The End (The Doors song)

Lead singer Jim Morrison initially wrote the lyrics about his break up with an ex-girlfriend, Mary Werbelow,[7] but it evolved through months of performances at the Whisky a Go Go into a much longer song.

[10]When interviewed by Lizze James, he pointed out the meaning of the verse "My only friend, the End": Sometimes the pain is too much to examine, or even tolerate ... That doesn't make it evil, though – or necessarily dangerous.

[8] Ray Manzarek, the former keyboard player of the Doors, explained: He was giving voice in a rock 'n' roll setting to the Oedipus complex, at the time a widely discussed tendency in Freudian psychology.

[13]When asked whether the lyrics of the Oedipal section actually resonated with his own parents, Morrison defensively replied, "I don't want to talk about it.

[14] However, in John Densmore's autobiography Riders on the Storm, he recalls when Morrison explained the literal meaning of the song: At one point Jim said to me during the recording session, and he was tearful, and he shouted in the studio, 'Does anybody understand me?'

[15]According to Mojo magazine,[16] during the recording sessions, Morrison was obsessed and skeptical of the words, "Fuck the mother, kill the father", as Krieger recalled, "He was on this Oedipus complex trip.

"[17] Then he accidentally threw a TV, which was brought in by sound engineer Bruce Botnick, at the control room window.

[16] The genesis and the use of the word "fuck" is described by Michael Hicks as follows: During this period, Morrison brought vocal ideas into the instrumental solo section.

More strikingly, when the retransition motive began, he held the microphone against his mouth and screamed the word "fuck" repeatedly, in rhythm, for three measures or more (the barking sound that one hears during this passage on most live recordings).

Paul Rothchild explains that in the Oedipal section of the studio recording of "The End," Morrison shouted the word "fuck" over and over "as a rhythm instrument, which is what we intended it to be."

In a live review published in The Williams Record in October 1967, critic John Stickney described the Doors' music as "gothic rock", which was one of the first uses of the term in print.

[25] Additionally, in their book Pop Goes the Decade: The Sixties, Aaron Barlow and Martin Kich said the song had influenced most of the acid rock genre.

[27] Em Casalena of American Songwriter credited the track as one of the songs that signified the birth of the former genre, saying "the [musical] talents of the band, coupled with Morrison’s irresistible charisma, turned this extra-long track into a dark, almost sinister anthem that contrasted the hippie-love energy of popular music at the time.

[54] The Stand director Josh Boone also confirmed the cover would not appear in the miniseries, saying the recording "ultimately proved too expensive to use.

[57] He later performed "Five to One" – as well as "Love Me Two Times" and "People Are Strange" – alongside Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger at the 2012 Sunset Strip Music Festival.