The Doors: The End Meaning
The End Lyrics
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes...again
Can you picture what...
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I believe the song talks about the loss of innocence. The angst of the transition involved in the process of growing up.This is the stage when beliefs and value systems get shaken and and a new system installs itself by a process of synthesis.
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Honked guy, starting with an idea, dealing with his (then) situation...
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If any eager doors lovers who dont already take psycadelic drugs such as acid, mushrooms or payote if you are confused in any way by the terms that Jim uses quite frequently in his songs it is mainly because you have not yet experienced these effects and basically you cant put yourself in Jims shoes considering most songs are confusing to my friends who dont, "whip the horses eyes."
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My interpretation starts off him breaking up with a girlfriend. He says he wasn't expecting it but wasn't surprised ''No safety or surprise, the end''.He becomes desperate for a relationship with her or someone just as good as her ''Desperately in need...of some...stranger's hand''. His pain becomes too much ''Lost in a Roman...wilderness of pain'' and he begins to lose his sanity ''And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah
There's danger on the edge of town
Ride the King's highway, baby
Weird scenes inside the gold mine
Ride the highway west, baby
Ride the snake, ride the snake
To the lake, the ancient lake, baby
The snake is long, seven miles
Ride the snake...he's old, and his skin is cold
The west is the best
The west is the best
Get here, and we'll do the rest
The blue bus is callin' us
The blue bus is callin' us
Driver, where you taken' us''
Eventually everything becomes too much. He decides to kill his family ''The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on'' ''And he walked on down the hall
He went into the room where his sister lived, and...then he
Paid a visit to his brother'' He kills them both and goes to his parents. ''He walked on down the hall, and
And he came to a door...and he looked inside
Father, yes son, I want to kill you
Mother...I want to...WAAAAAA'' he kills his father and gets to his mother, at that it either gets too much for him or he can't bring himself to kill her. After that I think he leaves on a sense of insanity. He later comes to sense and accepts what his lost ''This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
It hurts to set you free
But you'll never follow me
The end of laughter and soft lies
The end of nights we tried to die
This is the end''. -
i know that the blue bus refers to a bus that people tested acid on in california (the west). and the part about killing his father and screwing his mom refers to a character from greek mythology that did these things, i cant remember his name.
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To me personally this song is about just what the title is " The End". Alot of lyrics in the song refer to the end of time and all being. The song is also about death in many ways. The lyrics " Of our elaborate plans, of everything that stands". Is clearly talking about the end of time and " Can you picture what will be, so limitless and free", is the way people will exist when the industialized global world will cease to exist. Limitless and free, no bounderies. That is the world Jim Morrison invisioned in his mind. No one to tell you how to do things thier way. No authority, just free to exist and be who you are meant to be. "Ride the Snake", i believe is just a reference to psyceldic drugs and things Jim saw while under the influence. But it was mythodical to Jim, he was emphatuated with reptiles. Especially Snakes and Lizards. It wasn't particually that he liked them rather than he thought they were beatiful creatures. Jim had a great mind and he was a great artist. I believe this song to be one of Jim's great peices of music that he created. I give him an A+.
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This song has a wide variety of genres and meanings that deal with everything from birth,childhood, loss of religion, spirit walkers, shamans,drug abuse,low self esteem,sex, and ultimately death... Which Jim thought was the beginning of life... Morrison's involvement with film and poetry helped him pen this masterpiece. The opening verse."this is the end, beautiful friend, this is the end, my only friend, the end of our elaborate plans, the end, of everything that stands, the end, no safety nor surprise, the end, I'll never look into your eyes... again"... This is the beginning of the song, but in reality is describing the end of his own life... The reference to "my only friend, the end" is him speaking of himself, and "no safety nor suprise, the end.. I'll never look into your eyes again" is Morrison's way of preparring for his own death, which as he describes in the song will come at the moment he desribes in the closing verse of the song... "It has to set you free, but you'll never follow me... The end of laughter and soft lies... The end of ways we try to die..." Everything in between the opening verse and the last one listed above are the events that shaped and haunted Jim's life up until the time he had written this song... He is very specific in his personification of all of the gernes I listed above in the body of the song... From loss of God, leaping into spirits of dead indians, drug use, self doubt, sexual expressionism, and his own eventual demise from all of the things that separate him from living, and ultimately dying... All of the verses that deal with "the Killer" are Jim's method acting put into words from the hatred he had for authority, structured government, and his father. Which can all be summarized as his intent to cleanse his own being by believing that he had been reincarnated at birth, and that his soul was wandering lost until it jumped into the souls of the dead indians in death valley... A vision that he had as a child became the basis of this song, along with his belief that everything becomes something else out of convenience along with a series of metamorphoses that follow us through our entire lives... Jim believed that we make the myths, we control the stage... we are in control of our own destiny through the means of a prolonged and constant set of unconscience decisions that shape our lives and deaths... There are so many underlying themes in this song, and there are literally thousands of ways to interpret them, however, the one thing that others have missed on their interpretation is that the song is NOT about dying... It's about living, while describing the fear of dying... Death is inevitable, and all things die... It's what you do in between birth, life, and death that this song describes and celebrates... Jim knew all too well that his life would not last very long because he was well aware that he was a "searcher", always pushing the envelope to try and "get to the other side"... This was not his obsession with death, but his obsession with trying to find the ultimate life, and to have no regrets when his journey here on Earth was completed... So many of his lyrics have been falsely interpreted that he obsessed death, to the contrary, he personified life, and living as everyone without fear should live it... As he said in one of his books, " I feel most alive when facing death"... He is the greatest poet and song writer of this generation and he will live on because that is what he chose to do when he wrote these beautiful, mystical, and timeless masterpieces... The music of the doors today would be marginal at best, just as it was in the late 60's... Morrison's maniacal, structured, and theatric muse of the music through his lyrics made the myths he wrote of... We need to listen a little more closely each time a doors song graces our auditory canals, because each song Jim wrote gave us the secrets to life and how we should live our own lives, before we break on through to the other side....
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the song is about being stoned in So CAl in the 70-s
and the kings' highway and the ancient lake is the trecherous interstate highways leading to the pacific ocean. Obviously, he has issues with his parents...he wants to kill em' all...including siblings! but the song remains a favorite! -
im noit disagreeing with anything anyone else is posting but you know jim morisson is a poet, an he uses very heavy imagery in all of his poems and lyrics. while he's saying the whole, killing of his father and the loving of his mother lyric, he is actualy using "mother" and "father" as symbols of how you take traits of your father of always wanting to be in control an have power. he's talking about breaking away from this way by saying kill. and the loving of the mother symbolizes embracing the traits of your mother like being a delicate soul.
some people may find this contradicting cuz he hated his parents but he in fact never hated them. he just didnt want him to be in his life at the time. he says this in an interview. -
To me, The End is about the end of conformity. The blue bus is actually the color of the buses used to pick up draftees for Vietnam.
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This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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The End is actually the beginning. The begining of Morrison's new life with the Doors and the shaking loose of all that happened in Morrison's life before that fateful moment when Morrison and Manzarek met on Venice Beach in the mid sixties. The friend he says goodbye to is himself. Morrison moved forward from that point, never to return or even look back.
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I just think that Jim was FUBAR on drugs and was rambling, but the music and its poetic nature are truely beautiful; although highly disturbing - oh, the duality of Jim.
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this is the end, beautiful end.
this is the end, my only friend, the end
i think the lyrics means that the end (death) is the final accomplishment. i think what jim is trying to say is the best part of life is death. when u reach the end theres nothing more.the end to him is the perfect peace and happiness he coulld never find in life, thats why he says its his friend. its the comfort everyone needs in life. the end strips u of all worries and struggles and all the bad parts of life,bcuz it all ends at death. death is the perfect peace
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