The Doors’ 1971 song “Riders on the Storm” might be a bona fide rock classic now, but without an even older track dubbed the “greatest Western song of all time,” the final track Jim Morrison ever recorded live might have been a different one entirely. For as long as I’ve been a fan of the Doors, I’ve been a fan of this rainy, slinky, ominous groove from L.A. Woman.
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But it wasn’t until recently that I learned the song started as a slowed-down jam of a song from 1949, and now, there’s no way I’m unhearing the similarities.
The Western Ballad That Inspired This Doors Hit
Following the February 1970 release of Morrison Hotel, the Doors were looking ahead at what would be their next album and the last they ever recorded with frontman Jim Morrison, L.A. Woman. At some point in the year, keyboardist Ray Manzarek and guitarist Robby Krieger were jamming on the classic Western ballad “Ghost Riders in the Sky.” The musicians slowed the original tempo to a sultry, slinky groove, following the same minor progression with impactful major moments.
“I proposed the bassline and piano part,” Manzarek recalled in a 2014 Uncut interview. “The jazzy style was my idea. Jim already had the story about a killer hitchhiker on the road. Serial killers are all the rage now, but in America, they go back to Billy the Kid. In essence, it was a very filmic song about a serial killer—way ahead of his time in 1970. Interestingly, Jim was pulled in two directions. He didn’t want to complete the song just about a killer hitchhiker.”
“It was the last song recorded by the Doors, and the whisper voice is the last singing that Jim ever did in the studio, in the background, on the ride out,” he continued. “How prophetic is that? A whisper fading away into eternity, where he is now. Viewing it from the outside, you can put a neat little bow on it and see it as our last performance, but for us, we were just playing our butts off. Fast, hard, and rocking, but cool and dark, too. I love the sound of the Doors. I can become an outsider now and think to myself, that is one tight motherf***ing band.”
The Song Was Written Off As Cocktail Music
The Doors might have thought they struck gold with their interpretation of the Western ballad, “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” but not everyone loved “Riders on the Storm” upon first listening. According to guitarist Robby Krieger in the same Uncut interview, the band’s producer, Paul Rothchild, wrote the song off as “cocktail music.” Krieger said, “I didn’t know what to make of that. He’d just made an LP with Janis Joplin, and possibly he thought the Doors were going downhill and there were better pastures for him.”
“[Rothchild] didn’t really listen to the darker underbelly of the song,” drummer John Densmore added, “only the lighter lounge feel. His quitting depressed us at first, but we rallied around.”
The Doors released “Riders on the Storm” in June 1971. Jim Morrison died in his Paris apartment weeks later on July 3, 1971, turning an already ominous song into an even more foreboding swansong for the troubled, controversial rockstar.
Photo by Electra Records/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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