This is a series of posts about the music I play while writing. This time it’s Riders on the Storm by The Doors. It’s a strange song and the last song Jim Morrison wrote and recorded before his death.
Riders on the Storm was recorded between December 1970 and January 1971 as part of the L.A. Woman album. This song is one of the Doors’ greatest songs. When you think of the 1960’s counterculture, you have to talk about the Doors and Morrison. I grew up during this era and psychedelic rock was on all the AM radio stations we listened to back then. My friends all had psychedelic poster art and we did wear tie-dyed shirts from time to time.
The song did get a fair amount of air time with the single version length being 4 minutes, while the album version is 7. I never heard the album version until I was an adult as neither I nor my friends owned the album. I do recall being attracted to the strange lyrics and guitar playing. It’s one of those songs that doubles as something to think about and just good background music.
It made onto my writing play list for this quality of making me think about the story it’s telling, the meditative beat of the music and honestly, nostalgia. This music just brings back memories of barefoot summers, teeshirts, cutoff jeans, riding bikes, chasing after the ice cream man and all the joys of life as a preteen in the 70’s.
The lyrics never really made much sense to me. On the surface they’re kind of depressing. We’re just riders on the storm, we’re thrown into the world and have nothing. We’re alone and have no control over what is happening to us. The first verse is about a murder and the second verse feels like a man being very needy. You really have to do a little research about the song to come to any kind of understanding about it. There are few words as much of the song is just guitar and keyboard music, which for me is the real attraction of the song, not the lyrics.
When you dive into it, you’ll find that the main chorus which opens the song is heavily influenced by the 20th century philosopher Martin Heidegger. Morrison heard one of Heidegger’s lectures in 1963. One of Heidegger’s concepts is that of “thrownness” as a basic state of human existence. Of Morrison was also influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche. Both philosophers influenced much of the counterculture movement so it isn’t surprising to me that Riders on the Storm goes in the direction that it does.
The first verse with “There’s a killer on the road,” is a reference to the spree killer Billy Cook, who in the 1950s kill some six people while hitchhiking. This event was the subject of the 1952 film noir, The Hitch-Hiker. It’s also a statement on the randomness of life as in, “you never know when the storm will hit.” Interestingly, in 1969 Morrison did write, produce, direct and star in the short film, HWY: An America Pastoral about a hitchhiker who at the end of the film reveals that he had killed someone. A hitchhiking drifter is about and thrown into the world as you get, so based on the chorus it makes some sense that Morrison goes in this direction.
The second verse is just plain whinny. This verse opens with “Girl, you gotta love your man,” with no indication that the man has to love his woman. Whoever this woman is also gets the burden, “The world on you depends.” Most likely this section is Morrison’s expression of love for Pamela Courson. Courson and Morrison where living together in Paris at the time of his death.
Altogether an odd song, but strangely compelling. I will say that I do argue with myself from time to time over whether or not this should be on my playlist as some of the lyrics make me a bit uncomfortable — especially now that I’ve researched more about them. On the other side, sometimes the best thing to do is to confront those things that make us uncomfortable, irritated, or annoyed. It is asking the question, “why is this bothering me?” that pushes us to grow and better understand ourselves. Also, as a writer we often need to write about subjects we find uncomfortable or conflict within us. After all, a good story is based on conflict, mistakes being made, the hero doing the wrong thing. And that’s why Riders on the Storm stays on my playlist.
