10 Songs That Made Iconic Movie Scenes

1. The Doors – The End (Apocalypse Now)

Reservoir Dogs Ear Scene
United Artists

Very few songs sound as final as The Doors’ 1978 epic ‘The End.’ So it was no surprise when director Francis Ford Coppola chose it as the main track for his Vietnam classic Apocalypse Now.

The song bookmarks the opening and conclusion of the movie, bringing everything full circle with the song’s powerful lyrics. With a refrain featuring frontman Jim Morrison simply crooning “This is the end” for most of it, the ominous song leaves plenty of room for any interpretation to be applied to it. It just so happens that Coppola accompanies it with two very powerful scenes of war at its most destructive. The western-themed guitar licks match the desolate on-screen mayhem in a way that an original score just wouldn’t be able to match. An inspired song choice indeed.

There’s a finality about the song that just compliments the sequences perfectly. And with such a tense and memorable movie such as Apocalypse Now, ‘The End’ couldn’t have been a more fitting soundtrack.

 
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Contributor
Contributor

Music Journalism graduate and freelance writer from Northern Ireland, who enjoys scouring the music archives for the best sounds from the past and present. Writer for the awesome publications WhatCulture, Metal Injection, Scribol, The Gamer, and Prefix.