Viewed as either a paean to his partner Pamela Courson or as lyric poetry, it’s a snapshot of a man who knew he was leaving The Doors and moving to Paris to woo his lover back. Krieger’s vibrato guitar solo is the perfect pathway leading from the deadly image of a slaughtered family to the invocation: ‘Girl, you gotta love your man’ – which is possibly the most romantic few seconds in Morrison’s 27 years on the planet. Engineer Bruce Botnick raided his effects library for the distant desert thunder that appears as a motif. Ray Manzarek and bassist Jerry Scheff hit upon the loping A-minor-to-A-major riff underpinning a dark jazz figure. The idea of a solitary road trip also emerged in his unfinished film HWY: An American Pastoral, where he looms like a deranged Charles Manson – the killer on the road. Morrison’s words were dredged from memories of hitchhiking down dusty Florida roads as a teenager en route to visit his girlfriend Mary Werbelow. Once he had the verses, he asked the band to interpret the song and slow the tempo to a walking blues. While Robby Krieger vamped surf-style, Morrison scribbled lyrics in his notebook. That said, the song sprang from a studio jam based around Stan Jones’s cowboy epic Ghost Riders In The Sky. Not surprisingly, since its eerie Jim Morrison whispered outro, accompanied by the wash of Ray Manzarek’s electric piano rain, indicates that Jimbo isn’t going to be around much longer. The last track on the final Doors album recorded while their frontman was alive, Riders On The Storm could be viewed as a portent of impending doom. The Amtrak howl and the chugging rhythm make this the ideal way to enter the City of Night. Instead she was given five copies of the finished album. Morrison chose the maroon/burgundy coloration, and the embossed typeface is Bookman Bold.Ĭher was never paid for posing naked. The art director, Carl Cossick, provided a visual metaphor for the cultural exploitation of women. The model was 18-year-old waitress/student and future singer Cher. The original album came with a yellow inner sleeve that showed a woman crucified on a telephone pole. Afterward, he and rhythm guitarist Marc Benno went out to lunch – literally, since Jim consumed a bottle of Jack Daniel’s at the Blue Boar while scoffing a plate of oxtail. Unusually, it was recorded in the morning (it was unlikely that Morrison had been to bed).

The original handwritten lyric has some interesting doodling in blue biro, depicting a kite in a lightning flash and a stylised straw man, and credits the song, which he actually called L.A: Woman, to J.M./Doors. In which Mr Mojo Risin’ declares his love for all the little girls in their Hollywood bungalows and the City of Light in particular.

Doors greatest hits full album