The End - The greatest song on earth?
If you define a song as a melody produced by several instruments and accompanied by one or more voices, then I have answered this question for myself and found the truth.
The Doors - The End.
This song is not a song. It is a ritual, born from a dark heart in the jungle. From it alone, one could found a religion or cult. A very strange one.
It can heal, and it can destroy the soul if you lose yourself in it. Depressive people should approach it with caution. It is the anthem of freedom and doom when freedom takes on compulsive traits. What The Doors created with The End, most likely while high on drugs, is a piece of eternity. A rare, successful attempt to tap into “the hidden,” the divine. I must have listened to this song far over a hundred times in various phases of my life, and in each phase it had a different message for me.
Is it a coincidence that this song is the finale of my favorite movie, Apocalypse Now, which is almost three hours long? Is the movie my favorite movie just because of this song? Or is it the other way around? The fact is, there is no better anthem in the world for the scene in which the crazed mob slaughters the sacrificial cow while Willard leads the longing Colonel Kurtz to his end.
You can almost see Jim Morrison dancing synesthetically, rhythmically, while everything else descends into madness. I take my hat off to Francis Ford Coppolla for this incredibly ingenious artistic stunt. I was so thrilled by this scene that I even had to bring this on a bottle label!
The song is brilliant on so many levels. Take the beginning, when the electric guitars announce a feverish, lost mood, distant and melancholic. You can see thunderstorms approaching from afar. You can smell the sultriness of the summer rain before it breaks. Then the rhythm of the drums slowly sets in, the flow slowly and heavily begins to move.
In the film Apocalypse Now, this s where the rotor noise of the approaching helicopters begins. Death squads approaching, bringing nothing but sorrow.
This is the end, beautiful friend.
This is the end, my only friend, the end.
Of our elaborate plans, the end.
Of everything that stands, the end.
No safety or surprise, the end.
I'll never look into your eyes again.
Right at the beginning, The Doors conjure up the inevitable. Fatalistically, they indulge in existentialism with a clarity that would make even Sartre begin to despair. Was this the despair of the 1968 generation in the face of social chaos, the Vietnam War and racial unrest – that very year saw massive riots in around 170 cities across the United States – or did Jim Morrison already sense his death in the ether, which would catch up with him only three years later in Paris?
Can you picture what will be?
So limitless and free.
Desperately in need of some stranger's hand,
In a desperate land.
Thoughts are free, life is enjoyed to the fullest, the song drives forward, the quiet, subtle despair remains. Morrison, who saw himself not as the singer of a rock band but as a poet, used the melody and the instruments as a means of transporting his lyrics, not the usual other way around. That's why the lyrics of The Doors need to be examined more deeply and closely. They offer much more scope for interpretation than one might think on first listening.
Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane…
The wonderful psychological landscape of a Roman decadence evoked here, to which I have even dedicated my Rob Bauer logo in the form of Michelangelo's Bacchus statue, is another symbol of the rotten, torn America that oscillates between hardcore conservatism and completely detached hippie culture.
The 1960’s Hippie Generation on fire
Mercilessly and inexorably, the river flows on into the darkness. The band groans, Morrison moans and laments.
The tempo increases…
He went into the room where his sister lived and then he…
Paid a visit to his brother and then he…
He walked on down the hall and
And he came to a door and he looked inside..
You know exactly what happens in those rooms. The killer is doing his dirty work.
Then everything slows down again to almost absolute silence…
Father?
Yes, son? I want to kill you
Mother—
I want to…….
…only to suddenly explode and escalate completely! All the pent-up anger towards parents, the government and rigid structures explodes in a loud inferno. A brilliant, unprecedented solo, a wild dance on the witch's hill.
The End’ was originally intended as a break-up song and grew over months of live improvisation. The Oedipus monologue and mother aspect apparently developed during concerts; it was not written down from the outset, but was an expression of Morrison's escalation strategy on stage, and obviously an absolute scandal back then.
The air is out.
Everything has been said. Turn off the lights.
The world has ended.
Not quite.
There are still a few illusions to lose, a few dreams to let go of, to purify the soul from the last moments of an intense relationship..
…It hurts to set you free.
But you'll never follow me.
The end of laughter and soft lies,
The end of nights, we tried to die,
This is the end.
In my opinion, the genius of this song can only be fully appreciated by listening to the available live versions. Each version is completely different and opens a new door (wordplay!). Just listen to each one. Finally, I would particularly recommend the epic live concert at the Isle of Wight Festival.
Amen.
