tree line as the napalm rips across the lower left side Francis Ford Coppola placed Morrison's face looking up with his mouth open. Ray Manzarek and Jim Morrison of The Doors both met at UCLA film school. Another enrolee at the time was none other than Coppola. This connection meant that Coppola was more aware of their music on a personal level and as such when he stumbled across the album lying there it seemed like a bolt from the past.
@@jbbj9720I was on lsd out in the mountains by these huge waterfalls an I was going through this forest slowly listening to this song and in my head I was in Vietnam it was an incredible experience I’ll never forget
No one is ever gonna know the mind of Jim Morrison. Probably the most mysterious rock star there ever was.
I give that title to Maynard
Most of his shit was taken from Nietzche, Jung, Joseph Campbell, etc..
He walked that line between insanity and genius for sure
@@aakuster I think he had a bit of Native American influence as well.
@@shawnstephens1251 Probably in the form of peyote.
The fact that she said “ Sitting in a bathtub dying “ gave me goose bumps as we know that’s the way Jim passed in a Bathtub from “ Heart Failure “
Overdose on heroin
@@bobbyflay7217 There actually no autopsy performed so the actual cause is speculative but many believe it was brought on from many years of abuse of multiple drugs. We’ll never know for certain.
Lex seems very in tune with certain songs and vibes…perhaps Jim was a temporary member of the “Couch Gang” with Brad and Lex
Nope noone ever saw his body and tje autopsy has been shot to shit. You are stupid you are getting bogus info he died in a club and was brought back to the room they put him in a hot bath so temperature of his body would trow them off
@@richardgray7447 27 club
Really needs to be watched with the opening of Apocalypse Now
Totally agree
and remember that martin sheen ended up in rehab instantly after that shoot
@@questionableabsanity I get it. My uncle said it was as close to the Vietnam war experience as Hollywood ever got.
@@questionableabsanity He also had a heart attack during the filming of the movie...
Great film 🎥
The song started as a farewell/breakup song, but evolved over time as they played it live. Jim was interested in Mythology hence the Oedipus references (killing Father Sex with Mother). The Vietnam War was happening at the time and when you were drafted a "BLUE BUS" picked you up to take you off to Basic Training.
@ jdm1066 And a few months later as a nineteen year old kid you were a gladiator 'lost in a Roman wilderness of pain and all the children are insane' so you 'took a face from the ancient gallery' and used your most basic instincts to 'kill, ....... kill, ...... kill'.
@@mimikurtz2162 Kurtz?...You wouldn't happen to be related to a Colonel Kurtz, would you?
@@jdm1066 I am very familiar with a Colonel Walter Kurtz, descendent of Captain Paul Voulet with whom I shared similar influences and experiences, but I've never heard of 'Coronel'. Is he an honest man? Is he a good man? What will they say about him when he's gone?
@@mimikurtz2162 That he was a kind man...that he was a wise man...
It was crazy time for me as they were pulling kid's from their parents and sending us to a place were no one came home alive from and then cam my turn and here came the bus and all the crying, I was sad by a election. FORD
This is one of the funniest reactions by Brad and Lex. Brad is trying to figure out what Jim is talking about in detail, which is nearly impossible here. Lex, at least during the song, is grooving like she dropped a hit about two hours prior, which is the way this song was intended to be enjoyed in my opinion.
Roman wilderness of pain...reference ancient Roman mass crucifixions.
Brew up the mushrooms 🍄 🫠😵💫
You will never get it brad just enjoy it
yeat that Brad guy often dont understand anything
I remember my first doors trip, they destroyed all music for me and couldn’t listen to anything else for like 2 days, amazing band
I've been hearing this song for 40 years and I still don't try to make sense out of it. Is what it is. A classic.
Acid helps
Get high
Definitely an acid or payote trip👍
Oh my boy you need to get high to understand this Awesomeness of a Master piece!
Exactly. I don't understand all of these people agonizing to try and figure out the one and only true meaning of all of these classic rock songs from a half century ago. The lyrics of a great song can often mean different things on different levels to different people. If the writer/performer had one specific meaning in mind, you can probably find that out through some research. But to sit there and waste your time trying to come up with the one & only meaning all by yourself seems a bit moronic to me. Just enjoy the song, and maybe tell what you liked about it ....
Lex you were so intuitive with this one (as you are with many others but to be intuitive with this one was especially enjoyable from the viewer standpoint), loved how you expressed his voice feeling like a time capsule of that energy, it’s a weird thought to consider how Jim would’ve been if he lived to be older, almost feels like it wasn’t in the cards for him and he felt it as well but walked the path with a weird confidence and self awareness, great reaction guys, loved watching Brad try and figure these lyrics out!
Yeah that was crazy when she mentioned the bathtub
I wonder if she knew about Paris 1971?
@@Alritealritealrite yes that was creepy but she's been on point like that before. 👌
Brad always tries to make literal sense out of every song he heres and Lex's theories get way out there, but usually she's a lot closer than he is. I'd like to what they'd make out of 'I Am The Walrus'.
@@moonlily1 *hears
39 seconds in and LEX KNEW to kickback because she is sooooo intuitive...you go girl...cant wait to see this reaction
I asked my grandmother, who was 83 at the time, to listen to this with me. She was a trooper and listened. When I asked her what it was about, she said, "this guy is on drugs."
Fact
"Reality is for people who cannot face drugs." (Tom Waits)
He had it all in his head for years. I would guess lsd opened the vault. Smart people can handle lsd. Mushrooms. It opens doors of thought. Morons have bad trips.
@@WiEarDrugs are for people who don’t have the courage to face reality. It’s for cowards.
That is freaking funny man
As a combat veteran of the Vietnam War this song speaks to me. As a 19 year old helicopter door gunner I was one of those insane children. Before the insanity I did not know that blood had an actual odor. Cleaning that substance from the choppers deck with an ammo can filled with rice paddy water taught me that it most certainly did.
Thank you for being there. I can't fathom the times. My father served and my uncle died there (ironically on a helicopter that landed on a mine). Pop hardly ever talked about it and my mom (my uncle's sister) hates LBJ, Jane Fonda, and everything Vietnamese to this day...we should have never been there, but again, I thank you and apologize for you having to go...
The smell of copper
As well
Thanks for your service sir. I drive the bus here in vegas and i see a lot of veterans sleeping on the streets and at times I have to refrain from dropping a tear. Thank you sir and you’re my hero.
Thank you
This song took on a whole other life when it was used in Apocalypse Now. AN is one of the greatest films of all time. By the time you get to this song at the end of the journey into insanity it is like they were made for each other.
Watching the movie "Apocalypse Now" in the theaters, at about the age of 18, I began to fear after the first 20 minutes that I'd be a different person when I finished the movie, never getting my previous self back!! And this song made it all the scarier.
Some of us first heard the tune in AN, we had been too young to know about the Doors when Morrison was alive.
Francis ford Coppola actually went to film school with Jim Morrison as well.
yes this song has definite apocalyptic vibes. other than the whole fixation with death, its obsessed with visions of doom in strange forms - of snakes, children, blue busses, fire and fury. Read the book of revelations afterwards and you can just see there was a jim morrison clone born 2000 years ago that had the same state of mind when he wrote that down.
From probably the greatest film ever made... imho!
John Densmore's dynamic drumming is so amazing! Very understated. When he hits hard, it has real impact.
he does sound great.
He once said he used his drums to extenuate and punctuate what Jim was saying.
@@prprod It's like a mixture of poetry and jazz.
This is my favorite Doors song, SOOOO excited to go on this journey with you guys, have a great holiday and new years guys! 🔥
- Andy
And to think this was released in 1967. Mind blowing for that period in music. (Wow Andy, good to see one of my favorite reactors giving a shout out to such a great couple.)
Little known fact : recorded live in the studio in two takes in the summer of 66
I'm still mad about your B- on Every Picture Tells a Story - maybe you had too much to drink.
@@murrayspiffy2815
Haha we’re gonna release an extra video soon where we talk about it more, it’ll clear things up. 😂
@Mas Dito
Oh I’ve heard that one while in a spiritually induced inebriated state, and it was freaking killer, I still think I think the end more but your point in bringing that track up is very valid
Brad nailed it. This song was originally written as a break up song, but has since been co-opted for a multitude of meanings. Most notably as the bookend of Apocalypse Now, where the movie starts with this song as napalm scorches the Vietnamese jungle, and ends the movie as Captain Willard fulfills his mission.
Lex's interpretation was just eerie foresight.
My favorite all time band please go down this rabbit hole! Jim was the greatest rock star in history....... brilliant with a genius IQ, good looking, rebel, died young, literally checks off all boxes The Doors is an amazing group that pushes your boundaries, i can honestly say they changed my life
A friend and I found this in a shed we shouldn't have been in, back in like, '79. Took it to his room and played it. Was was a great A side. then we flipped it over... Holy hell. had to keep moving the needle. He seemed to take it to a dark place. Changed both are lives.
The End is simply death, although the song also deals with Jim Morrison's parents and contains Oedipal themes of loving his mother and killing his father. And, you were prophetic about the bathtub Lexi. Jim died in Paris, in 1971, in a bathtub as a result of a heart attack brought on by years of drug and alcohol abuse… sadly, he is a member of the well known “27 Club”
or a heroin overdose like his publicist later admitted.
@@fishhookism Follow along, a sec.
Jim was a heavy drinker.
Chronic alcohol abuse can lead to stomach ulcers and acid reflux.
Acid reflux can cause hiccups.
In the weeks/days before his death, he had been having sever bouts of hiccups.
He vomited blood in the bathtub several times, and Pam had to keep changing the water because of it.
MY theory:
A ruptured stomach ulcer was, at least in part, a contributing factor to his death.
Did the heroin overcome him?
Did he die of blood loss from that ulcer?
Was it all too much for his heart to handle?
We don't know. All we need to know is that he messed himself up real bad.
Or did he?🤨
Heroin mixed with alcohol. Died on a bathroom stall in a club. Was moved to the hotel and placed in the tub in the hotel (according to one theory).
I'm not buying that, not at all. I've chewed up obscene amounts of oxycodone pills and washed them down with a fifth of whiskey many times and I'm just fine. There's no way he died of heart failure at 27, atleast not from that. Possibly a full-on overdose, but that doesn't sound rational either considering he was a very experienced drug user who knew what he was doing. He was more than likely poisoned some how and then placed in the tub. He didn't die in that bathtub, it just doesn't sound right. None of it does.
She did it again!! Lex did it again - she hits the nail on the head 8:30, and coupled with her body movement during this song made Mr. Mojo Risin very happy.
I used to listen to a rock station that was going country. The DJ knew she didn't have a job after midnight. She threw out the play list, Playing only long form songs. The last two songs were When the Music is Over, and The End. The last note was the end of that station as a rock station. I always thought that was appropriate end.
Was that WCOL?
LOL That's great.
@@ffjsb No, it was KRST.
The Doors & Jim Morrison were musical genius! I absolutely love their massive compositions! They're not songs They're opus!
I love that Lex allows herself to go where the music wants to take her ❤
"The End" began as Jim Morrison's farewell to Mary Werbelow, his girlfriend who followed him from Florida to Los Angeles. Morrison was always vague as to the meaning, explaining: "It could be almost anything you want it to be."
“When the music’s over” is a transcendent masterpiece by The Doors.
The lyric "Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain and all the children are insane" came about after Morrison was in San Francisco and witnessed the utter destitution and decay of the so called love generation. It was his indictment of that movement.
excellent Sampson 95 !! I spent a couple days/nights on Haight/Ashbury in my college days (70-71). What I thought would be bliss/love/peace (according to news reports and songs of the era) was in reality a Lou Reed Walk on the wild side "with a hustle here and a hustle there". Everyone out for themselves. This experience was a catalyst for my "growing up" phase.
And now the city of San Fran itself is in utter decay.
It is also a reference to Tacitus Annals V 'Ubi solitudinum facing pace appellant'...'when they make a wilderness they call it peace'. They are the words of a Scottish tribal leader before a battle with the Romans.
He knew the hippies were completely full of shit. Jimi Hendrix didn’t care if they cut off all their hair, either and Touch (one of my fave unknown bands of that era) wanted California to fall into the sea. No hippie had the work ethic to create these kinds of tunes.
@@neillenet291 It's San Franshitneedles now
Lead singer Jim Morrison initially wrote the lyrics about his break up with an old girlfriend, Mary Werbelow. But it evolved through months of performances at the Whisky a Go Go into a much longer song. very time I hear that song, it means something else to me. I really don't know what I was trying to say. It just started out as a simple goodbye song ... Probably just to a girl, but I could see how it could be goodbye to a kind of childhood. I really don't know. I think it's sufficiently complex and universal in its imagery that it could be almost anything you want it to be.[10]
Promotional photo of the Doors in late 1966, a few months after recording "The End" in August
When interviewed by Lizze James, he pointed out the meaning of the verse "My only friend, the End":
Sometimes the pain is too much to examine, or even tolerate ... That doesn't make it evil, though - or necessarily dangerous. But people fear death even more than pain.
Lex your awesome! You reacted to this doors song by closing your eyes and weaving your head like a true 60's child!
This is the song everyone knows from the Doors, but they have like 50 other great songs. Break on Through, Moonlight Ride, When The Music's Over...you can go down a deep Doors rabbit hole.
Well it's *Moonlight Drive,* but yea, I hear ya ... I want roses in my garden bower, Dig. I love all their songs. Even the stuff from The Soft parade.
One of the wildest rabbit holes in music
I’ve never considered this song to be one that everyone knows from the Doors.
Light My Fire (by far) and then Break on Through... I don't think this one is at all the one people know the Doors from.. maybe they should in a good world as this really shows the breadth of them. I love to turn people on to Peace Frog because that is just so damn fun.
@@davidkoblentz some other real well known songs by them are People are Strange, Hello, I Love You, Touch Me and Riders On the Storm
Val Kilmer did a great job portraying Jim Morrison in the movie “The Doors.” John Densmore’s drumming is absolutely fantastic on this track.
He was terrible in that movie, a clown
@@betsyduane3461 True. The part should have gone to Will Smith.
Portraying Oliver Stones Jim only showed his Destruction side, can't make that much music in the short time they did being always a Drunk and Drug asshole
And never burnt his woman in a closet, yes they had an open relationship but loved her any way Oliver stones the Doors was made to fuel his Cocaine blowing and Jim was a much better person I know because Ray said so, but still I love the Movie
@@betsyduane3461 Rejected for the role, were ya ? Well don’t cry about it forever. You Oscar is waiting on that perfect performance hidden somewhere deep inside.
@@Bill_Jones. I noticed Val didn't get any Oscar noms for that movie. LOL
Holy hot damn. My favorite band. Poetry to music. This song is deep…can’t wait to see your reaction when he talks to his mom and dad!🤣🤯
I just love the upbeat positivity of this song
I listen to it for moral guidance.
Love you brother
@@mikekelly5869 Love you brother good vibes
Good one, Mike... 🤣
You've broken the code.
This song initially was written by Jim Morrison as a break up song regarding his girlfriend, but had kept adding lyrics that had nothing to do with a breakup anymore as they played it live. Eventually they released it with all the alternate lyrics except for the foul language he used in concert.
Brad: "I'm getting confused right now"
Me thinking: "oh man, you've ain't heard nothing yet"
I love this song and I was so happy to watch you react to it on the live stream. I always took the song to mean the "end of 1960's innocence" as Morrison realized that the hippie generation who naively thought they were going to bring about a paradise on earth instead descended into a form of emotional nihilism by caring about little other than getting high and feeling good. His reference to the Oedipus Complex is to remind us that we are really just animals that kill & f*ck - and everything else is just lofty idealism. My 2 cents. Anyway - thanks for your reactions.
Pacifism has never won anyone their freedom. Breaking chains has always been a bloody affair
Jim Morrison got about 75 years worth of livin' out of his 27 years on this Earth. Not saying it was all good, or right, but whose is? And 50 years later none of us can stop talking about him, or listening to his music.
Morrison was the ultimate poet, we didn't get so hung up on the details when the songs were released, we just enjoyed the instrumental sounds and the phrasing of the lyrics. Drugs / peyote / booze / etc. As someone else mentioned, you should really watch the movie "The Doors", Val Kilmer is incredible, and you get an idea of the vibes of the times. FYI - the original album recording didn't have all the F words etc towards the end, they were apparently edited out at the time.
Yes definitely watch the film, one of the best bio pics.
Actually you have an interview of Ray Manzerak saying that the actor that plays jim morrison on the film doesn't portray jim as it was, at ALL.
i enjoyed some scenes and how trippy it was but its widely disliked by doors fans (including me) for its inaccurate and unfair portrayal of jim (although Val Kilmer played him nearly perfectly)
She was on point on the meaning from beginning to end besides Oedipus section. Watching her feel the composition made me feel like a teenager in the 90's again, that's when I discovered them. This whole band is a sound beyond it's time and will forever be popular even though they only existed for 3 years.
“I see myself as a huge fiery comet, a shooting star. Everyone stops, points up and gasps, “Oh, look at that!” Then - whoosh, and I’m gone… and they’ll never see anything like it ever again - ever.” ~Jim Morrison
Can't hear this without thinking of "Apocalypse Now".
I just like the scene from The Doors movie when hes performing it.
This song at the beginning of Apocalypse Now brought The Doors back to popular culture 12 years after it was recorded. Was the perfect song to bring you back to the vibe of the late 60s with the war hanging over our heads.
A legendary, iconic song in an equally legendary, iconic movie.
Yes! The song and movie are synonymous.
Jim was partial to the magic mushrooms, the doors are a mystery wrapped in a enigma wrapped in a taco.
In the movie The Doors Val Kilmer plays Jim Morrison and does the singing and he really does an amazing job in the part, considering Oliver Stone took a lot of liberties with the story. Meg Ryan was a doll as Pam even though it was a small part for her at the time. The Doors Live At The Hollywood Bowl is one of my favorite concerts and if I had a time machine that is definitely one of the stops I'd make in it!
The most historically accurate movie Stone was involved with was "Conan". He really captured the Hyborian age better than any other historical epoch he covered.
@@bluebird3281 🤣🤣🤣
Yes, I LOVED this song in my early 20s. I actually worked at the AMC cinema when the movie "The Doors" came out with Val Kilmer. I literally saw parts of this movie over and over. Such an ecstatic experience to see over and over again. After awhile all the workers were making all kind of acid Jim Morrison jokes constantly. Such a great song.
Y'all, I've been listening to these guys for 40 years. Read the cover off of "Lords and the New Creatures" way back in high school, and tripped on lsd to this song as well as others. Phenominal jam. All of The Doors music is amazing. "Crystal Ship", ffs. I mean I lived Jim Morrison to the extent that I had a poster of his grave in Paris on my wall. Glad to see you've posted this. Peace.
This song was appropriately used in the movie Apocalypse Now and the scene over which it was played matched it in intensity!
It's played twice. Once at the beginning and once at the climax. That climax is so fucking epic thanks to Coppola and Co. and The Doors
Morrison was a poet first and foremost, and that informed his songwriting. It's not going to be direct narrative, everything is about evoking imagery and emotion, painting a vivid picture with word choices, things that will resonate with life experiences. As Lex says, definitely a vibe.
A lot of music comes down to playing with words like paints, a medium to create something beautiful or moving, even if there's not much narrative or messaging behind it
He was no poet he was a babbling drunk and drug addict
@@bobbyflay7217 "babbling drunk and drug addict"
Yeah, that's what I said, a poet =P
@@petercolson2990 😳😂😆🤣🤪🤡
@Anthony De Los Santos mental illness and alcoholism doesn’t care about living conditions. You don’t know a jell of alot son.
This is in my opinion one of the most interesting and impressive rock songs ever made. To me it sounds like church music of a some kind of "dark church".
Here's what the song's about:
"Roman wilderness of pain" = Those of us alive today.
"Waiting for the summer rain" = the Apocalypse. (It also puns with "reign", a reference to someone who appears later in the song).
"Ride the King's Highway" = an ancient caravan route through the Levant, which began in Mesopotamia, skirted Israel on the East of the Jordan River, and passed Westward into Egypt. (Egypt is the house of slavery Moses led the Israelites out of)
"Ride the Snake; the Snake is long, Seven Miles" = The serpent from the Garden of Eden. The "seven miles" = the seven thousand years since. (We're at the sixth today)
"to the Lake . . . the ancient Lake" = the Lake of Fire prepared for the Devil and his angels (see Matthew 24).
"The Killer awoke BEFORE dawn . . . He put his boots on." This is Satan. The "boots" speak of his incarnation during the coming seven year tribulation period. The "face" from the gallery speaks of the masking of intent, i.e., deception.
The "father" = Jesus (see John 14)
The "mother" seems to match the woman in Revelation 17.
No, this song's not about drugs. It's an invitation to Hell, a temptation long in the offing.
Morrison was an artistic genius who chose poorly. He left clues of his destination in other songs, such as "When the Music's Over". He appeared to be well versed in literature and Bible prophecy. If he wasn't, then this song was written by someone who is.
Interesting interpretation.
This is exactly right.
Mask from the ancient gallery is reference to Greek actors in ancient Greece who held a mask on a stick in front of their face. The mask was the visage for the characters being portrayed. Oedipus Rex was an ancient Greek tragedy that Sigmund Freud used to describe his theory about the oepipal complex.
If you do a google search for the Greek play Oedipus Rex you can get the plot of the play; then the section in the song about the father and the mother will make sense.
@@garyluciani1082 That's exactly what I used to think.
LEX YOU ARE DEAD ON WITH YOUR ASSESSMENT OF THE DOORS I MEAN YOU TOTALLY WENT THERE IN YOUR MIND EVEN THOUGH YOU SAID YOU WEREN'T BORN THEN BUT YOU TALKING ABOUT THE BELLY DANCERS AND SOMEONE DYING IN THE BATHTUB AND JUST THE WHOLE VIBE OF THEIR MINDSET AND THAT TIME FRAME YOU HIT IT DEAD ON GOOD JOB
It was a keyboard not an organ you should watch he actually has videos some of his songs or some of his songs excuse me but yeah you should go back and actually watch the movie and watch some of his videos
"blue bus" was a street name for a powerful painkiller called oxymorphone in the 60’s, but it’s also referring to public transit known as the blue bus and also possibly the earth. Jim Morrison liked to use double meanings like most poets.
Also the Blue Bus was the color of the bus that took Draftees to basic training. "No Blue Bus for Me".
I'd never heard this song before, but wow, Jim Morrison's voice, the lyrics, the instrumentation, all of it is just pure Doors musical magic. And it may not make much sense, but it sounds amazing.
It only doesn't make sense if you are unfamiliar to everything he is referencing
@@andrew348 well said
It actually makes a disturbingly fucking hell lots of sense.
@@vildoblue3933 🤣🤣
Well then this might not help or maybe bring it all into focus. Think of the lyrics as metaphoric to convey a picture that is just behind your eyes. A picture so clear in your mind yet your eyes will never focus.
The Doors were the house band at the Whisky a Go Go in LA back in 1966. They did this song one night and Morrison whipped out the Oedipal section for the first time (even the band hadn't heard it before). That time, Morrison completed the sentence "Mother, I want to" with exactly what Brad thought he was alluding to - and they were fired at the end of the set. The original release of the album edited out Jim's f-bombs in the fast section, and also took out "high" from "She gets high" in Break On Through. Those edits weren't restored until well into the digital era. The Doors were definitely pushing boundaries in their time.
Peyote (an extreme hallucinogen derived from a cactus) has a blue tint. I assume that's the blue rock he is speaking of. Jim had a profound experience while taking peyote in the desert. The Doors movie said the whole band did it one day, but I believe it was only Jim in reality. That's according to Robbie Kreiger, he played the guitar in the band so I would say he would know..
The End started off as a simple 'end of relationship song' vaguely implying death. But during early live performances Jim Morrison would improvise lyrics in the middle section, usually catching the band members by surprise. So the song evolved over time into this poetic epic. Always fun watching people try to decipher its meaning.
Great reaction!
So glad you chose this song and the uncensored version as well.
One of my all time favs.
This song is from their FIRST album. The Doors are a great American band. There are many different versions of this song. This particular one is one I haven't heard before. I heard the one you can play on the radio. Morrison's lyrics are using the psychological tropes of the day, in this case referring to the Oedipus complex. (Kill your father and have sex with your mother.)
I can see why they label this "psychedelic" music. The Doors are a psychedelic blues band. If you were wondering what that combination sounds like, well ... now you know. :)
I had the album and don't remember hearing all the F**ks and Kills, but it was implied. Great to hear it again.
@ JH - This version with the “Fuck Yeah and Kill” lyrics first appeared in the Francis Ford Coppola movie “Apocalypse Now. The 1967 album release had the lyrics buried in the mix. When Coppola asked to use the song in his movie, Elektra accidentally gave him the original censored version by mistake for his 1979 movie.
These are mixes from one of the Anniversary rereleases. They brought up the "F's" which were buried in the percussion. They also restored the "she gets HIGH", to the song "Break On Through"
@@j.h.3777they were edited out, but restored years later, long after Jim died.
Sex is often a metaphor for death, finishing and the end. So he's basically saying the same thing to both his father and mother but in a different way. But ultimately the song is not just a sex or drug thing but an allegory or metaphor, a feeling about life itself and where it all ends, and there are no answers, and not even any questions where the end itself is his only friend.
Love you guys - wonderful that you are covering the ancient arts of beautiful music. Don't forget the history behind a song. Great vids Thanks.
One thing I really like about the Doors, guitarist Robby Krieger in particular, is the regular use of what we'd consider "Eastern"-type musical scales and instrumental motifs.
Lex's smile and laugh always makes my day, then to react to one of the songs i would play as a teenager going to sleep everynight. You guys make Christmas Eve even better. Oh the memories.
This song is a musical masterpiece and I love it, but it is really really dark.
Brad, you are correct, that part was about his mother, regardless of who he was doing.
You should also watch the video version of this from Apocalypse now.
She finally got the Doors vibe! "Touch Me" is a nice follow up to this - to change the mood to something lighter but musically just as compelling.
You have to ask, "Just how high were these guys at the time?" and the answer is very, very high! LOL Love the Doors and glad you gave them a listen.
1:31 Love that organ part. The way it gets louder sounds so cool
wow, Lex, your description of Jim and this song is spot on.....so cool from someone who wasnt alive when it was written. I love hear both of your perspectives to music...so cool
I read that when they did this at the Whiskey A Go Go in the mid 60s, all the activity in the club stopped. Everyone was kind of transformed. Even the dancers stopped to stare.
This was also one where Jim Morrison would face away from the audience towards the back of the stage.
Yeah and when he said the "mother.. I want to f*** you" line after the "father.. I want to kill you" line the owner of whiskey A go go was so appalled that he had the band thrown out and fired lol but lone behold there was a record executive or somebody from Electra records at that show that night that signed the band on the spot and that's how they got their big break!!
A haunting and beautiful song!
"The End" has been characterized as a precursor of the gothic rock genre. In a review published in The Williams Record in October 1967, critic John Stickney described the Doors collation as "gothic rock", which was one of the first pronounces of the term.
Yes, The Doors were kind of like music for Macabre hippies. Lex is right, they're a vibe and every song has it's own
@@jasonhaynes2952 doors werent hippies. correction, jim wasnt. ray & john were much more. but they didnt write the songs or set the theme. morrison was a beat. politically libertarian & observation things in a way that penetrated beyond the politics of it.
@@kelvinkloud Agreed! They get lumped in with Hippies or Hippie music though, which is what my point is. But they were way more in tune with the darker side of life. Real fans of the doors understand this.
I knew Lex's reaction was going to be interesting. She has a feel for the music. I'm from this era and this song makes me think of my two uncles who served in infantry combat units in Vietnam.
RIP Uncle Clyde and Uncle Larry.
I'm a musician from that period, and WOW excellent reaction! you're both really intuitive, and accurate.. Jim Morrison WAS the voice of that youth revolution. Amazing you could hear that! And yeah, it's the Greek myth, Oedipus.. the son's a problem.
combat solders embraced this song in viet nam. we all lived every day as if were our last. the end
The profanity was buried in the percussion in the original mix. They also restored "She gets HIGH" lyric in their song "Break On Through".
Back to Lex's original thought about someone ending it in a bathtub...Jim Morrison died in a bathtub. Not a suicide though. He, Janis Joplin, & Jimi Hendrix all died in about the span of a year at the same age of 27. Jim even told a friend "your looking at number three".
This song always reminds me of a magical week with my GF back in the early 80's at an isolated spot (needed a 4x4 to get there so, not much chance of anyone else coming along and ruining our vibe) at the shore of Lake Mead, dropping acid, "doing it" drinking a LOT of beer and tripping out to an awesome playlist that was heavy on the acid rock, swimming naked in the moonlight and just enjoying the desert.
It's a great tune the drums are amazing I think John is definately forgotten about but songs like this show how great he was on the drums, the guitar is amazing but that intro is so nice, Jims vocals are amazing I'd have loved to have seen the doors in the studio recording this
Their first hit was LIGHT MY FIRE . This is from the same album . It gives a stronger hint of where they were heading . That place was not fluffy pop songs .
Jim Morrison was part poet, and part Rock Star front man. That dude was complicated, to say the least. That's what made their music, and the Band one of the greatest of the 1960s "Classic Rock" era. They can play every genre of music. Blues, Hard Rock, soft rock, Ballads whatever. Just one of the best Bands ever.
This is delving into the deep end. This is graduate level stuff here, only to be listened to after years of preparation. I hope no brain cells were hurt in the making of this video.
Yeah, im honestly worried it might turn them off from the band.
I wish people would think about the big picture when they make recommendations, i feel like instead they're just like "this is going to be hilarious".
I don't know i might be talking out of my ass but, I feel like if they wanted something a bit more "trippy" they could have gone with The Crystal Ship.
Exactly
@@kutark no one ever knows what they are getting into when first listening to a Doors song even when you've heard all their songs but one, do you really know what you're going to get into with that last song?
I don't think y'all are giving them the credit they deserve. Don't be assuming and enjoy the ride! 🤟
Lol I love this song but I wouldn't call the amateur poetry of a strung out junkie "graduate level". Just because something makes no sense or can be interpreted multiple ways doesn't mean it is intelligent. Love Jim Morrison. I think he is underrated by critics and snobs but equally overrated by stoner wannabe philosophers.
One of the best examples of an atmosphere-creating song (not just from the Doors but from anyone) is the Doors "Riders on the Storm", arguably grew into being their most well-known song all these years later. After Riders on the Storm, you could check out "Break on Through" also by the Doors.
Love you two and your videos!!
The Blue Bus is a reference to the Santa Monica buses that go through Venice Beach where he used to live.
Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas. I really enjoy your reactions. THANK YOU!
Ok guys, Brad, this is a song that YOU can do some research on and see what others think of the story. I know this is stumping you...take it to the next level, listen over and over and get it man
"Some day this war's gonna end."
To me it fits this modern Rome that's on fire, the painful trajectory, the writings on the wall, the sheep mislead, etc. Fret not, there is relief to a perfect peace...and imagining what that may be like...but realizing these revelations, maybe hopefully it's just a dream... engaging in again...an escape in a life cycle. Life....death......repeating....................................last breathe ! He had a genius IQ, he was a veracious reader...and he was slap dab in the middle of the psychedelic experimental period.
The End Live is perhaps a performance for the ages...
BTW dying in a bathtub was very a propos
Jim died "allegedly" of an overdose of the one drug he avoided for the most part.
He was a poet that found his outlet with a free form rock/blue/jazz free form band that had a crazy synergy.
IIRC according to a biography, Jim wrote a bunch of the poetry than ended up on the first 2 albums on week long fast, subsisting on water and LSD taking a existential journey on top of an abandoned Venice Beach office building roof. He was in film school atUCLA when he met Ray "keyboards".
Other odd fact, he was the son of a US Admiral.
Was also on FBI/Gov Agency priority watch lists for being a counter culture subversive.
Died with three other "counter culture subversives" in a short period of time of apparent drug overdoses all at the same age.
Janice Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison
It wasn't a fashion statement or trend, it was an actual movement that spanned art, philosophy, science, culture, media etc.
This is very much a sample of the music from that era.
Simply put Jim was on hallucinogenic drugs more than he was sober. Take that and add his musical genius, and you get a doorway into his subconsciousness.
Well put
Uh, he was drunk more than he was anything else; yes, he had a large appetite for hallucinogenics, but he was primarily a drinker;
He was on booze and coke a lot more that hallucinogens. You build a tolerance to psychedelics extremely fast to the point where after a couple days of use they will not have an effect on you anymore until you give your body at least 14 days to recover. I feel like most people don't realize this. You can't just take acid every day and trip out...quickly they will stop working.
The Doors what a great band.
I wish I was around when the band was going.
That how Jim Morrison passed away, in a bath tub in Paris, France, aged just 27 years old. 3rd July 1971.
People say that he saw his own death.
You need to watch the the movie of The Doors. Val Kilmer plays Jim Morrison.
Good movie but even the band members agreed a lot of stuff in it didnt happen
In this episode of Brad & Lex, the slow build builds a building full of anticipation before Jim Morrison's one of a kind vocals seduce the song. Shortly after allowing the mood to engulf the couple, Brad coins the term "Kill billy" as a descriptive term before diving back into the sound pool not without shutting down his signature "side to side sway". Only slowed down this episode. Lex's "bop" is non existent as she showcases a slow snake like "trance sway" until the uptempo portion of this dish brings her a "trance like swift hippy bop" before the pace slows and she returns to peace.
"Like a time capsule" My favorite Doors song, I would listen to this before going on early morning patrols
Ohhhh… he finished. This was one of your best reactions. A CLASSIC study in human nature. Lexy completely gets it and was vibin’ through the whole thing, while my man Brad was lookin’ like he was on planet Neptune. First off, never try and take Jim Morrison literally, especially pieces of a poem. His last recording is a not so subtle take on Freud’s (I know it’s in the title) theory of the Oedipus complex. Morrison was extremely intelligent and well-read. GREAT reaction kids!
I always took this song as Jim recognizing that the “Peace and Love” or the 60s was BS and became a dark cynical experience
Kinda like the modern Woke movement of lies, BS, and self-destruction.
@@TD_JR bingo
Yup
That was definitely the vibe of the group itself.
@@TD_JR You can’t beat hate with the tactics of hate, because that’s just hate.
I love how Lex leaned back at the start, she gets it man. Just ride along.
This is about the Ending of Civilization. It was the depth of the Vietnam War, when the Postman could bring your Death Sentence in the form of your Draft Notice. Many believed a Nuclear War was inevitable, and on a number off
Morrison's Father was the Admiral in charge of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, where the US falsley claimed they were attacked by North Vietnamese Forces, leading to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the Bombing of North Vietnam.
I am old enough to remember the 60s and 70s. And I have listened to this song numerous times and certainly been intrigued by it both musically and lyrically. I gotta say, I would never have made the connection that Lex did about the lying in a bathtub setup but that's brilliant! In fact, thinking of that setup as both the beginning and end of the song while the middle section of the author's mind journeying through his life using both and confusing both literal and western philosophical metaphors gives me total new meaning after decades of experiencing this piece. Jim Morrison was unique. He is a vibe. Thank you both for your channel and interesting insights. Nice job.
Great song made for a great movie Apocalypse Now. Happy new year to you both.
Good song. Most of the first album is really good. My favorite Doors song is Soul Kitchen. The live version is particularly good.
Never seen Brad so lost for words
But Lex got it and she nailed Jim. In a nutshell
Jim Morrison wrote this song while very intoxicated and has acknowledged that it is incoherent.
yeah maybe while he wrote the song but then there was a time that elapsed where they finally got to the studio worked on the song and sung the song. Recorded it. Another words he had plenty of time to change it but didn't. The question remains, why?
He performed it in concert even more explicit
Stream of consciousness, very dark.
Did you guys know that the Doors didn’t have a bass player? The organist was playing lead with one hand, and bass keys with the other. Very, very difficult thing to do. Remarkable band. Almost every song took you on a journey.
They didn't have a bass player live. they did have a bass player in several recording sessions.
This song is such an awesome vibe of that period of time in America. It brings up memories for me rarely explored.