The Doors - The End Song Meanings
 Top Rated Interpretation
j2whoami
May 23rd, 2007 05:26AM
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Firstly this is toughest song to decipher as far as Jim Morrison is concerned..it can be taken the way you like to. Its meaning differs within yourself depending on whether you are high or low, that's the magic of Jim Morrison. To me the song is about life and as throughout our life death overshadows us hence it can be called song of death too. It depicts the despate life we live...starting as a 'dog without a bone' we look for friends..' desperately in need of some stranger's hand...in a desperate land'..we look for friends in your life and maybe in your death too..then the song depicts the kind of life we live...meaningless..depthless...vulnerable. Jim starts right from the childhood.."Lost in a roman wilderness of pain...and all the children are insane"
To me 'snake' means our pleasures..gribbs..and the ancient lake symbolises end of that journey of chasing our pleasure..simply it symbolises death...
"Ride the snake to the ancient lake"
"The west is the best"
west symbolises abundance..luxury ..pleasure..
"the blue bus is calling us"...our life is a journey..we are aboard a bus of pleasure ..luxury...abundance..strangely we don't know where it is taking us ultimately..that's true for all of us
"Driver where you are taking us?" because we have lost control of ourselves..our lives..as he rightly says..
"Come here and we will do the rest"
then he tells a story...maybe he tries to depict himself..don't try to justify the the killer who wants to kill his father or fuck his mother...don't try to investigate what was wrong with Jim Morrison because we are aboard a blue bus ourselves...lets try to understand what he wanted to mean...what really he wanted to kill...his father or the things he got from his father...teachings..beatings...morals...so called values..its true for all of us..he wanted to wake us up...open our eyes to see...to choose..to acqire wisdom..of life..of death..
But we will never follow him..he knows that too...so this is the end of song..this is the "End of nights we tried to die"
BeAHippie
September 26th, 2005 04:07PM
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Many of the band members have stated that the song used to be a very nice song. alot of people danced along with it, but at a club one night when the band was supposed to be playing jim was around getting high and the band ended up just trying to keep the crowds happy by playing "jimless." when that didnt work jim came on stage and told the band that he wanted to do "the end." they said to him that they usally save that for last, but jim said that he wanted to do it then. so thats when all the screaming and what not came into play. at least thats about what rolling stone said.
anonymous
November 6th, 2005 07:00PM
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Yes, this song contains the whole Oedipus complex thing, but it's about more than just wanting to kill/screw your parents.
This song is also about the feeling that something (a relationship, a friendship, a stage in your life) is over and things will never be the same. It will never come back. Hence, "this is the end, beautiful friend". It really is about change and "the end of everything that stands, the end." It also reflects the troubled time period of the 70s and the Vietnam war and how everyone back then was kind of wondering if this was truely the end of the world as they knew it, because of all the change going on.
anonymous
December 13th, 2005 01:28AM
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This song's about death, obviously. Jim Morrison was obsessed with death. In the book, "No one here gets out alive" by an author whose name I forget, he says that Morrison was not afraid of death because he believed, "at the point of death, all pain stops."
Even their band name is a symbol of death. The doors between the known (life as we know it) and the unknown (the after life). The song break on through to the other side is about breaking through to the other side of that door. Morrison believed that drugs could take you to the other side, that's why he did do so many drugs. "So limitless and free" death was freedom to Morrison. This whole song is about death.
anonymous
January 6th, 2006 01:02AM
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The name of the band does not refer to death, but the enlightening effects of drugs. The name is taking from "The Doors of Perception" written by Aldous Huxely after trying pyoete. I am not saying that death isn't a part of the song, however, it obviously is, as are drugs, change, and everything else that was mentioned. This is obviously a very broad song, with many meanings.
anonymous
January 8th, 2006 02:17PM
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I already interpreted this at bit, but I have more to add:
The symbolism in this song is heavier than people realize and it would take a while to explain it all, and a lot of research perhaps, or prior knowledge but... everyone seems to overlook the Blue Bus and Snake and how Jim sings "driver where you takin us?" at this point the song is sorta hypnotic and it's trance-like, very drugged-out sounding, like Jim's saying they're all so high they don't know where they're going anymore or where life's taking them, and they don't care. It could also mean everyone just goes with the flow of society and does what they're told and doesn't care. But then he says "STOP! I don't want to do this anymore," or "I can't take this anymore", or something like that (which isn't in the lyrics listed here, btw, maybe that should be fixed?) and then it goes into the whole heavily cinematic sequence where "the killer awoke before dawn (heavy chord) he put his boots on.." and I think you all know what happens after that. This could mean Jim has decided he's not riding either "the blue bus" or "the snake", which is also mentioned. He's not just along for the ride anymore, he's gonna do something, and the protagonist of the song goes and... well, you know the rest. But then he goes back to singing about doing a "blue rock on the blue bus" (drugs!, maybe crack but probably some hallucinogen, in Jim's case) and this seems to represent drugs, free love, and the whole stoned perspective on life that was the 60s and 70s.
anyway, I don't know if this is right, but maybe this will add another layer of meaning to the words.
anonymous
February 1st, 2006 02:56PM
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The name “The Doors” is not taken from "The Doors of Perception" written by Aldous Huxley. It is from a poem by William Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell", and it says: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.”
I think that "The end" is about the end of childhood. Part of childhoods end is off course the Oedipus complex. But there is more to it. The insane children are those who yet haven’t accepted the codes of society. And how do we know something about the time before society’s grasp. We can ride the "king’s highway", which is Freud’s name for the best way to the sub consciousness – to be analyzing dreams. Someone is going on the bus – the adult, and someone is left behind – the child within. I guess.
anonymous
April 3rd, 2006 07:06AM
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I had heard that Jim as a child had witnessed a buss accident when he was a child where several native americans had died and the gruesome image stayed with him for the rest of his life. The buss was blue.
Also when I here him speak of the snake I think of a road. Especially since it's mentioned with other road references. The snake is old, cold black and seven miles long leading to a lake. Also the oldest road in SoCal is El Camino Real AKA The King's Highway and since it linked the original missions it had religious potent.
I'm not saying I found any meaning but just another way of interpreting. Also he could ahve some double meaning here.
anonymous
November 15th, 2006 12:09PM
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If you read pretty much everything there is to read about jim morrison and the doors, you will know that the native who he saw dying, "leaped into my body". Hence, the dancing on stage. Watch the doors movie. There are flashbacks to his early life. During the trip when they're in the desert. It forshadows his death as well.
I suppose the "snake" is a road. This is around the climax of the song. When he is going to take some sort of action. "ride the snake, to the lake, the ancient lake."
a road that has been taken before...Many times... To the same old place.
anonymous
January 5th, 2007 01:05PM
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The End, And I read this in "The Complete illustrated lyrics" book, means, and I quote directly from the book "essentially it boils down to just this: kill the father means kill all those things in yourself which are instilled in you and are not yourself; they are not your own, they are alien concepts which are not yours, they must die, those are the things that must come to an end. The Psychedelic revolution. Fuck the mother is very basic and means get back to the essence, what is the reality, fuck the mother is very basically mother, mother birth, real, very real, you can touch it.
Precisely what the song is about is "get back to reality and end alien concepts" which to me means, end corruption that society has instilled in your brain, and be born again...free of "the father".
I still don't know what the blue bus means..
anonymous
March 2nd, 2007 01:13PM
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The song the end was about not only pain but the start of a new life. Yes morrison witnessed an accident in his childhood, if you read the book carefully you will see that he sees the chief of the navaho's or its the shamen its not to specific but, I think that when he saw the dying indian that indians soul was put into morrisons body and the indian was waitng for the end. Morrison may have often wished for death but there is always a hidden reason, look at all the referrences that have to do with indians, the snake, the shamens etc. Even on his trip on peyote he found a cave in the desert and there he swore he saw the navaho cheif staring into his soul, some say he has even seen the hole tribe's spirits at some of his shows
anonymous
March 21st, 2007 09:05PM
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Hey man, that explanation was awesome. yours has made the most sense, and cleared a lot of questions I had...
thanks
anonymous
April 18th, 2007 07:29PM
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The End was written, unlike their other songs, in a way were you are forced to listen to Jim’s lyrics. Jim was fascinated with death saying that it was the end to all pain but at the same time your losing your dreams, life plans, and love. I think when he says “Ride the King’s highway/Ride the snake” it means he acknowledges the journey you went on but the outcome was and will forever be there is an end. “Doing a blue rock, on blue bus” was based on desert trips where they did acid. One of the most controversial ending to any of there songs “Father I want to kill you, Mother I want to F**k You” does not mean at all what first come to mind. The father part actually means destroying everything with no meaning, controlling, and restrictive in one's mind, the mother part means embracing everything that is expansive, flowing, and alive in the mind. That’s what I think.
anonymous
June 7th, 2007 06:44PM
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"Seven Horses seem...to - be - on - the -mark"
What's the meaning of this?
(Oh, of that line...not OF this website!!)
Thanks!
-GP
anonymous
June 21st, 2007 02:23AM
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Before I get to ‘The End', let's take a look at the album as a whole, it begins with Jim probing life as something to be lived, yet always recognizing that life is mystical and made of many realities. But living doesn't allow absolute freedom, and people constantly search for sanctuary. Since neither love nor sanctuaries offer security, Jim turns to ‘The End' as his beautiful and only friend.
‘THE END'
Surrendering to a sense of hopelessness so beautifully rendered in the song's opening, Jim takes the hand of his only friend, the end.
The imagery and music then moves on as Jim seeks freedom, riding the King's highway, riding the snake to the ancient lake, going west, and answering the call of the blue bus.
(The Blue Bus may be a reference to a vessel sailing through the underworld, not unlike the boat that ferried the souls of the dead down the river Styx. On the other hand, and most probably, it refers to a bus route that ran through LA to the beach.)
Then the mood shifts to an eerie look at original evil in humans as we take a journey with a killer down a hall in a place no longer a sanctuary – the home. Jim then makes the transition to the philosophical level with the human taking a face from the ancient gallery (something that was done on the ancient Greek stage). But the calmness of the mask is shattered when the killer completes his journey; telling his father he wants to kill him and then confronting his mother….
These are themes of the classic Oedipal story…
“Oedipus, his father's murderer, his mother's lover, solver of the Sphinx's riddle”
Take it as killing the father means killing those things instilled in you but are not of yourself, and sexually conquering the mother means returning to your essence, which can't lie to you.
Jim's message was act now, search later. Life is a journey, but any journey will be painful. Life is pain, love is pain, and fear prevents people from experiencing life, from accepting what The Doors ultimately come to realize,
that we are all just riders on the storm.
anonymous
June 27th, 2007 05:51PM
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The blue bus is an hallucinogen (numorphin)
oldsoul
July 22nd, 2007 08:32AM
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It's mostly about death. The comfort death will bring. From all the pain and misery from life. The blue bus that's calling us is the sky. Driver where you taking us is GOD or whatever you believe in. As well as Desperately in need of some strangers hand. My favorite part of the whole song is "can you picture what will be so limitless and free." He is telling us not to be so afraid of death it's a part of life......You will then be free of this hell we call earth.
Lost in a roman...wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah
That pretty much about when we were kids we thought that when we grow up things are going to be so great but, as Jim says all the children are insane. Waiting for the summer rain......Summer rain meaning that life is going to be great and finding out that it sucks growing up. Bitter sweet.
The snake is a Highway it's old and it's skin is cold.
In ways he's talking about setting your mind free but people are too afraid to and he knew that. It hurts to set you free but you'll never follow me.
anonymous
October 31st, 2007 06:07PM
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The snake could represent primortial human fear, so he's saying challenge your fears, that's how you learn. I think the ancient lake is the Universal Mind of knowledge that exists all around us and where Edgar Cayce and other prophets hailed their information about the earth/future. the blue bus could be your soul and the driver is your spirit guide (Jim's was a shaman that jumped into his body)
nataS
December 13th, 2007 06:05PM
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This song is about Drugs, Transcending life into death, talking to god or to the drugs ingested (driver where you takin us?). The Blue Bus is a drug. The Oeuphidous complex is also a part, as well as being comedic (greek comedy.)Morrison believed death always is at our heels, and when we die we are free, and it follows us no longer. All the children are insane is a refrence to how each generation disapproves and dosent understand those after it. Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Yeah.
anonymous
April 2nd, 2008 04:01AM
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I think this song is about society and the way it works and what is going to happen to it.
"all the children are insane" refers to some sort of psychic connection we all may experience and when we do go through that, then everyone will become insane and then the end....anyway that's my interpretation..
Jax
May 3rd, 2008 07:22PM
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This is just an educated opinion. While I know that it is widely believed that the end started out as a love song, I think that the beginning has a deeper metaphysical meaning. Jim Morrison was greatly influenced by Nietzsche and Heidegger. For Heidegger, death, the end, was the completion of one's essence of one's Dasein. Perhaps this is what he means by "my only friend" and "of our elaborate plans," since Heidegger believed that a person's being was defined by a combination of past-present-future much like Sartre. Anyways...the reason I think this song has much to with Heidegger is by the use of the word "stands" in reference to what is ending. During Heidegger's etymology of the word Being, he concluded that the word Being as originally meant by the Greeks (pre Plato) was that which stands erect. Further more, Heidegger believed that that meaning was distorted and lost when it was translated into Latin and then abused by the philosophers that followed, perhaps the insane children. This could account for "lost in a Roman wilderness of pain." Being is what is lost and then the rest of the song could be Jim's poetic instructions to regain Being.
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