[The Web Riders On The Storm
Rancul Ratha
"Riders on the Storm" is a song by American rock band the Doors, released in June 1971 by Elektra Records as the second single from the band's sixth studio album, L.A. Woman. It is known for being the last song that Jim Morrison recorded prior to his sudden death in Paris on July 3, 1971.
It is popularly believed that "Riders on the Storm" is the song that longtime Doors producer Paul A. Rothchild disparaged as "cocktail music", precipitating his departure from the L.A. Woman sessions, which was corroborated by guitarist Robby Krieger.[14][19] Rothchild himself denied that claim, stating that he actually applied the epithet to "Love Her Madly".[20][21] Following Rothchild's departure, longtime engineer Bruce Botnick was selected to take over production duties, alongside the Doors themselves.[22]
"Riders on the Storm" was recorded at the Doors Workshop in December 1970 with the assistance of Botnick. Later in January 1971, after Morrison had recorded his main vocals, the group gathered at Poppi Studios to complete the mixing of L.A. Woman,[23] at which Morrison then whispered the lyrics over them to create an echo effect.[24] It was the last song recorded by all four members of the Doors, as well as the last song recorded by Morrison to be released in his lifetime.[14] The single was released in June 1971, entering the Billboard Hot 100 the week ending July 3, 1971, the same week Morrison died.[4][5]
I was in San Francisco with a friend at Christmas and we were coming down off some blue window pane acid. It was late at night and we were listening to a night time radio station and this came on. Throughout the song there is the whispering of the title tracking the lead vocal and that whisper was so loud. It was in my ear, in my head. I was brain-washed. I just love the real sound effects, too, the rain and the storm. You can just drift off into your own film scenario.
Frequently listed among the Doors' greatest songs,[30][31][32][33] "Riders on the Storm" has remained on classic rock radio playlists.[34] In 2012, New York's Q104.3 ranked it the 498th best classic-rock song of all time.[35]
Doors' drummer, John Densmore, released a book in 1990 entitled Riders on the Storm,[36] detailing the story of his life and his time with the group. In 2010, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame as a recording "of lasting qualitative or historical significance".[37][38] Its lyrical content has inspired films such as The Hitcher (1986)[13] and Point Break (1991).[39] A remix of "Riders on the Storm" (feat. Snoop Dogg) by Fredwreck was used as title music for Need for Speed: Underground 2, released in 2004.[40]
In 1983, Annabel Lamb recorded a studio version of the song.[6] It was released as a single from her debut album, Once Bitten, which peaked at number 27 on the UK Singles Chart.[58] She performed the song later that year on Top of the Pops.[59] This was the only hit single in UK in her career.[60]
Over 18 days, the foursome battled 80-mile-per-hour winds, multiple snow squalls, ice-filled cracks, plenty of rockfall, and a boring storm-bound week in their portaledges. They also experienced some of the finest big-wall free climbing of their lives.
This stunning line up the sheer 1300m East Face of Torres Central was first climbed by the Germans Wolfgang Gllich, Kurt Albert, Bernd Arnold, Norbert Btz and Peter Dittrich in January 1991 after fifteen days of climbing spread out over a six week period. The climbing went at 7c, A3 and, as such, it heralded a new era of difficulties in Patagonia.
Since then there have been a handful of attempts at freeing the entire route, notably that of the Belgians Nicolas Favresse, Olivier Favresse, Sen Villanueva, Mike Lecomte and Philippe Ceulemans in 2006, but despite making progress, all returned home without having freed the entire line. Over the years this big wall has transformed into a crown jewel - not only in Patagonia - and the first free ascent is a coveted, ambitious and important challenge.
The trip began with stable weather and during their first weeks on the wall the pair discovered a very difficult five-pitch variation to avoid the lower aid section that had stumped previous parties. Before investing time in free climbing these difficult lower pitches though, Papert and Smith-Gobat chose to make the most of the stable weather and focus on freeing the upper section of the route in order to reach the summit.
On the last day of the weather window and after 3 weeks on the wall, Smith-Gobat succeeded in freeing pitches 30 and 31 in the early morning sunshine, shortly before the upper crack transformed into a waterfall of melting ice from above. The trio then continued quickly on to the summit of Torres Central, which was reached at 12:48 on the 6th February on a stunning and surprisingly wind still day.
Despite ever-deteriorating weather the team battled on and managed to free all but two pitches of the original route (11 & 23) and the two most difficult on their new variant (17 & 18). Unfortunately during their last ten days the bad weather proved relentless, with winds up to 175 km/h and snowfalls down to 500m. The entire route became plastered in snow and with no further chance of attempting the line they ended up retrieving their gear when the storm abated slightly.
Although Papert and Smith-Gobat didn't succeed in freeing the entire route, they consider their trip to have been extremely successful. They managed to pull off a rare repeat of Riders on the Storm on the 25th anniversary of its first ascent and, importantly, they freed two pitches that had thwarted previous parties - with noteworthy difficulties up to 7c+. In addition, in order to avoid another aid section they discovered a variation to the original line which, although likely to be very difficult, they believe will certainly go free.
In September 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, I flew through Dorian, a Category V hurricane, in a retrofitted C-130 U.S. Air Force plane. As part of a science mission with Hurricane Hunters, for 10 hours we crisscrossed the monster storm that decimated the Bahamas, measuring wind speeds and direction, temperature, barometric pressure and such to help determine what speed the thing was traveling over water and land, and where next it might go. The experience for me was thrilling, if not a little scary - once-in-a-lifetime (link below).
As you can imagine, the chasing exercise is not without risk, which is part of the draw. On June 1, 2013, a massive, unpredictable wedge tornado known as El Reno killed at least a half-dozen people In Oklahoma, all on highways in their vehicles, among them three well-known Discovery Channel storm chasers: Tim and Paul Samaras, and Carl Young.
Early on the morning of June 11, our Tornado Titans group ventured out of Amarillo up to southeast Colorado, where an unstable weather pattern was developing. During the car ride, which lasted a few hours, I was able to learn a bit more about Super Cells. Where we were going, Sanner said, was fertile ground because the wind shear and altitude were conducive to wild weather. In addition to seeing the massive cloud structure - often quite beautiful, she added - we had a decent shot at witnessing a tornado.
The following day, June 12, after spending another night at the Drury hotel in Amarillo, our group went out again, this time southeast, toward Abilene, Texas, where another Super Cell was to form late that afternoon.
Sanner became animated. She was fairly certain we would witness a full-blown tornado this time, given how the weather conditions were playing out - extreme air instability, east-west frontal boundaries and good wind rotation. That enthusiasm, in turn, fired up our group.
In our Hyundai Kona, Sanner meandered her way through the conga-line of other storm chasers, scary in itself, again staying in front of the cell, but close enough to be in position if a twister formed. She said one could drop down as close as a quarter mile from us. Wow.
As the storm veered southeast, throwing off baseball-sized hail, we packed up our camera gear, and moved several times. At one point, we saw what appeared to be a whitish, rain-wrapped funnel that resembled Casper The Friendly Ghost, but it was faint and only lasted two minutes.
The lightning around the storm was intense, some strikes as close as a half-mile away, so we mostly stayed in the car. You could see and hear the simultaneous flash-booms. Again, though, by end of day, we saw no in-your-face tornadoes.
Besides the chorus, The Doors' song doesn't actually mention any of the imagery of the Wild Hunt and the penchant for the Ghost Riders to take people to join their never-ending ride. It was Jones' song that popularized the old Norse legend in the guise of cowboys in the American west.
In addition to the theme of supernatural beings riding a thunderstorm, The Doors' Jim Morrison included lines about a hitchhiking serial killer. "Riders" was Morrison's last song recorded with the group and the last released before his death.
Birlinn have made a beautiful job of this book, and they've managed to do it for 9.99, 243 pages. As of the second printing in May 2021, there's a new cover. Forgive this homespun page on my personal website. It's just to give some general information, links to reviews and where to buy.
A beautiful 5 min promotional video setting climate change in the context of the Isle of Lewis and people from West Papua Province (Indonesian New Guinea), made by Opus Earth: -storm-video. Also, version with Spanish subtitles.
Face-to-face launch events that had been arranged have been cancelled due to COVID-19. However, some have or will be run on Zoom, and can be viewed on my web itinerary in the right hand column at this link and with tickets for forthcoming events (usually free) and video links where these become available.
The main Birlinn launch event was in partnership with Climate Fringe and the Centre for Human Ecology. Hosted by Professor Alison Phipps (UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration at Glasgow University). The first hour hour was formal book launch with 160 participants, and then for the next 90 mins nearly half stayed on for what turned out to be a particularly deep participant interaction. That can be watched in full at , and Kat Jones of Climate Fringe has edited aone hour podcast of the launch. A shorter (45 min) National Library of Scotland launch event can now be viewed at this link.
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