The Serial Killer That Jim Morrison Alludes to in Iconic Doors Hit, “Riders on the Storm”

Inspiration can come from the strangest and, at times, most unsettling of places, as was the case for the iconic Doors hit, “Riders on the Storm,” born from Jim Morrison’s macabre interest in a hitchhiking serial killer. The Doors frontman wrote the lyrics to the minor groove two decades after the infamous criminal went on a murder spree across the western United States from 1950 to 1951.

“Riders on the Storm” has become one of the band’s most beloved songs, thanks in no small part to its catchy minor groove and the fact that it was the last song Morrison recorded before his death in 1970. Posthumously, the song seems like an ominous warning of what was to come for the rock star.

Indeed, death overshadows this song in both creation and legacy.

The Serial Killer Jim Morrison Talks About In “Riders on the Storm”

At face value, the Doors’ 1971 track “Riders on the Storm” doesn’t sound that morbid. The first verse’s lines, into this house, we’re born, into this world, we’re thrown, sound like harmless, poetic philosophizing. Then, the third verse is downright poppy, harkening to previous songs like “Hello, I Love You” with lines like, Girl, you gotta love your man. Take him by the hand, make him understand, the world on you depends. Our life will never end.

But in the second verse, Morrison’s mind takes a dark turn. There’s a killer on the road, he croons. His brain is squirmin’ like a toad. Take a long holiday, let your children play, if you give this man a ride, sweet family will die. Killer on the road. It’s hard to argue the murderous implications of this verse. Sure enough, Morrison had a specific killer on the road in mind. The infamous hitchhiking killer Morrison refers to was William “Billy” Cook, who killed six people over 22 days between Missouri and California.

Cook victimized random motorists with seemingly no motive besides the occasional robbery. In some instances, Cook forced his victims to drive aimlessly for hours before killing or abandoning them on the roadside. In 1952, the state executed Cook at San Quentin Prison via gas chamber. After police arrested him at the Mexican border in southern California, Cook said, “I hate everybody’s guts. And everybody hates mine,” per Time.

Morrison developed an interest in Cook’s story, writing a featurette that included an anonymous hitchhiker (played by Morrison) named Billy who kills the unlucky passerby who gives him a ride. HWY: An American Pastoral ends with the hitchhiker at Los Angeles’ iconic venue and one of the Doors’ old stomping grounds, the Whisky a Go Go.

The Band Capitalized On A Different Song About Death In The West

The Doors came up with “Riders on the Storm” after jamming a slower version of the classic Western ballad, “Ghost Riders in the Sky.” In a 2014 interview with Uncut, keyboardist Ray Manzarek recalled, “I proposed the bassline and piano part. 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.”

“Jim always had notebooks of writings and poems to draw from and would just pull lyrics out from these,” drummer John Densmore added. “Jim had made the film, HWY…it was out there. He called his friend, the poet Michael McClure, and pretended that he had actually committed a murder just to get a reaction. Jim was a voracious reader as well as having a wild imagination.”

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