Lyric discussion by TomK32 

enrique is right, first it was a short goodbye song for a girl but this song is also famous for being the reason (in his total length) why the Doors were fired from the Whiskey a Go Go in July 1966 and then they went to do their first record...

BTW: There's a good 15:43 minute live-version which includes some more lines.

I have never thought about it as a love song or the Oedipus story or the Whiskey thing. I always though that it was about Vietnam and how the war was so bad that it was like the end of the world or something. This is a very dark song, though and probably has multiple meanings.

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