Riders on the Storm

Krieger and Manzarek said it was inspired by Ghost Riders in the Sky. Krieger recalled that the band was playing that song and Morrison, fooling around, came up with Ghost Riders on the Storm. Morrison brought the lyrics to rehearsal, and part of them refers to the hitchhiking killer Billy Cook, the subject of the 1953 film The Hitch-Hiker. Manzarek said some lines express Morrison's love for Pamela Courson. He also said he proposed the bass line and the jazzy piano part, and Krieger said Scheff simply played what Manzarek played with his left hand, which is why the bass part sounds so unlike a bass player's. The studio version was recorded at the Doors' Workshop in December 1970.

In January 1971, with the main vocals done, the band gathered at Poppi Studios to mix L.A. Woman, and Morrison whispered the lyrics over the finished track to create an echo effect. Densmore said the whispered vocal was his idea, and Manzarek called it the last singing Morrison ever did in a studio. It was the last song Morrison recorded to be released in his lifetime.

Release and afterlife

Released as a single in June 1971, it reached number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100, 22 in Britain and 7 in the Netherlands. It entered the Hot 100 in the week ending 3 July 1971, the week Morrison died. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2010, and the Guardian placed it first in its 2021 ranking of the band's 30 best songs. Berman of Pitchfork wrote that on it Morrison has already turned into a ghost, giving the song a haunted quality that even the band's detractors cannot deny. Annabel Lamb covered it in 1983 and reached 27 in Britain with it. A remix by Fredwreck with Snoop Dogg was the title music of the game Need for Speed: Underground 2 in 2004. Densmore's 1990 memoir took its title from the song.

It is logged in only six Doors setlists. The first was the show at Music Hall at Fair Park in Dallas on 11 December 1970.