“That was it”: The moment The Doors officially ended
No great thing can last forever, and in some instances, it’s probably for the best that they don’t. Asking a band to soldier on despite a downturn in fortune or losing a key creative force isn’t always going to work, and in the case of The Doors, losing Jim Morrison should have been the sign to give in.
Of course, there’s always going to be the temptation to prove to yourself that a continuation is possible in spite of the odds being stacked against you, but many of the instances where a band has chosen to take this path have ended up in them undoing all of the hard work they’d previously done and led to projects fizzling out with a whimper.
Refusing to break up obviously keeps the diehard fans happy, given how the name will continue to exhibit signs of life despite seeming like it would be all over following a period of turmoil. However, what can’t be ignored is how fans will also accept that something needs to end before it becomes a shadow of its former glories, and bowing out at the right time is often a decision that gets overlooked despite being the right one to take.
Nobody wants an artist to find a project becoming laborious or burdensome to continue, and when there’s no more gas in the tank, everyone hates each other, or you’ve lost something so integral to your identity, then nobody has any right to complain about a decision being made to put an end to things.
The Doors did at least try to carry on after Morrison’s untimely death, but it was never going to work. The remaining trio weren’t willing to accept that at first, choosing to release Other Voices in late 1971, but when they sat down to record their second album without their frontman, it became obvious that their days as a group were numbered.
On paper, the moment that the band came to an end was upon the release of their eighth album, Full Circle, in 1972, but upon reflection, things were clearly over when Morrison died.
During an interview with Rockmine in 1983, keyboard player Ray Manzarek was questioned about how the remaining trio of him, Robby Krieger and John Densmore knew it was time to call it quits, and he remarked on how there was something missing from the recordings that they knew they weren’t ever going to be able to rectify.
Noting the absence of Morrison’s vocals as one reason for calling time on the band, Manzarek claimed that the mutual acknowledgement of the band having run out of steam gave them the idea to give their final album its fitting name. “When we talked about what we would call this album, I said, ‘Hey, I’ve got a good idea for the title, let’s call this album Full Circle,’ because that meant a coming to the end,” he noted. “That was it. The Doors had come full circle, and it was now time to close The Doors.”
In retrospect, the band should probably have taken Morrison’s death as a sign to quit while ahead, especially given how perfect LA Woman would be as a final record, and given the disastrous results of both Other Voices and Full Circle, it’s no wonder that so many fans like to pretend that it is.
