The Doors song that was impossible to play: “I don’t know what the hell he did”
Part of The Doors‘ appeal was that they never really sounded like they belonged anywhere, to begin with. There had been countless psychedelic rock acts across the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, but as soon as Jim Morrison got onstage, people were transfixed, turned on, and horrified in equal measure hearing him tear through tracks like ‘The End’ and ‘Light My Fire’. Nothing could be anticipated when it came to any of their records, and bassist Jerry Sheff was put through his paces learning an impossible bassline on ‘Riders on the Storm’.
By the time Morrison began work on his final Doors album, though, he had become a husk of his former self. The agile poet who transformed into ‘The Lizard King’ had slowly started to succumb to his alcohol addiction, and his gruffer tone on tracks like ‘The Changeling’ and ‘LA Woman’ may have been the only way that he could sing at that point.
Then again, ‘Riders on the Storm’ doesn’t need any of the flashiness of Morrison’s usual performances to stand out. The entire premise of the track already had a moody atmosphere before he even opened his mouth, powered by Ray Manzarek’s keyboard line perfectly illustrating raindrops falling on a desert landscape.
While Manzarek always provided the “bass” with a separate keyboard live, they were going to need someone to provide that foundation on record. Despite having a veteran of the studio scene in Sheff, what looked like a walk in the park for Manzarek was anyone fretboard master’s worst nightmare.
As Manzarek showed him the line, he remembered Sheff getting irritated at having to bend over backwards to get the tune right, saying, “I said, ‘It’s simple, E minor to A major’. He said, ‘Aw man, that’s impossible’. I go, ‘What? FOR YOU?’. And he said, ‘That’s on the keyboard. It works great on the keyboard.’ Watch that on the bass, and I don’t know what the hell he did. He turned his wrist virtually upside down and inside out. I just said, ‘I’m sorry, man, it just sounds so good.’”
Once someone gets the right tuning under their fingers and practices it a little bit, it settles into the groove a lot better. It does become the musical equivalent of a tongue-twister, though, with both hands constantly at work and never stopping throughout the track.
Then again, without that bassline, there wouldn’t be that much of a foundation to work with. As opposed to traditional rock and roll, this is something ripped straight out of the jazz playbook, especially towards the solo sections when everyone loosens up, and Manzarek starts going off on a tangent on the keys before bringing it back down to those gentle raindrop sounds.
When looking at where Morrison was headed, though, an impossible bassline was the least of their problems. ‘The Lizard King’ had almost fully exhausted his artistic side, and when he left the rest of the group behind to mix the track, he wouldn’t see them again after he ventured to Paris and died in the bathtub after his heart stopped.
Still, the fact that The Doors created an impossible bassline really speaks to their trademark weirdness. They were already flirting with everything from hard rock to psychedelia, but it’s hard to compare them to anyone else when the strange moments are literally baked into the musical structure of their material.
