Beatles vs. Doors. Which do you vote for?
Base your vote on any criteria you like (personal favorite, more iconic, better song to sniff glue to, song more likely to be playing whilst one loses their virginity, etc).
One of these songs has a cheesy aphorism about love masquerading as something deep, the other is a 12-minute epic that includes a retelling of Oedipus.
I know which one I prefer.
I like the Beatles far more than I do the Doors, but the Beatles song is a piece of musical fluff. Nice, but trivial.
The Beatles’ song is short but beautiful, and a perfect way to (almost) end their studio recordings.
The Doors’ song is a wild, rambling, disjointed, psychedelic, Oedipal journey that literally launched the Doors’ recording career.
Jim wins this one over Paul.
The End, Father of Sniping, wins this one. NATURE ITSELF is backing him up.
Beatles no question for me. Can’t stand the boring (mostly) two-chord drone of the Doors, and the Oedipal imagery just sounds gratuitous to me. But I really dislike the Doors (minus maybe Peacr Frog), so take it for what it’s worth. I just find the Beatles song a much more enjoyable musical journey.
I love The Beatles to a nearly unhealthy degree…but I clearly remember being about 13 years old when a kid sitting next to me on a bus during a field trip gave me his headphones and told me to listen…it was “The End” by The Doors and I had never heard anything like it. I immediately became a fan. It may be cheesy to an adult hearing it for the first time, but to me at the time it was pure mystery and magic and I wanted more.
The Beatles “The End” is perfectly fine and works well in the Abbey Road medley, but it’s mostly an excuse for three guitar players to solo and for Ringo to get his only drum solo in. “Her Majesty” saves it from its own overindulgence.
Try and imagine Martin Sheen smashing mirrors to the Beatles.
I like them both, but I give the slight edge to the Beatles.
The Doors song has good imagery but it also kind of drones and in the live versions Morrison can’t even keep a coherent steam of thought in his head. It’s embarrassing. But it really works in Apocalypse Now.
The Beatles is fluff, but it’s fun fluff. Plus, it has Ringo’s one and only drum solo. Rock on, Ringo! 
“When the Music’s Over,” the follow-up to “The End” from the Doors’ second album is a better song, but it doesn’t have the intensity that made “The End” such a must see at the Whiskey-a-Go-Go that the band became instant sensations. That might be the ultimate go back in time experience for 60s rock. Whether the record came close is doubtful. But it blew minds before mind-blowing became the thing to do.
That was in 1967. By 1969, softer sounds were in vogue and creating a suite of songs out of snippits of brief melodies, amusing lyrics, and odd characters was the way to end an album.
I’m talking about the Doors’ “The Soft Parade,” of course.
That followed the pattern of “Abbey Road” and its song suite, the one that included “The End,” intended not as a blast of introduction but as a remembrance of individuals coalescing into a band and then splitting apart again, with brief solos by each. That works superlatively as intended.
Other than the similarity of titles, the two songs are about as comparable as Schopenhauer and Bach. No vote.
Such a difficult choice!
The fabs.
I can’t go all the way for the Doors The End. It’s a high concept conversation starter. But not enough of it sounds like music. It’s got more angst than song.
I was going to say “the Reynolds/DeLuise version” myself.
From Wikipedia:
“The song was recorded live in the studio with no overdubbing.[7] Two takes were done and it has been held that the second take is the one that was issued.[8] However, it has been speculated that the issued version of the song is an edit of both takes, with at least one splice.”
So, pretty darned close to what you’d hear at The Whisky back in the day.
The Doors’ version is one of the songs that classic rock radio ruined for me.
Musically, maybe. The reports of the way Morrison screamed and acted the finale live makes it clear that the histrionics aren’t part of the cleaned-up recording. We’re talking about seeing him up close in a small club, not a giant arena. The equivalent would be to see the Beatles sweating in the Cavern Club as opposed to Shea Stadium or Meet the Beatles.
The Beatles, but with a caveat.
I consider Golden Slumbers, Carry That Weight, and The End to be all one song.
The End works better as a coda to the trio than it does on its own.
While both bands could certainly be full of themselves, the Beatles earned that right much more than the Doors did.
Amazing how close this vote is. As of now, it’s 29 to 29.
Very slight edge to The Beatles because of the drum and guitar solos.