"Been Down So Long" is a blues-rock composition credited to all four members of The Doors -- Jim Morrison, John Densmore, Robby Krieger, and Ray Manzarek -- written for their 1971 album L.A. Woman. The song's title is drawn from Richard Farina's 1966 novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me, while its central lyric phrase echoes Furry Lewis's 1928 blues recording "I Will Turn Your Money Green," which contains the line "I been down so long, it seem like up to me." Morrison's lyrics channel themes of depression, liberation, sexuality, and pointed mockery of the American judicial system, reflecting the band's exhaustion and Morrison's personal weariness after years of legal harassment and arrests. Ray Manzarek later viewed the song as retrospectively prophetic of Morrison's need for escape and calm in the final months before his death. Musically, the composition follows a conventional blues structure with a stomping, aggressive feel driven by a heavy rhythmic foundation of drums and tambourine. Robby Krieger's prominent slide guitar work gives the song a gritty, raw edge, while the arrangement incorporates layered rhythm guitars that contribute to its garage-style intensity. The recording notably features Ray Manzarek playing rhythm guitar rather than his usual keyboards, an unusual role that underscores the song's stripped-down blues character. Within The Doors' catalog, "Been Down So Long" represents the band's deepest embrace of traditional blues forms, standing as a direct heir to the slow blues explorations on Morrison Hotel and a signature example of the unvarnished sound that defined L.A. Woman.
