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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 or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes, again
Can you picture what will be, so limitless and free
Desperately in need, of some, stranger's hand
In a, desperate land
Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain
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
The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on
He took a face from the ancient gallery
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, and then he
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, fuck you
C'mon baby, take a chance with us
C'mon baby, take a chance with us
C'mon baby, take a chance with us
And meet me at the back of the blue bus
Doin' a blue rock, on a blue bus
Doin' a blue rock, c'mon, yeah
Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill
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
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 will be, so limitless and free
Desperately in need, of some, stranger's hand
In a, desperate land
Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain
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
The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on
He took a face from the ancient gallery
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, and then he
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, fuck you
C'mon baby, take a chance with us
C'mon baby, take a chance with us
C'mon baby, take a chance with us
And meet me at the back of the blue bus
Doin' a blue rock, on a blue bus
Doin' a blue rock, c'mon, yeah
Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill
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
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I agree it feels like this song was WRITTEN for Apocalypse now. the explosion of music as he drops the ax and you can hear the oppressive heat as the first scene opens to the jungle
"the west, is the best." I understand the sardonic undertones, but it's very true, and that's the insane part.
When he says "and all the children aaaaaaree insaaane" I immediately think to the colonel's story of the village of people whose children's arms were all hacked off. I know the children in that village werent necessarily insane, but as the colonel points out... it's very poetic, in a fucked up way
It's my favorite line too. the desperate image it brings, to think of a society whose children have all fallen insane. To be 8 and have wild hair and be fucked in the head. but I wanted to point out that it's not necessarily always a Vietnamese tribal, pagan village whose children are wild. You can feel that the west is growing up insane. not now, but maybe later. but you can see a bit of it in ideas like American Psycho
I agree that it feels like it was meant for pairing with Apocalypse Now but I don't think you're supposed to be able to draw direct parallels between the lyrics and the themes of the movie or even the Vietnam war. just very generally, the sense of an "end" and just the completely apocalyptic nature of the war. but an apocalypse I imagine to hit very suddenly and destroy immediately, and the boat ride took eternities, and for Willard, eternities of watching the world fall apart, without end and droning on... and for a lot of other people too. It's the end that doesn't end, I guess
a lot of people have known "horror" though so it doesnt necessarily have to be Vietnam-related. I think vietnam was a beautiful canvas to showcase that horror though
Direct sexual connection might lead to sibling incest as a consequence but marriage/divorce may lead to parent/child incest due to the nature of the ritual.
His one and only friend is his Mother.
Jim Morrison was almost devoted to his family although he had sometimes strange ways of expressing it.
I first heard this song in Spoony's spoof of the opening to Apocalypse Now. Out of curiosity, I watched the movie. I now associate this song entirely with Vietnam and the psychological effects from it. Maybe it was written long before Vietnam, I dunno. I still associate it with it all the same.
"This is the end, beautiful friend ..."
Everything he talks about regarding endings strikes me as thoughts by a drafted soldier dealing with the shock of being uprooted from his home and tossed into battle, dealing with the thought that he may never come home again. That, or he's feeling like being in Vietnam is pure hell.
"Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain..."
Okay, I got nothin' for this part. It reminds me of actually physically being in Vietnam, though. Summer rain, danger, highway west (I assume U.S. troops flew westward to Vietnam. Seems kind of silly to do it otherwise).
"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"
or: "America will save Vietnam because we rock. Wait... how much is this going to suck??"
Then the rest is about a soldier coming home with PTSD and homicidal tendencies. Granted, I didn't know he said "fuck" so many times until now. I guess the version I have is censored.
Again, I'm sure I'm dead wrong, but this song made the opening to Apocalypse Now. It haunted my thoughts and weighed me down for a week straight.
BTW... if you haven't seen Apocalypse Now, you're missing out. It's a heavy movie, but a REALLY GOOD one. Get some culture. ;)
If that's all you get out of listening to that passage of the song - that "he's singing about an old Greek tragedy" rather than something real, something hidden deep deep down inside your own subconscious - then you're really missing out on what Morrison was all about...
Everytime I hear that song, it means something else to me. It started out as a simple good-bye song.... Probably just to a girl, but I see how it could be a goodbye to a kind of childhood. I really don't know. I think it's sufficiently complex and universal in its imagery that it could be almost anything you want it to be.
so if he said it could be anything you want it to be, even though it was written decades before harry potter series i can see it as the first and second wizarding war, if you read them and the harry potter fanfics then you will know wat i mean
You talk about the western "Indian" tradition - I assume you're talking about the Indians of the American Southwest - and then you totally miss what the "Summer Rain" represents to them?
Renewal, Earth's living beings awakening from the winter sleep, the Gods blessing the fields for planting. At least that's what it means to the Indians.
To Morrison, it meant something more generally spiritual - more existential. People being alienated from themselves, from the true meaning of life, from spirituality, from the Divine perhaps. And the Summer Rain represents salvation - spiritual salvation - from the spiritual death - the insanity - that most so many people in our culture labor in
This song is simply en just about how tripping life can be & the end.
To me this opus need to be listened at to the very least note... And then you can feel/hear a glimpse of how 'the end' will be.
A very liberating sensation and therefore, song.