Riders on the Storm: The Last Song The Doors Recorded With Jim Morrison

By Dan Cohen · Published 2026-06-27

Riders on the Storm, from The Doors’ 1971 album L.A. Woman, carries a heavy poignancy: it is widely regarded as the last song the band completed with Jim Morrison before his death in Paris in July 1971. That fact hangs over its hushed, hypnotic atmosphere — it really does sound like a farewell, even though no one planned it as one.

Rain, jazz, and dread

It’s built on actual recordings of rain and thunder, Ray Manzarek’s liquid electric piano, and a cool, jazzy drift unlike anything else in their catalog. Over it, Morrison sings about being adrift in existence — and delivers a genuinely chilling verse about a “killer on the road,” an image widely linked to a real hitchhiking murderer of the era. The menace is quiet, which makes it worse.

A ghostly double voice

Morrison reportedly overdubbed a whispered vocal beneath his sung one, so the song seems haunted by its own singer — two versions of the same voice, one speaking from just behind the other. Knowing it was his last completed recording, that ghostly doubling feels almost unbearably fitting. It’s a song that drifts off into the rain rather than ending.

What it measures like

On our measurements it’s gentle, cool and atmospheric — a slow, hypnotic, jazzy drift, restrained and eerie rather than loud. Full profile on its song page.

Riders on the Storm appears on The Doors’ 1971 album L.A. Woman and is widely regarded as the last song completed with Jim Morrison before his death. Readings of the lyric are presented as interpretation. No lyrics are reproduced.