[... when asked, Jim Morrison said the lyrics were not political.]
This would seem quite likely, at least for part of the song ("Your ballroom days are over baby/Night is drawing near/Shadows of the evening/crawl across the years"), which is patently lifted from the c19th hymn/al and bedtime rhyme Now the Day is Over ("Now the day is over,/Night is drawing nigh,/Shadows of the evening/Steal across the sky") for whatever reason of Morrison's. [1]
Similarly, Morrison quoted the Christian Child's Prayer [2] in a live version of Soul Kitchen sung in 1969 [3] and also altered the children's rhyme "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over The candlestick" [4] to suit part of his poem An American Prayer [5] ("Words dissemble/Words be quick/Words resemble walking sticks"). [6] Lastly, Morrison was quite possibly referring to a Dylan Thomas story entitled The Fight in Thomas' Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog [7], where the central character reads from a poem called Warp ( " [...] Five into one, the one made of five into one, early/Suns distorted too late."). In this instance, the "five" are described by Thomas as "tears", "suns", and "inscrutable spears in the head".
Also of note, is the inclusion of the Gospel-influenced song People Get Ready (originally sung by The Temptations in 1965 and written by Curtis - Lee - Mayfield) in The Doors live sets at the Aquarius Theatre in 1969:
People get ready
There's a train a-coming
You don't need no baggage
You just get on board
All you need is faith
To hear diesels humming
You don't need no ticket
You just thank the Lord
Yeah yeah yeah
Although the film They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969) was not released until at least a year after Five To One, the line "Your ballroom days are over, baby" could also refer to the depression-era novel of the same name by Horace McCoy from the 1930s, which is essentially about the assisted suicide of a female dance marathon contestant named Gloria, by her male dance partner, both of whom are taking part in a competition in La Monica Ballroom (a real ballroom) right next to the Pacific Ocean on the Santa Monica Pier, near L.A. (The Doors office was of course situated on Santa Monica Boulevard) The novel was a favourite amongst French existentialists in post WWII France. The soundtrack of the movie featured Brother, Can you spare a dime? a typical song of the actual period, recalling another line from Five To One: "Trade in your hours for a handful of dimes".
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