Don’t disrespect Lefty Manzarek! 
Obviously one’s opinion of whether or not something is dreck or not is extremely subjective. I find this song haunting and captivating, but to each his own.
But how is this song “Self-important, pompous, pretentious”? I see it quite the opposite. Of all the Doors’ well-known songs, this is the one that’s the most spare and stripped down to the bare minimum with respect to the lyrics. And the music is, on the whole, understated, hardly showy at all.
The only argument I see for that sort of description is that the instrumental part does go on for quite awhile. There was a lot of that in 1971.
ETA: If you’d described “Touch Me” as “Self-important, pompous, pretentious dreck,” I could see your argument. I like the song anyway, but the adjectives certainly would match up a hell of a lot better.
In the earlier incarnations of this thread (ETA: which this quote is from), there was a minor debate over whether it was:
a) sweet family will die
b) sweet Emily will die
c) something else
I’d always heard it as ‘family’ - in fact, until opening this thread just now, I hadn’t realized there was any disagreement over it. But the first lyrics site I went to had ‘Emily’ too.
‘Family’ makes more sense to me: if they pick up the hitchhiking killer, he’s gonna kill the whole family, not just little Emily.
They did actually use various session musicians to play bass guitar on most of their recorded tracks.
Oh yeah, this is just me offering an opinion. Entirely subjective.
I like the Doors first coupla albums and respect the fact that they swung for the fences with their approach then. But I obviously have problems with Jim Morrison - yes, he was a jerk personally, but even at the musical level, him misses sound feeble. And yeah, that includes Touch Me - it isn’t pompous, but it is bad pop douchiness, trying to make a hit and coming off as a bad crooner. “Now I’mmm gonna love yew…”
Riders on the Storm sounds like over-crooned lounge music to my ear, so any attempt at menace clanks for me and gets me giggling. I see Will Ferrell dressed up as Jim, overselling the heck out of it. Heh.
Fair enough. 
I’ll confess that’s the last thing that would have crossed my mind. Obviously your ear is your ear, and if it sounds that way to you, I can’t tell you it doesn’t.
But lounge music…Trini Lopez (who my dad used to play a lot of) is lounge music. The lounge influence is certainly a big part of Billy Joel. But “Riders”? I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree on this.
Maybe he is angry only with Emily.
Or perhaps the rush from doing Emily will take him over the top, and he will kill the family, too.
And as he’s killing, he sings the Moody Blues’ “Emily’s Song” and Simon and Garfunkel’s “For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her.” 
Yep, all good. And I don’t know what to say, it sounds lounge-y to me. Okay - Bill Murray! I can totally hear Bill Murray singing it in his Lounge Guy act.