The End

The track was recorded in August 1966 at Sunset Sound Recorders in Hollywood during sessions for The Doors debut album. Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger and John Densmore recorded it with Paul A. Rothchild producing and Bruce Botnick engineering. Released on The Doors in 1967, it became the album climactic closing track and one of the band most ambitious early recordings. Though not issued as a charting single, its long theatrical structure and Oedipal imagery made it central to the Doors reputation in the Los Angeles underground. It remains one of the Doors signature recordings and one of Jim Morrison defining vocal performances. The song gained further cultural reach through its use in Apocalypse Now and has endured as a landmark of late 1960s psychedelic rock performance.