The blue bus is callin’ us
The blue bus is callin’ us
Driver, where you taken’ us 

C’mon baby, take a chance with us
C’mon baby, take a chance with us
C’mon baby, take a chance with us
And meet me at the back of the blue bus
Doin’ a blue rock
On a blue bus
Doin’ a blue rock  C’mon, yeah

Excerpted from: I Remember Jim Morrison.

After Jim died, as you would imagine, at family gatherings, we all told of our individual experiences with him via funny, sad, or poignant stories.

Once I was telling Clara about the time Anne asked him what The Blue Bus meant. He told us of his memory of living on the Navy base Los Alamos in Albuquerque, New Mexico and the Navy school bus that picked him up every morning. He dreaded it coming around the corner. “That dirty old blue bus would come around that corner everyday and I hated it.” Clara said, “Those buses were not blue”, but Anne said she also remembered them. Clara thought for a moment and then said, “Yes, they were.”

Jim hated the hot, dusty, bumpy ride to a school off base. By writing a poem/song about it, he gives us a glimpse into the young and silent anguish felt by artistic souls in a dull and lifeless place.

The Doors’ song, “The End”, that references Jim’s childhood memory is an anthem for struggling teens and has been a beacon of refuge and solace for many a youngster trying to navigate their way through life.

Thanks  Jim.

Alan Graham

There are also many persistent myths  which include, The blue bus is a clever double meaning, firstly it is used to mean Santa Monica’s ‘Big Blue Bus’ system which would have been used by members of The Doors. However, the double meaning is that it could also be used to mean the drug oxymorphone.

Likely, he is referring to the hallucinogenic cactus, peyote. Peyote is referred to as “el venado azul” or the blue deer, by the Huicholes, a tribe indigenous to the Northern Mexican desert.

Jim Morrison was known to experiment with the mescaline filled peyote. Maybe he means that the drug is beginning to take it’s effect; thus calling him. The bus my be a more modern interpretation of the blue deer.