Understanding "The End"

This song reminds us of our existential existence and inevitable death... have you tried Hello Fresh?

The horror… the horror. Best use of any song in a film, hands down.

I'm loving the recent format of playing the song in its entirety and structuring the "essay" so it is always relevant to the current section of the song. Very nice work... keep it up!

The song that made me fall in love with the doors and psychedelic music generally. A real standalone song, never heard anything else like it.

I was 15 living in LA in at this time. And started dropping those little purple pills. The Doors were a local group in 1967 but they were having a heavy impact. I saw them early 1967 in an unforgettable performance. I'll never forget it. Morrison was on another level.

The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on..

9:48 so Morrison literally sang "reject society, return to monke". He was truly a genius beyond his time.

The End is a song beyond time, you could play it in a thousand years and it would still be ahead.

The End is about Hello Fresh. It seems so obvious now.

I met Ray Manzarek once. He was doing a tour with poet Michael McClure. After their performance, Ray did a Q&A session. Someone asked him about that song. According to Ray, the "snake" was the Santa Monica freeway, which is 7 miles long. The blue bus was an actual bus you could pay to ride on. That was the symbolism.

“Everyone gets everything he wants.” “I wanted a mission, and for my sins they gave me one.” “Brought it up to me like room service.”

My favourite song of all time, I'll always remember the first time I heard it, watching Apocaylpse Now for the first time, that opening shot, Jim's haunting vocals and Robby Krieger's soft guitar line. Masterpiece.

My favorite song of all time. I’ll never forget the first time I heard it. It was probably 11:00 pm and I was in the car driving home from a friends house, I think I might have been on something, maybe it was just that late, I don’t think I’d be stupid enough to drive high, but it was the surreal thing that’s ever happened to my, driving home, across a desert no less. I was lost in thought, adrift in a sea of my mind. It felt like an eternity, and I couldn’t believe it was only 10 minutes. I’d pay a million dollars to hear this song for the first time again.I almost only ever play heavy metal when on stage, but my band always closes with this song. We usually run it out to 17 minutes or so, we stuck a few new verses on there and added a more complex bass part. I have dealt with loss all my life, I have fought a war in my head against depression, I have visited a state of mind that I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemies. I lost my best friend to a war just like mine and it changed me. I came back from that place with a revelation, I ask that you head my warning. You only live once, don’t throw it away…please…

I wish I could time travel to the late 60's to see them play live

Couldn't it be that where Jim writes "The west is the best, get here and we'll do the rest", he's talking about the american dream and the united states as the "promised land", and how the united states was seen as the ultimate in culture, technology and democracy at the time? Just spitballing ofc.

My own musical project got its name from this song: the lyric "lost in a Roman Wilderness of pain" struck me and Roman Wilderness was born. Jim's lyricism is unmatched in my opinion, and only the music of The Doors could bring his poetry to life. Thank you for this video, so glad to see my biggest musical inspiration get some love nowadays.

Pretty much one of the best records ever created. The lyrics, the drumline and the VOCALS!

I just watched apocalypse now, perfect timing

A lot of The End’s symbolism draws from The Golden Bough by James George Frazer. The “Roman wilderness of pain” and “ancient lake” are references to the priest of Diana at Nemi known as the Rex Nemorensis. The œdipal concepts also relate to the cycle of mortality and fertility inherent to kingship. Morrison almost quotes The Golden Bough I’m Not to Touch the Earth. It’s a dense book but it’s one of his major literary influences.

Most videos, documentaries suck when talking ABOUT music. But this is the first actual, useful analysis of a musical composition and its performers i literally ever heard. Well fucking done! Well done! “Manzarek used his organ as a tambura.” Yes and thank you for actually saying something beyond “generic vague bs” Note this man is not telling stories or anecdotes shrouded in generic descriptions. No this is real. Impressed and inspired.