Riders on The Storm

[cobriaclord]

Where did they get the idea for this song?
I know it comes partly from the cowboy song "Ghost Riders in the Sky", a song I have never heard but would like to.
I also find that it is loosely based on Morrison's movie HWY, with the hitchhiker/ serial killer. Any other ideas?



Riders on the storm X2
Into this house we're born,
Into this world we're thrown
Like a dog without a bone,
An actor out alone,
Riders on the storm

There's a killer on the road,
His brain is squirmin' like a toad
Take a long holiday,
Let your children play
If ya give this man a ride,
Sweet family will die
Killer on the road, yeah

Girl ya gotta love your man X2
Take him by the hand,
Make him understand
The world on you depends,
Our life will never end
Gotta love your man, yeah, Wow!

Riders on the storm X2
Into this house we're born,
Into this world we're thrown
Like a dog without a bone,
An actor out alone
Riders on the storm,
Riders on the storm X5

What is he actually saying about the actor?
I always thought he was saying "actor out a loan" meaning that the actor had no money.
The line "brain is squirmin like a toad" is a really ingenious metaphor for the slightly deranged.
And "into this world we're thrown" is clearly an existentialist comment.

So i checked this song out at songmeanings.net and amongst people calling each other assholes I found some interesting comments:

" at this time Jim was almost legally insane. He created this song to make the listners think that it was true but it was truely a bull crap story, Good song thoug"
Nice.

"...this song is actually a really sad song because it was at this point in time that Jim lost ability to use his intelligence to accheive great lyrics. He had become too messed up with drugs to put anthing together anymore"
Lost his ability to use intelligence?

I actually liked this one:
"Ok- here I go...heres my part...take it or leave it...
This song is about human persecution. "Into this house we're born, Into this world we're thrown" somehow making it into existence in this world...and "Like a dog without a bone, an actor out alone" its you versus the world..."There's a killer on the road, His brain is squirmin' like a toad" Everyone is the killer...you fuck up everything you come across like young children messing around with toads for fun...someones gonna break a leg. "Take a long holiday, Let your children play" says that your not going to keep them safe forever...let them get out...let them do what they will do because you cant really stop them and theyre going to die one day anyway..."If ya give this man a ride, Sweet memory will die" The man is pessimism...if you only believe what is bad about something...you wont have any good memories...you dont know when your gonnna die.."Take him by the hand, Make him understand" means that you should take your pessimism and show it that endulging in what you want equals fun. Yea...you may have some bad outcomes...but it is sure as hell beter to have done it "The world on you depends, Our life will never end" Ok-you die...its not as bad as people crack it up to be because there millions of them...someone will probably fill your place. so there you have it-"Riders on the Storm as proposed by NC' somebody go ahead and bitch about it because im sure somebody will..."

This one is interesting because it takes into regard how much Morrison put into his music:
"I think this song might be somewhat about musicians and how they put themselves out there, ride the storm, make it through the trials and tribulations, become idols, get their message across. They are born to make music no matter who gets in their way."
JDM wanted to be an idol, his life was music.

I like this guy's comments too:
"You guys are so silly. To truly understand this song you have to take 5 hits of acid. Then and only then can you truly appreciate and understand what jim morrison is trying to say. Come on let your children play man."
Only then can you open The Doors of Perception.

I think this guy is talking from his ass, what do y'all think:
"Jim Morrison's daddy was a Navy admiral who was in charge of operations in Vietnam. Jim saw himself as on a "mission" to stop the war. He looked on his old man as Darth Vader. Read his biography. The "riders on the storm" were a secret name for the Choctaw Indian codetalkers in WWI. Like the Navajos in WWII, they spoke a language the German's couldn't understand. The WWI codetalkers worked for Naval intelligence. They were very effective spies. Jim heard about the Riders from his old man, and he saw his songs as "codetalking". That's what all the business in the movie The Doors with Indians is all about."

I love the keyboard in this song, and the rain sound effects. That's it for now, please add yore comments. Remember that someone's comments are always stupider than yours.

Peace

[jym]

I'm of the opinion that Riders is a re-statement of The End, except Riders has an answer to the existential question. the take your man by the hand make him understand is the answer to existential angst.

Morrison was legally insane? I wonder where people get their ideas?

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

"one day we were just sitting around in the studio fooling about and we were playing Ghost Riders In The Sky so Jim started fooling around with 'ghost riders in the sky/riders on the storm' and I think that's pretty much how that came about.....and you can hear that low guitar part...it's kinda like GRITS"
Robby Krieger BBC Radio 2 December 2005





"Ghost Riders in the Sky" was lurking around in the air when we wrote "Riders." We wanted a jazz feel, but the idea was to have the guitar, with alot of echo, on top, sounding like the Vaughn Monroe song."
John Densmore on his Forum October 2005

The song 'Ghost Riders in the Sky' is an all time classic from the legendary songwriter Stan Jones.

"On a stormy day in 1926, on the famed Slaughter Ranch in Cochise County, Arizona, an old hermit named Cap Watts and an impressionable twelve-year-old boy named Stan Jones paused to watch the lightning play over the banked black thunderclouds. As they watched the storm build, Watts told Stan Jones the story of the phantom cowboys who are doomed to ride the sky forever in pursuit of the devil's herd. Twenty-two years later Jones would weave the story into the song "Ghost Riders in the Sky". When it was released it was an instant hit, and over the years it has been recorded dozens of times by a variety of artists including Burl Ives, Johnny Cash, and The Sons of the Pioneers."

ROTS seems to be from a variety of sources including Jim's notebook poems and his Hitchhiker screenplay as well as a poem by US poet Hart Crane which includes the phrase 'riders of the storm' which Jim adapted to on.

'His thoughts, delivered to me / From the white coverlet and pillow, / I see now, were inheritances— / Delicate riders of the storm.'
Praise for an Urn by Hart Crane

One of the early rumours of his faked death actually come from this song..........it was the last song he did with The Doors and tells how he was planning to go into hiding to save himself from US 'justice'. I was a devotee of that very rumour as a teen and it was quite popular here in the UK in the early 70s.
Songmeanings.net and songfacts.com are bollocks......these people do not even know the lyrics FFS...where does 'sweet memory will die come from'
A lot of what these people say is nonsense as the lyrics were not just thought up in 1971 as a lot of the ideas for this were lurking around long before.
Maybe its a song commenting on Jim's alienation with the rest of the band....perhaps thats what he is telling his band mates....'if you give this man a ride sweet family will die' alluding to the fact they should look somewhere else for a singer.........
Maybe its just a good spooky song like Ghost Riders....when I was a kid this song was very popular ...especially the Vaughan Monroe version with his rich dark baritone I am sure it made an impression on guys like Morrison which explains why The Doors ended up doing it as a jam during the LA Woman rehearsals in 1970.


'An old cowboy went ridin' out one dark and windy day
Upon a ridge he rested as he went along his way
When all at once a mighty herd of red-eyed cows he saw
Plowin' through the ragged skies, and up a cloudy draw

Their brands were still on fire, and their hooves were made of steel
Their horns were black and shiny and their hot breath he could feel
A bolt of fear went through him as they thundered through the sky
For he saw the riders comin' hard, and he heard their mournful cry

Yipie i-oh, yipie i-ay! Ghost herd in the sky

Their faces gaunt, their eyes were blurred their shirts all soaked with sweat
They're ridin' hard to catch that herd, but they ain't caught 'em yet'
'Cause they've got to ride forever on that range up in the sky
On horses snorting fire, as they ride on, hear their cry

Yipie i-oh, yipie i-ay! Ghost riders in the sky

As the riders loped on by him, he heard one call his name
"If you want to save your soul from hell a riding on our range
Then cowboy change your ways today, or with us you will ride
Tryin' to catch the devil's herd, across these endless skies"

Yipie i-oh, yipie i-ay! Ghost riders in the sky
Ghost riders in the sky
Ghost riders in the sky'

[thebadcowboy]

ghost riders


courtesy of mr. cash.....

[cobriaclord]

its in wma format i cant hear it

[thebadcowboy]

click me

[cobriaclord]

Thank you very much

[strangenightvstone]

Riders on The Storm is based on So What by Miles Davis off the Kind Of Blue album from 1959 with John Coltane and Bill Evans.

[cobriaclord]

strangenightvstone said:

Riders on The Storm is based on So What by Miles Davis off the Kind Of Blue album from 1959 with John Coltane and Bill Evans.

How so?
I have never heard that before.
Can you post the lyrics from that song/give an upload site like The Bad Cowboy did.

Thanks

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Thats cool as its nice to know that The Doors still had a jazz heart even thought hey were in their bluesy period.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

So What by Miles Davis

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEC8nqT6Rrk

Ghost Riders In the Sky By Frankie Laine.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwAPa0qHmLo

Marty Robbins Sings 'Ghost Riders In The Sky.' This is the best version.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1xSYyMDaq4&feature=related

Riders On The Storm.......Doors Icon?

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Robby Krieger: Guitar Player Magazine 1998

RIDERS ON THE STORM

To tell you the truth, when we were starting to put that song together, we happened to be playing Ghost Riders in the Sky, just for fun.
Now, many groups, when they play a cover song, will end up at a faster tempo.
But the Doors were one of the few groups that played stuff slower. So the song just kept changing and slowing dawn, and then, instead of singing Ghost Riders in the Sky, Jim started singing Riders on the Storm.

John Densmore Interview Rhythm & News Magazine 1995

RIDERS ON THE STORM:
We were mixing the song, it had an eerie mood and I wanted to enhance that and I got this idea for Jim to do a whisper behind his main vocal.
Then someone said 'Let's put some rain on there.'
So we had one tape deck of constant rain and some thunderclaps - I'm really explaining the magic here - we had another tape deck cued up to exact thunderclaps, so we would drop them in - like playing God.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Ray Manzarek used the E Dorian mode for ROTS which involved playing all the white keys on the piano ascending from E to E: E F G A | B C D E. which is a nod to the ancient-Greek Phrygian mode of music an example was John Coltrane's Olé.
John and Ray were both big Coltrane fans.

John Coltrane - Olé (1/2)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hN5JpIG0B0

Jim Morrison recorded his main vocals for ROTS and then whispered the lyrics over them to create the layered echo effect.

The Snoop Dog version includes several parts missing from the original LA Woman version.
The Doors supported Snoop on this version and made available the 'Away In India' section that was rumoured to be recorded and which will likely appear on the 40 year edition. This appears around the 3 minute mark.
Also at 4:45 Jim sings 'Riders on the storm' and then adds 'Let's ride' which was also missing.
It got a lot of stick and I for one do not like rap but it is a pretty decent effort all the same and worth listening to.

Snoop Dogg ft. The doors - riders on the storm
www.youtube.com/watch?v=t19zEdI7l7E

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Released in June 1971 just before Jim Morrison's death and in the UK July 1971 a week after Jim Morrison died.
It reached #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US and managed #22 on the UK singles charts.



Interstingly it also made #7 in the Netherlands, a place Jim Morrison performed very briefly before collapsing during the Jefferson Airplane set and being taken to hospital before The Doors took to the stage in 1968.
Ray Manzarek asked the audience if they wanted the show to continue without Morrison and the audience said yes and he filled in rather well for the stricken singer.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

This comes from this months Uncut magazine and is Botnick talking about the 40 year LAW reissue and how the tapes are kept in a vault in Hollywood with the tapes protected by Halon gas which makes you pee yourself if you spend too long down there.

"Some songs go up to Take 7 or Take 10.
ROTS is Take 2.
Take 1 was a false start. You're hearing it without the thunderstorm so it has a different atmosphere. John, Robby and I have all individually claimed over the years that the thunderstorm was our idea. But when I listened back I could clearly here Jim say. "Hey thunder....that's a good idea....why don't we put thunder on it? We could uh get some from Arizona."
So now we have absolute proof where the idea came from."
Bruce Botnick Uncut magazine July 2011

Not quite conclusive as Jim may have been reacting to an idea proposed by one of the other guys. Interesting all the same.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

From The 1972 Doors Complete Songbook for piano and guitar.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

"There's a whisper voice on 'Riders on the Storm,' if you listen closely, a whispered overdub that Jim adds beneath his vocal. That's the last thing he ever did. An ephemeral, whispered overdub."
Ray Manzarek Uncut magazine September 2011

"Oh, God, turn it up! Are you kidding? Living up in northern alifornia, it rains a lot, so they play the heck out of 'Riders on the Storm.' And when that comes on, I crank that sucker, man."
Ray Manzarek Somerville Journal in March 2010
When asked if he turns up or turns off Doors music when he hears it on the radio.

[gizmo]

truely strange that the last thing you hear from jim with the doors (the doors) is a whisper of jim? just as an overdub............... should he really have known that that would be his last track he ever made with "his" band? like the last liveshow he did?
it would be strange, but strange day's have found us

back in the 60's ppl used lsd to make the world look weird, now the world is weird and ppl use prozac to get it back to normal

sad but true

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Not that strange Giz after all he knew damn fine he had either left the band or was leaving.
He did not have any intentions of playing with The Doors again although obviously who knew in the future what would happen.
He knew it was his last moment as a Door.
Probably just a bit of fine tuning the song.
Rather appropriate the way things turned out.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

It's interesting that their first ever hit song and their last ever hit song were the two that were sold to companies (Buick and Pirelli) to make commercials (minus Morrison of course in both cases.
And like the two famous billboards for the debut album and LA Woman were diametrically opposite each other.
One lit the fire and the other put the fire out.
The fire and water song...the basis of what The Doors were all about in the first place.

Robby Krieger:
This was the first time that we'd actually written some of the songs together in the studio. Before, I'd usually have some music and bring it in, and Jim would set some words to it. This time, we actually spent time jamming and making songs out of what came out of it. One day we were riffing on the old Western song "(Ghost) Riders in the Sky," and it morphed into "Riders on the Storm."

Jac Holzman:
I knew "Riders on the Storm" was going to be a rock radio staple forever. DJs have to go to the bathroom, or maybe have something else going on in the studio late at night. So long tracks are loved. And every rainy night, when there was a storm out, I knew they were going to play "Riders on the Storm."