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Rating: "I'm so down, it almost feels beautiful".
Calling "L.A. Woman" a blues album might make the purists of the genre wince, but indeed, the atmosphere throughout the Doors' last work is just that.
Morrison is now a human wreck. His beard is so long that he looks like Jesus Christ and he probably suffers from a testicular disease that renders him impotent. His uncontrollable coughing fits have become actual respiratory crises during which the Lizard King spits blood, and the dreams of a collective migration to the other side, which only a few years ago he had tried (or just played?) to be the shepherd of, are over.
Jim Morrison has changed his look and lifestyle, and alcohol seems to be a disease he just can't shake off anymore.
The only thing keeping the group together is the contract with Elektra; to honor it, another album must be made, just one more, and then they will close shop and each will go their separate ways. Not that Morrison minds, for his part, he can’t wait to go to France and drags himself through the band's last adventures, or rather misadventures, in concert tours.
It will be surprising that instead "L.A. Woman" will be an album where the Lizard King will put everything of himself: he had always wanted to make a blues album, and this time he could.
The idea, while initially accepted by the others more out of desperation than anything else, gradually begins to interest everyone. Everyone, except for the longtime producer Paul Rothchild, who, exhausted by Morrison's constant whims, and not convinced of the project (he would describe "Riders On the Storm" as a piano bar tune), decides to abandon the band to their own devices.
The Doors, however, press on, assisted by sound engineer Bruce Botnick, they decide to self-produce.
Ironically, returning to autonomous management of their pieces will lead the Doors to record a raw and determined album, which will make "L.A. Woman" their most cohesive work since "Strange Days". However, the 1967 album had remained in the memory of many for its disturbing and hallucinatory atmospheres, where vital and sexual impulses erupted with sudden and terrifying volcanic outbursts.
In "L.A. Woman" instead, a realm of total desolation prevails. In a way, more than a journey into America, "L.A. Woman" could be a journey inside Morrison himself, and the landscape we find is even more desert-like. Both had undergone profound changes in just a few years: the rapid transition from a flower power dream to a regime of tension, disillusionment, and social unrest had influenced the band, in the album where they had to speak about their country, to depict it no longer vibrantly and euphorically, but disheartened and decadent.
In "Cars Hiss By My Window" Morrison is lying with one of his lovers (they reportedly took pity on him at the time), but he feels she is distant, and there is nothing he can do to avoid the chill that reigns in the room, except surrender to the hiss of the cars passing by outside the window. Even in Krieger's single, "Love Her Madly", which would classically be the usual chart song, there is nothing comforting. She walks out the door and leaves, the end.
The woman in "L.A. Woman", is no longer the object of Morrison's salvific libido, but is cold, distant, unreachable. Another of those wrecks left on the road like so many shards of broken bottles spread on the sidewalk after a party that lasted too long. The sixties are over.
Only in the title track do we find some flames of the old times: in the exhilarating rock 'n' roll of "L.A. Woman" the more shimmering Los Angeles rises again, in a whirlwind duel with the darker and unwholesome one of the suburbs. A picture in which many have seen the metaphor of Morrison's very life: brilliant and depraved. The figure of companion Pam also emerges clearly: a difficult, tumultuous, sometimes violent relationship, but inevitable, like the one with the City itself.
Ultimately, it's Jim who is still desperately trying to cling to life, even at the cost of crawling like a snake, almost attempting a last metamorphosis ("Crawling King Snake"), or one last change before the end, invoked from the beginning with the scream that tears through "The Changeling".
But the fate seems sealed, and the path proceeds straight and inexorable as on a highway: passing through the hot deserts of "L'America", the primordial forests of "WASP, Texas Radio And The Big Beat.", and finally, precisely on a highway, the album closes.
"Riders On The Storm" is one of those pieces for which the word testament is necessary more than it can be used for any other song on the album. The masterpiece of "L.A. Woman" takes us there, straight to where it all began. With the Indians, death and life condensed in the stretch of a few moments, even before Sophocles, Nietzsche, and Rimbaud. The rain beats and washes everything on the road, the riders ride the storm, but in the end, they are destined to be lost with it: as they are thrown into the world, so they go away.
Jim Morrison, a dog without a stick, an actor borrowed and consumed by his own act, burnt like an asteroid in the rock panorama of the late sixties, prepares to drop the curtain on himself, and to raise it on a legend.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 The Changeling (04:21)
Uh!
Uha!
Gedu!
I live uptown
I live downtown
I live all around
I had money, and I had none
I had money, and I had none
But I never been so broke
That I couldn't leave town
I'm a Changeling
See me change
I'm a Changelin'
See me change
I'm the air you breath
Food you eat
Friends your greet
In the sullen street, wow
See me change
See me change, you
I live uptown
I live downtown
I live all around
I had money, yeah, and I had none
I had money, yeah, and I had none
But I never been so broke
That I couldn't leave town
Well, I'm the air you breath
Food you eat
Friends your greet
In the sullen street, wow
Ew ma!
Uh, ah!
You gotta see me change
See me change
Yeah, I'm leavin' town
On a midnight train
Gotta see me change
Change, change, change
Change, change, change
Change, change, change
Change, change, change
Woa, change, change, change
03 Been Down So Long (04:41)
Well I've been down so god damn long
That it looks like up to me
Well I've been down so very damn long
That it looks like up to me
Yeah why don't one you people
C'mon and set me free?
I said warden, warden, warden
Won't you break your lock and key?
I said warden, warden, warden
Won't you break your lock and key?
Yeah come along here mister
C'mon let the poor boy be
Baby, baby, baby
Won't you get down on your knees?
Baby, baby, baby
Oh won't you get down on your knees?
Come on little darlin'
Come on and give your love to me
Well I've been down so god damn long
That it looks like up to me
Well I've been down so very damn long
That it looks like up to me
Why don't none of you people
C'mon, c'mon, c'mon and set me free?
04 Cars Hiss by My Window (04:12)
The cars hiss by my window
Like the waves down on the beach
The cars hiss by my window
Like the waves down on the beach
I got this girl beside me
But she's out of reach
Headlight through my window
Shinin' on the wall
Headlight through my window
Shinin' on the wall
Can't hear my baby
Though I called and called
Yeah, right
Woo!
Windows started tremblin'
With a sonic boom
Windows started tremblin'
With a sonic boom, boom
A cold girl'll kill you
In a darkened room
Yeah, woo
Ride
Ride on
Weooooo!
Wawa, eooo!
Oooo, owa, owaaa!
Wa, waaaaea!
Ooo, wa, wa, wa, wa, waa!
Uh-huh
05 L.A. Woman (07:55)
Well, I got into town about an hour ago.
Took a look around see which way the wind blow,
With a little girl in a Hollywood bungalow.
Are you a lucky little lady in the City of Light
Or just another lost angel
City at night.
City at night.
City at night.
City at night.
L.A. Woman, L.A Woman
L.A. Woman, Sunday afternoon
L.A Woman, Sunday afternoon
L.A Woman, Sunday afternoon
Drive thru your suburbs
Into your blues
Into your blues
Into your blue, blue, blues
Into your blues
I see your hair is burnin'
Hills are filled with fire
If they say I never loved you
You know they are a liar
Drivin' down your freeway
Midnight alleys roam
Cops in cars, the topless bars
Never saw a woman
So alone,
So alone, so alone, so alone
Motel Money Murder Madness
Let's change the mood
From glad to sadness
Mr. Mojo Risin'
Mr. Mojo Risin'
Mr. Mojo Risin'
Mr. Mojo Risin'
Got to keep on risin'
Mr. Mojo Risin'
Mr. Mojo Risin'
Mr. Mojo Risin'
Mr. Mojo Risin'
Got my mojo risin'
Mr. Mojo Risin'
Got to keep on risin'
Goin' ridin', ridin'
Goin' ridin', ridin'
Got to ridin', ridin'
Ridin', ridin'
Well, I got into town about an hour ago.
Took a look around see which way the wind blow,
With a little girl in a Hollywood bungalow.
Are you a lucky little lady in the City of Light
Or just another lost angel
City at night.
City at night.
City at night.
City at night.
L.A. Woman, L.A Woman
L.A Woman
You're my woman
A little L.A woman
L.A Woman
Hey, hey, come on
L.A woman come on
07 Hyacinth House (03:11)
What are they doing in the Hyacinth House?
What are they doing in the Hyacinth House
To please the lions this day?
I need a brand new friend who doesn't bother me
I need a brand new friend who doesn't trouble me
I need someone who doesn't need me
I see the bathroom is clear
I think that somebody's near
I'm sure that someone is following me, oh yeah
Why did you throw that Jack of Hearts away?
Why did you throw that Jack of Hearts away?
It was the only card in the deck I had left to play
And I'll say it again. I need a brand new friend, yeah.
And I'll say it again. I need a brand new friend.
And I'll say it again. I need a brand new friend.
The end.
08 Crawling King Snake (05:00)
Well, I'm the Crawlin' King Snake
And I rule my den
I'm the Crawlin' King Snake
And I rule my den
Yeah, don't mess 'round with my mate
Gonna use her for myself
Caught me crawlin', baby, window
Grass is very high
Keep on crawlin' till the day I die
Crawlin' King Snake
And I rule my den
You better give me what I want
Gonna crawl no more
Caught me crawlin', baby
Crawlin' 'round your door
Seein' everything I want
I'm gonna crawl on your floor
Let's crawl
And I rule my den
C'mon, give me what I want
Ain't gonna crawl no more
Alright, crawl a while
C'mon crawl
C'mon crawl
Get on out there on your hands and knees, baby
Crawl all over me
Just like the spider on the wall
Ooo, we gonn' crawl, one more
Well, I'm the Crawlin' King Snake
And I rule my den
Call me the Crawlin' King Snake
And I rule my den
Yeah, don't mess 'round with my mate
Gonna use her for myself
09 The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat) (04:16)
I wanna tell you 'bout Texas Radio and the Big Beat
Comes out of the Virginia swamps
Cool and slow with plenty of precision
With a back beat narrow and hard to master
Some call it heavenly in it's brilliance
Others, mean and rueful of the Western dream
I love the friends I have gathered together on this thin raft
We have constructed pyramids in honor of our escaping
This is the land where the Pharaoh died
The Negroes in the forest brightly feathered
They are saying, "Forget the night.
Live with us in forests of azure.
Out here on the perimeter there are no stars
Out here we is stoned - immaculate."
Listen to this, and I'll tell you 'bout the heartache
I'll tell you 'bout the heartache and the lose of God
I'll tell you 'bout the hopeless night
The meager food for souls forgot
I'll tell you 'bout the maiden with wrought iron soul
I'll tell you this
No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn
I'll tell you 'bout Texas Radio and the Big Beat
Soft drivin', slow and mad, like some new language
Now, listen to this, and I'll tell you 'bout the Texas
I'll tell you 'bout the Texas Radio
I'll tell you 'bout the hopeless night
Wandering the Western dream
Tell you 'bout the maiden with wrought iron soul
10 Riders on the Storm (07:09)
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
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 squirming 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
(Music)
Girl you gotta love your man
Girl you gotta love your man
Take him by the hand
Make him understand
The world on you depends
Or life will never end
Gotta love your man
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Other reviews
By the clash
Jim, the master of those doors, says, near his death, that he is a “changeling,” one who transforms often, with many faces.
His real stories, witnesses of a life always on the edge, of an uncomprehended poetic spirit and interpreter of a human condition longing for life, transgression but also sad and contradictory, riding the storm… riding the storm…
By AR (Anonima Recensori)
"Morrison’s voice is sharper and heavier than a cleaver, in short, a composition made by a drunken madman and a not-so-better-off Louis Armstrong."
"'Riders On The Storm' begins: electric piano, precise drumming from a true jazz master drummer, and that guitar that seems to enter quietly without wanting to disturb, the prophetic voice of Jim Morrison, all in a magical, hallucinatory, and dreamy atmosphere."
By alfo
Jim Morrison, an intellectual with a deep hypnotic voice, amidst the wave of optimism and enthusiasm, already sensed the advent of the downfall, total, definitive, and unavoidable of modern civilization.
L.A. Woman carries away the painful perversions of the ’70s, taking them to the cemetery of civilization, leading them with its steady and repetitive rhythms to its ossuary.
By nikko89
The last breath of the shaman of pain, the last tremor...
Riders on the storm... a timeless piece carved in the stone of memory as if graffiti of blood.
By groucho84
The Doors could not have crafted a better epilogue for their extraordinary career.
‘Riders on the Storm’ is an absolute milestone in the history not only of this group, but of all rock.
