Story Behind The Song
Based on a joke with a similar theme where Jerry Garcia wakes up after dying, and there's Jim, Jimi and Janis waiting to jam, but Karen Carpenter is in charge.
Song Description
I pick up Jim Morrison hitch-hiking and ask what he's been up to. The "Rider on the Storm" describes how he's been jamming in a place "Close to Hell" with other stoner-rockers like Johnny Cash, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin -- the catch is that Karen Carpent
| Song Length |
4:25 |
Genre |
Rock - Progressive Rock |
| Tempo |
Medium (111 - 130) |
Subject |
Famous People |
Lyrics
Close to Hell
Am Dm
Rainy night driving
Am
Highway 61
Am Dm
Picked up a man hitching
Am
Was The Rider on the Storm
Am Dm
Am Dm
Asked him Jim
Dm
I got to know
Am Dm
Is there a heaven
Am
Do stoner rockers get to go
Am Dm
Said we jam at a roadhouse
Am
At the end of Love Street
Am Dm
There aint no cops
Am
Lots of smack and needles
Am G
Open tab at the Whiskey Bar
Am
Non stop jamming in the Morrison Hotel
Am G
I went o'er the wall
Am
Had to break on through
Am G
It's awful close to hell
Am
That house of the doomed
Made no sense to me
I said you gotta explain
Why would you leave
Sounds like rockers heaven
Well you wake up every day
Pry your head off the floor
Hank and Johnny
Call out Time to record
Ray and Elvis
Curt and Stevie gettin higher
Keith and Bonzo on skins
Jimi on fire
Mr. Johnson from the Crossroads
Playing for his soul
Billie moanin ballads
Duets with the Pearl
Chorus of the Damned
Lost souls all
Playing in the band
Giving fate the stall
Gettin ever higher
Wishful sinful
Stuck in the mire
Awful close to hell
But Lizard King
I still don't understand
Why leave that gig
For the world of the bland
Jim just raged
I'd sooner go sober
Than return to that fate
Of eternal damned rockers
You think people are strange
Well God's some bollocks
The leader of His band's
A -- Twentieth Century bitch
Karen Carpenter
Leading the choir
Sing with her
Or it's the funeral pyre
The music's never over
And it's always the same
Close to You
Again and again
So you see my friend
Better listen well
I'm just praying for The End
Cuz I'm so Close to Hell
I'm just praying for The End
Cuz I'm so Close to Hell
I'm just praying for The End
Cuz I'm so Close to Hell
I'm just praying for The End
Cuz I'm so Close to Hell
I'm just praying for The End
Cuz I'm so Close to Hell