I will always remember when I first heard "Riders On The Storm." It was in spring of 1972 because I remember it was around the time George Wallace was shot. Anyway, I was almost 10 years old and my father sent me up the street to this dive to order a couple of pizzas to bring home. Now this was a biker joint and I remember it creeping me out to go in there. There was this big 400-lb guy behind the bar and while I waited for the pizzas to be ready, he just stood there staring at me. It was early afternoon so the bar was mostly empty and it's very dark because outside as a thunderstorm is approaching. Then this song comes on the jukebox and it just seemed to go on forever and after a while, I couldn't tell if the rolls of thunder were part of the song or actually going on outside. Meanwhile huge bartender continued to stare at me the whole time.
When the pizzas were ready, it was pouring rain outside and I ran home as fast as my 10-year-old legs could carry me and for the rest of the day, and for days after, that song would run through my head. Even today, when I hear that song, I can still remember that time when I sat in that dark bar smelling the stale beer and the pizza in the oven and the 400-lb bartender. Jim Morrison would have been right at home sitting on the barstool in that place with a tumbler of bourbon.
Sometime years later, they razed that place to the ground and put up a Chinese restaurant.