When the music's over
When the music's over here
When the music's over
Turn out the lights
Turn out the lights
Turn out the lights

When the music's over
When the music's over
When the music's over
Turn out the lights
Turn out the lights
Turn out the lights

For the music is your special friend
Dance on fire as it intends
Music is your only friend
Until the end
Until the end
Until the end

Cancel my subscription to
...the resurrection
Send my credentials to the
...house of detention
I got some friends inside

The face in the mirror won't stop
The girl in the window won't drop
A feast of friends alive she cried
Waiting for me outside

Before I sink into the big sleep
I want to hear
I want to hear
The scream of the butterfly

Come back, baby
Back into my arms

We're getting tired of hangin' around
Waiting around
With our heads to the ground

I hear a very gentle sound
Very near
Yet very far
Very soft
Yet very clear
Come today
Come today

What have they done to the earth?
What have they done to our fair sister?

Ravaged and plundered
And ripped her
And bit her
Stuck her with knives
In the side of the dawn
And tied her with fences
And dragged her down

I hear a very gentle sound
With your ear down to the ground -
We want the world and we want it...
We want the world and we want it...now
Now? NOW!

Persian night! Babe
See the light! Babe
Save us!
Jesus!
Save us!

So when the music's over
When the music's over, yeah
When the music's over
Turn out the light
Turn out the light

For the music is your special friend
Dance on fire as it intends
Music is your only friend
Until the end
Until the end
Until the end 

So when the music's over
When the music's over, yeah
When the music's over
Turn out the light
Turnout the light



The Doors began to develop When the Music's Over at their earliest London Fog gigs. Bookended by verses in which Jim gently sang the title phrase and then heatedly insisted "The music is your special friend..." the band used the piece as a springboard for their long shape-shifting improvisations.

Lyrical themes of personal mortality and the despoiling of the planet became more pronounced as the piece developed. The more it was played, the more it developed a form, until finally the band knew quite well what to expect from Jim's words in the middle section. A final important piece of lyric came to Jim during a trip to New York. Driving through Times' Square, Jim noticed a marquee for an adult theater advertising The Scream of the Butterfly. If Jim could borrow from Celtic and Greek mythology as well as French existentialism, why not from the marquee of an adult theater in Times' Square?

The piece evolved into a poetic tour de force for Jim. His words alternately soothed and seethed, seeming at one and the same time a mournful warning, a bitter indictment and a vibrant celebration. Poet Linda Albertano heard the piece performed at Gazzarri's and was moved by the power of Jim's lyrics: "Now spoken word performances are consigned to coffeehouses, but Jim was actually creating the people's poetry back then, in his actual poetry - but even more so in his lyrics. Jim wasn't 'dabbling' in poetry, he was the real thing. What always came through was the immediacy of the message and a love of the language."

The song was taken by some to be Jim's first overtly political anthem, but Jim continued to be more concerned with the world of the mind and spirit than with current events. Said one critic: "Back then you knew a Doors' song from the first three notes. Nobody sounded like them, and nobody ever has, which is why their stuff holds up. They weren't just ahead of their time, they were outside their time. Jim wasn't as political as some of the other songwriters of the day who were singing explicitly about revolution. I think the Doors were after bigger game, a more complex revolution. They really did believe that rock could be a shamanistic ritual - that they could explore that relationship between people and power."


Copyright 2003 by The Doors, Chuck Crisafulli/Waiting-forthe-Sun.net