The Doors' journey came to an end in the summer of 1971, with the tragic death of Jim Morrison. Even before “L.A. Woman,” the last album the band recorded with its frontman, hit stores on April 19, 1971, Morrison had decided to fly to France, together with his wife Pamela, seeking solace in the cultural atmosphere of the French capital, the shrine of his favorite poets: Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine. In Paris, however, Morrison would meet his end, and on July 3, 1971, at just 27 years old, he was found dead in the bathtub of his apartment on Rue Beautreillis. The official cause was cardiac arrest, but the absence of an autopsy—not mandatory under French law—would fuel alternative theories over time, including an accidental heroin overdose, never confirmed.

Devastated by the loss of their bandmate, the remaining members found themselves not only grieving but also having to make practical decisions about how to carry on without their charismatic leader. After the death of Jim Morrison, Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek and John Densmore nevertheless decided to finish the material they had in the works, releasing “Other Voices” in 1971, followed the next year by “Full Circle.” It was a choice also driven by pressure from their label, Elektra. Krieger would later recall those days: “It was a hard time, obviously. When Jim was gone, we just kept going. The three of us kept rehearsing, writing new material. When Jim died, we said to ourselves: 'Damn, what do we do? We could just quit, or, since we've got all these songs, we go into the studio, record them and see what happens.' We probably shouldn't have released it so soon after Jim's death. It felt like the only thing we could do.”

But the experience without Morrison would prove short-lived, and the storied California band would eventually fall apart.
Despite their best efforts, the attempt to carry on without Morrison would prove a failure. Manzarek and Krieger trading off on vocals only made the frontman's absence more keenly felt. Against this backdrop, a more radical idea also took shape: bringing in a new musician capable of reshaping the group's balance. The remaining members thus considered adding a new voice, going so far as to weigh a truly stunning name: Paul McCartney.
The idea, which never got past the embryonic stage, would be confirmed years later by Ray Manzarek himself. Asked whether the Doors had genuinely considered the former Beatle after Morrison's death, the keyboardist replied: “Yes. Paul would have played bass. It would have worked great. Who knows what direction we would have gone in if it had actually happened.”

The project, however, never materialized, and no one in the band ever got around to making an actual proposal to the Liverpool musician. At the time, after all, McCartney was busy putting together Wings, formed together with Linda McCartney and Denny Laine, and the idea of running two bands at once was simply impractical.
It remains one of rock history's great tantalizing what-ifs: a collaboration that would have implied a profound transformation of the sound and identity of the Californian band, and an intriguing — and slightly mad — gamble for the ex-Beatle.

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23/04/2026