A distant thunderclap, the harmonics of a ride cymbal that seem to follow the rhythm of falling drops, a hypnotic bass line and dancing Fender Rhodes figures... It's impossible to imagine "Riders on the Storm" without the famous rainy introduction that imbues the whole song with its drizzly, mysterious atmosphere, inseparable from its E minor score.

"A storm in the desert": Those were the words with which singer Jim Morrison instructed his bandmates from The Doors – keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore – to set to music the mystical lyrics he had just jotted down in his notebook. The "Lizard King" himself suggested the addition of rain and thunder sounds in the studio at the Doors Workshop in California, during the final sessions for the album L.A. Woman in December 1970.

There's nothing more evocative than a storm to tell the story of a lonely wanderer. In his lyrics, the poet in black leather refers to "a killer on the road." His inspiration came from a story that was all over the news in the early 1950s: Billy Cook, a 23-year-old hitchhiker, murdered six people, including a young family, on a bloody road trip from Missouri to California. This dark story had already served as the backdrop for the experimental film HWY: An American Pastoral, directed by Paul Ferrara in 1969. The charismatic lead singer of The Doors plays a hitchhiker in this 50-minute metaphysical road movie, shot partly in the Mojave Desert and partly in Los Angeles.

Musically, the song was initially inspired by the country classic "(Ghost) Riders in the Sky: A Cowboy Legend," performed by Stan Jones and the Death Valley Rangers in 1948, a superb ghostly ballad on which the California quartet regularly jammed during rehearsals.

To "set the mood" for this meteorological depression in the desert, guitarist Krieger found a minimalist motif played with a "flanger" effect (a clear, submerged sound), a bit Western, in the spirit of the soundtracks by maestro Ennio Morricone, very much in vogue at the time. Finally, the last essential element of this alchemy was Densmore's jazzy, restrained drumming, which lends this seven-minute score a touch of mystical elegance.

With this, these "riders on the storm" signed the ultimate Doors manifesto. The song masterfully concludes their sixth and final album, L.A. Woman. In the spring of 1971, just after he finished recording it, Morrison took a flight to Paris, where he joined his fiancée, Pamela Courson. He died on July 3. This would be the last song recorded by the leader of the Californian rock band, unintentionally signing his epitaph. But what an epitaph!