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On the Doors' "The End," does Jim Morrison say "Mother, I want to fuck you"?

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In John Densmore's book about the Doors, he describes the first time he showed their debut album to his family. He talks about waiting in trepidation for his parents reaction to the part towards the end of the song where Jim Morrison says "...Mother... I want to FUCK YOU!!!" I've heard things elsewhere that imply that Morrison says this, like people describing the "Oedipal" relationship in the song.

But interestingly, I've never heard this in the version I've heard (the one on the Best of album, and the (same version?) on the debut record). This is what I hear: "...Mother... I want to... AARRRHHHHH!!"

What's the deal?

― Manny Parsons (Rahul Kamath), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 18:24 (twenty-one years ago) link

I think he threw it in a few times during live performances, but never in the studio.

― paul cox (paul cox), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 18:33 (twenty-one years ago) link

''This is what I hear: "...Mother... I want to... AARRRHHHHH!!"''

i hear that as well.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 18:44 (twenty-one years ago) link

I think you'll find that only early vinyl copies have the offending section, that it was 'edited' at some point in the late 60s and these ended up being used on all CD editions until the recent boxset of all the Doors LPs which put back the fuck, so to speak. All recent re-issues use this version.

At least that's the story I read in one of the mags a while back.

― Rob M (Rob M), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 19:06 (twenty-one years ago) link

Yeah this seems like one massive collective hallucination. I've wondered about this for years (though I thought he said: "Mother, I want to muuuaiidearr you!" [you can make out "murder"]).

― Mark (MarkR), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 19:11 (twenty-one years ago) link

So has anyone actually heard the "fuck you" version?

― Manny Parsons (Rahul Kamath), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 19:26 (twenty-one years ago) link

John Densmore's parents.

― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 19:28 (twenty-one years ago) link

Why would anyone want to hear the fuck you version? The song has a nice guitar riff. The lyrics are awful.

― Ben Williams, Tuesday, 15 October 2002 19:30 (twenty-one years ago) link

Why would anyone want to hear the fuck you version?

Let us not argue this point... I'm curious to see if it exists!

― Manny Parsons (Rahul Kamath), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 19:32 (twenty-one years ago) link

he says "fuck" in the Oliver Stone movie, surely that's what you're all remembering?

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 19:55 (twenty-one years ago) link

I definitely remember Densmore talking about it in his book, because I remember checking the CD to hear it-- and not hearing it!

― Manny Parsons (Rahul Kamath), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 21:17 (twenty-one years ago) link

On the recent reissue of the first album from the Doors' complete box set, he is definitely chanting "fuck" towards the end of the song. Same thing in the movie Apocalypse Now (1979), where they used the song a lot.

― Joe (Joe), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 21:50 (twenty-one years ago) link

I've heard it, I believe it was on a cassette taped from the original vinyl..

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 22:46 (twenty-one years ago) link

jeez Morrison did Darling Nikki 15 years ahead of its time!

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 15 October 2002 23:15 (twenty-one years ago) link

The song has a nice guitar riff. The lyrics are awful.

Morrison's lyrics were pretty dire in general, weren't they? The one line in Light My Fire (the one about wallowing in the mire) that he's supposed to have written is one of the worst.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 00:35 (twenty-one years ago) link

Morrison's lyrics were pretty dire in general, weren't they? The one line in Light My Fire (the one about wallowing in the mire) that he's supposed to have written is one of the worst.

Didn't Robby Krieger write that song?

― Rahul Kamath (Rahul Kamath), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 01:08 (twenty-one years ago) link

Here are Google's first 3 results, of course they could all be copied from the same source, I didn't check


http://www.leoslyrics.com/listlyrics.php?sid=Q%A8%14%C1%ED%F5%99O

http://www.davemcnally.com/lyrics/TheDoors/THEEND.asp

http://www.musiclinks.nl/songteksten/Doors/6111.html


i rememeber it being in there, a friend of mine had the UK release in 1993 and it was really scratched then so he must have had it a few years but he was a scuffy get. Wanted to be like Jim Morrison too, hmmm.... The intro to "The End' is the only bit of their catalogue I have any fondness for.

― Chewshabadoo (Chewshabadoo), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 01:24 (twenty-one years ago) link

I've heard several vinyl copies of the first album, and never heard him say "fuck you"...

― Sean (Sean), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 01:37 (twenty-one years ago) link

yeah, Krieger did write that song, and that one line - I think it was actually "and our love become a funeral pyre" - was Morrison's only contribution, supposedly.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 02:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

I'm calling this an urban legend! Unless one of the people who has heard it provides more detail -- does the vocal differ in any other way? Does he scream it?

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 02:23 (twenty-one years ago) link

I think you'll find that only early vinyl copies have the offending section, that it was 'edited' at some point in the late 60s...

I think you might be conusing it with the MC5, where that is the case (& on the same label, coincidentally).

― Jez (Jez), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 06:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

"I want to... AARRRHHHHH"

"AARRRHHHHH" sounds like something Grover from Sesame Street would say. I don't remember anyone confusing "Near" and "Far" in that song.

― dave225 (Dave225), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 10:59 (twenty-one years ago) link

he definitely does it in the movie version and in apocalypse now - from memory it was turned down in the editing of the original, and then cranked back up for apoc now and the movie - this info comes possibly from denmore's book I think.

― Queen G (Queeng), Wednesday, 16 October 2002 17:49 (twenty-one years ago) link

What...haven't any of you ever had the urge to aarrrhhhhh all night long?

― Lord Custos Omega (Lord Custos Omega), Thursday, 17 October 2002 13:30 (twenty-one years ago) link

It would hardly be suprising if there was a version saying those words - he was deeply into Freudian philosophy - he was simply reitterating this.

Also has anyone heard Morrisons Lament, a jam he did with Hendrix where he's off his face? He's not afraid of using the word 'fuck' in that song i can tell you.

― Paul Rigel (rigel), Friday, 18 October 2002 13:27 (twenty-one years ago) link

he was deeply into Freudian philosophy
If Jim Morrison had lived, he would've made a rock opera called Oedipus Rocks!

― Lord Custos Omega (Lord Custos Omega), Friday, 18 October 2002 14:10 (twenty-one years ago) link

He's not afraid of using the word 'fuck' in that song i can tell you.

It may have to do with context & "decency" - not that he ever cared much about decency laws - but he may have been strung up from a tree if he had sung those words in the wrong city.

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 18 October 2002 14:13 (twenty-one years ago) link

Thank fuck he didn't.

― Paul Rigel (rigel), Friday, 18 October 2002 14:16 (twenty-one years ago) link

there's no doubt about it, jim often used the phrase "mother, i want to fuck you..." in multiple performances of the song... it's not on the original vinyl of "the doors" or any subsequent reprints that i know of; however, it's on several bootlegs and greatest hits comps with live performances as well as (possibly) the soundtrack to apocalypse now...

― ko hsüan, Saturday, 19 October 2002 18:53 (twenty-one years ago) link

Maybe Densmore's parents were tripping?

― Mark (MarkR), Saturday, 19 October 2002 19:03 (twenty-one years ago) link

one year passes...
Any more evidence of this "fuck you" version?

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 21:01 (twenty years ago) link

mark go watch apocalypse now.

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 21:05 (twenty years ago) link

anybody know if he ever did?

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 21:05 (twenty years ago) link

Sort of unrelated, but I kind of hate how in the Doors movie, when they did "Light My fire" on Ed Sullivan, they made Morrison's character scream the word "higher" and be really blatant about it, when the actual performance was nothing like that.

― billstevejim, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 21:16 (twenty years ago) link

Yeah, I have a bootleg of a show from March 1967 where he quite clearly says "fuck" and "fuck the mother" - repeatedly and with no small amount of enthusiasm, I might add.

I've never heard this bit about it being there in the studio version. I never took note of it in Apocalypse Now either come to think of it, but I haven't seen the movie in years.

― Broheems (diamond), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 21:22 (twenty years ago) link

Sort of unrelated, but I kind of hate how in the Doors movie, when they did "Light My fire" on Ed Sullivan, they made Morrison's character scream the word "higher" and be really blatant about it, when the actual performance was nothing like that.

It's called creative license. I don't think that the guy who screams after that happens really existed either, but it doesn't really upset me.

The fucks definitely are in several official live CD collections, which certain would sound very much like studio versions, except extended. But it wouldn't surprise me that they'd record two different versions - I mean, why not? It's an established fact that Break on Through's original lyrics were "She gets high", not "She get", but they changed that for the album and did the original version live.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 3 December 2003 22:28 (twenty years ago) link

The "She gets high"s are in the newly-remastered edition of the first album, as are the "Kill kill kill! Fuck fuck fuck!"s in "The End." Maybe that's when John's mom was hearing, because there are no studio versions of Jimbo saying "Mother I want to fuck you." Even in the remastered version, he goes "Mother I want to.... RAAPPPPPPPEEEE YOU!!!!!"

At least I think it's "rape you."

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 22:37 (twenty years ago) link

And he still wants to ride the snake to the lake as a blue bus calls to him and his companions. Heavy stuff.

― Christian Rawk (Christian Rawk), Wednesday, 3 December 2003 22:56 (twenty years ago) link

I used to have a Doors live video, live at the hollywood bowl or something, and he definately sang "mother...I want to...aaa fuck you mother, all night long, wanna be your baby" or something to that effect.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Thursday, 4 December 2003 01:15 (twenty years ago) link

what would jim's poor mum make of all this?

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 4 December 2003 01:18 (twenty years ago) link

eleven months pass...
So... is there a final answer on this?

― Manny Parsons, Wednesday, 10 November 2004 03:11 (nineteen years ago) link

ten months pass...
some of you are claiming to have this so-called "explicit" version of the song. YSI it if ya got it, settle this shit once and for all.

― richard wood johnson, Tuesday, 27 September 2005 20:07 (eighteen years ago) link

get a life you fucks.

― Ian John50n (orion), Wednesday, 28 September 2005 01:23 (eighteen years ago) link

jeez Morrison did Darling Nikki 15 years ahead of its time!

"Darling Nikki" was about a guy fucking his mother?

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Wednesday, 28 September 2005 02:22 (eighteen years ago) link

six months pass...
The mythic qualities presented here even further cement this as my favorite Doors track.

― billstevejim (billstevejim), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 00:42 (eighteen years ago) link

jeez Morrison did Darling Nikki 15 years ahead of its time!
"Darling Nikki" was about a guy fucking his mother?

Didn't Xhuxk say something about this in THE ACCIDENTAL EVOLUTION OF R&R?
Jim=Prince(=Elivs Costello as well, if I remember correctly).

― Handsome Dan, Wednesday, 12 April 2006 01:32 (eighteen years ago) link

ok I am CERTAIN that I picked up a doors box set that had been remainder binned in a JB hi-fi sale that had, as the last track on the last disc "the end (uncensored version)" or something like that. of course now I'm googling it to try and find it and can't, perhaps mark's 'collective hallucination' theory is OTM.

― haitch (haitch), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 01:37 (eighteen years ago) link

Dan's right: He indeed sings "...fuck you mama" etc. in the Hollywood Bowl concert video. Presumably that's the same version used on the box set.

But what I wanna know is: Did he REALLY record the vocal for "You're Lost Little Girl" while receiving a blowjob?

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 07:33 (eighteen years ago) link

I have definitely heard the rude version, but I have no idea where.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 07:39 (eighteen years ago) link

two years pass...

ALL THE CHILDREN ARE INSANE

― gods jangle the key change (Bimble Is Still More Goth Than You), Sunday, 11 January 2009 13:16 (fifteen years ago) link


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