The End (The Doors song)
| "The End" | |
|---|---|
| Song by The Doors from the album The Doors | |
| Released | January 4, 1967 |
| Recorded | August 1966 |
| Genre | |
| Length | 11:41 [album version] 6:28 [Apocalypse Now version] |
| Label | Elektra |
| Writer(s) |
Jim Morrison Ray Manzarek Robby Krieger John Densmore |
| Producer(s) |
The Doors Paul A. Rothchild |
| The Doors track listing | |
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"The End" is a song by the American rock group, The Doors. Its lyrics were written by the lead singer, Jim Morrison. He originally wrote the song about breaking up with his girlfriend Mary Werbelow, but it evolved through months of performances at Los Angeles' Whisky a Go Go into a nearly 12-minute track on their self-titled debut album. It was first released in January 1967. The song was recorded live in the studio with no overdubbing. Two takes were done and it has been held that the second take is the one that was issued. However, there is also a view that the issued version of the song was an edit of both takes, with at least one splice. The band would perform the song to close their last live performance as a foursome on December 12, 1970, at The Warehouse in New Orleans.
In 1969, Morrison stated:
Every time I hear that song, it means something else to me. It started out as a simple good-bye song... Probably just to a girl, but I see how it could be a 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.
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. It's strange that they fear death. Life hurts a lot more than death. At the point of death, the pain is over. Yeah – I guess it is a friend...
Shortly past the midpoint of the nearly 12-minute-long album version, the song enters a spoken word section with the words, "The killer awoke before dawn..." That section of the song reaches a dramatic climax with the lines, "Father / Yes son? / I want to kill you / Mother, I want to..." (with the next words screamed out unintelligibly). Morrison had worked on a student production of Oedipus Rex at Florida State University.Ray Manzarek, the former keyboard player of The Doors, explained:
...
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