The House of the Rising Sun
Encyclopedia
"The House of the Rising Sun" is a folk song
from the United States
. Also called "House of the Rising Sun" or occasionally "Rising Sun Blues", it tells of a life gone wrong in New Orleans. The most successful commercial version was recorded by the English rock group The Animals
in 1964, which was a number one hit in the United States
, United Kingdom
, Sweden
, Finland
, and Canada
.
s, the authorship of "The House of the Rising Sun" is unknown. Some musicologists
believe it is based on the tradition of broadside ballads such as the "Unfortunate Rake" of the 18th century which were taken to America by early settlers. Many of these had the theme of "if only" and after a period of evolution, they emerge as American songs like "Streets of Laredo
".
Alan Price
of The Animals has claimed that the song was originally a sixteenth-century English folk song about a Soho
brothel, and that English emigrants took the song to America where it was adapted to its later New Orleans setting.
The oldest known existing recording is by Appalachia
n artists Clarence Ashley
and Gwen Foster and was made in 1933. Ashley said he had learned it from his grandfather, Enoch Ashley. Alger "Texas" Alexander's "The Risin' Sun," recorded in 1928, is sometimes mentioned as the first recording, but is a completely different song.
The song might have been lost to obscurity had it not been collected by folklorist Alan Lomax
, who, along with his father, was a curator of the Archive of American Folk Song for the Library of Congress
. On an expedition with his wife to eastern Kentucky
Lomax set up his recording equipment in Middlesborough, Kentucky
in the house of a singer and activist called Tilman Cadle. On September 15, 1937 he recorded a performance by Georgia Turner
, the 16 year-old daughter of a local miner. He called it "The Risin' Sun Blues." Lomax later recorded a different version sung by Bert Martin and a third sung by Daw Henson, both eastern Kentucky singers. In his 1941 songbook Our Singing Country, Lomax credits the lyrics to Turner, with reference to Martin's version. According to his later writing, the melody bears similarities to the traditional English ballad "Matty Groves
."
Roy Acuff
, who recorded the song on November 3, 1938, may have learned the song from Clarence Ashley, with whom he sometimes performed. In 1941, Woody Guthrie
recorded a version. A recording made in 1947 by Josh White
, who is also credited with having written new words and music that have subsequently been popularized in the versions made by many other later artists, was released by Mercury Records
in 1950. Lead Belly recorded two versions of the song in February 1944 and in October 1948 called "In New Orleans" and "The House of the Rising Sun" respectively, and the latter was recorded in the sessions that later became the album Lead Belly's Last Sessions (1994, Smithsonian Folkways
).
In 1957 Glenn Yarbrough
recorded the song for Elektra Records
. The song is also credited to Ronnie Gilbert on one of The Weavers
albums with Pete Seeger that was released in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Frankie Laine
recorded the song then titled "New Orleans" on his 1959 album Balladeer. Joan Baez
recorded it in 1960 on her eponymous debut album
, and has included it in her live set list, frequently including the song in her concerts throughout her career. In 1960 Miriam Makeba
recorded the song on her eponymous RCA album.
In late 1961, Bob Dylan
recorded the song for his eponymous debut album
, released in March 1962. There is no songwriting credit, but the liner notes indicate that Dylan learned this version of the song from Dave Van Ronk
. In an interview on the documentary No Direction Home
, Van Ronk said that he was intending to record the song, and that Dylan copied his version. He recorded it soon thereafter on Just Dave Van Ronk
.
Nina Simone
recorded her first version on Nina at the Village Gate
in 1962. Later versions include the 1965 recording in Colombia
by Los Speakers
in Spanish called "La casa del sol naciente", which was also the title of their second album. They earned a silver record (for sales of over 15,000 copies). The Chambers Brothers recorded a version on "Feelin' The Blues", released on VAULT records.
revealed that he first heard the song in a club in Newcastle
, England, where it was sung by a Northumbrian folk singer called Johnny Handle
. The Animals were on tour with Chuck Berry
and chose it because they wanted something distinctive to sing. This interview denies assertions that the inspiration for their arrangement came from Bob Dylan
. The band enjoyed a huge hit with the song, much to Dylan's chagrin when his version was referred to as a cover—the irony of which was not lost on Van Ronk, who went on record as saying that the whole issue was a "tempest in a teapot", and that Dylan stopped playing the song after The Animals' hit because fans accused Dylan of plagiarism. Dylan has said he first heard The Animals' version on his car radio and "jumped out of his car seat" because he liked it so much.
Dave Marsh
described The Animals' take on "The House of the Rising Sun" as "the first folk-rock hit", sounding "as if they'd connected the ancient tune to a live wire", while writer Ralph McLean of the BBC
agreed that "it was arguably the first folk rock tune", calling it "a revolutionary single" after which "the face of modern music was changed forever." Dave Van Ronk claims that this version was based on his arrangement of the song.
The Animals' version transposes the narrative of the song from the point of view of a woman led into a life of degradation, to that of a male, whose father was now a gambler and drunkard, as opposed to the sweetheart in earlier versions.
The Animals had begun featuring their arrangement of "House of the Rising Sun" during a joint concert tour with Chuck Berry
, using it as their closing number to differentiate themselves from acts which always closed with straight rockers. It got a tremendous reaction from the audience, convincing initially reluctant producer
Mickie Most
that it had hit potential, and between tour stops the group went to a small recording studio
on Kingsway
in London
to capture it.
Recorded in just one take on 18 May 1964,
it started with a famous electric guitar
A minor chord
arpeggio
by Hilton Valentine
. The performance took off with Eric Burdon's lead vocal, which has been variously described as "howling", "soulful", and "deep and gravelly as the north-east English coal town of Newcastle that spawned him." Finally, Alan Price
's pulsating organ
part (played on a Vox Continental
) completed the sound. Burdon later said, "We were looking for a song that would grab people's attention," and they succeeded: "House of the Rising Sun" was a true trans-Atlantic hit, topping both the UK pop singles chart
(in July 1964) and the U.S. pop singles chart
(two months later in September 1964, when it became the first British Invasion
number one unconnected with The Beatles
); it was the group's breakthrough hit in both countries and became their signature song
. The song was also a hit in a number of other countries.
The Animals' rendition of the song is recognized as one of the classics of the British Invasion
. Writer Lester Bangs
labeled it "a brilliant rearrangement" and "a new standard rendition of an old standard composition." It ranked number 122 on Rolling Stone
magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list. It is also one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. The RIAA placed it as number 240 on their Songs of the Century
list. In 1999 it received a Grammy Hall of Fame Award. And besides critical acclaim, it has long since become a staple of oldies
and classic rock
radio format
s. A 2005 Five poll ranked it as Britons' fourth favourite number one song of all time.
As recorded, "House of the Rising Sun" ran four and a half minutes, regarded as far too long for a pop single at the time. Producer Most, who otherwise minimized his role on this occasion—"Everything was in the right place ... It only took 15 minutes to make so I can't take much credit for the production"—nonetheless was now a believer and declared it as a single at its full length, saying "We're in a microgroove
world now, we will release it."
In the United States, though, the original single (MGM 13264) was a 2:58 version. The MGM Golden Circle reissue (KGC 179) featured the unedited 4:29 version, although the label shows the edited playing time of 2:58. The edited version was included on the group's 1964 U.S. debut album The Animals
, while the full version was later included on their best-selling 1966 U.S. greatest hits album The Best of The Animals
. However, the very first American release of the full-length version was on a 1965 album of various groups entitled Mickie Most Presents British Go-Go (MGM SE-4306), the cover of which, under the listing of "House Of The Rising Sun", boasted "Original Uncut Version". Americans also had a chance to hear the complete version in the movie Go Go Mania
in the spring of 1965.
"House of the Rising Sun" was not included on any of the group's British albums. Rather, it was reissued as a single twice in subsequent decades, charting both times: to number 25 in 1972, and to number 11 in 1982.
The arranging credit went only to Alan Price. According to Burdon, this was simply because there was insufficient room to name all five band members on the record label, and Alan Price's name was first alphabetically. However, this meant that only Price received songwriter's royalties for the hit, a fact that has caused bitterness ever since, especially with Valentine.
released a version, which was also a hit. Sometimes described as psychedelic
, their rendition is more in line with the proto-punk
sound of fellow Detroit acts MC5
and The Stooges
. Their version is in 4/4 time
(like Van Ronk's and most earlier versions, rather than the 6/8 used by The Animals), and was driven by Gary Ray Thompson's distorted guitar
with fuzz and wah wah effects, set against the frenetic drum
ming of Richard Stevers. Lead singer Tom Beaudry's vocal phrasing almost exactly matched Eric Burdon's.
The recording was a trans-Atlantic success, reaching number 7 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100
singles chart, number 4 on the UK Singles Chart
, and number 3 in Canada. It hit number one in a number of Europe
an countries, including West Germany
and Norway
. It was awarded gold record status in the U.S. in May 1970. It would be the band's only top ten hit.
s country chart. In 1973, Jody Miller
reached #29 on the country charts and #41 on the adult contemporary chart.
In September 1981, Dolly Parton released a cover of the song as the third single from her 9 to 5 and Odd Jobs
album. Like Miller's earlier country hit, Parton's remake returns the song to its original lyric of being about a "fallen woman". The Parton version makes it quite blunt with a few new lyric lines that were written by Parton. Parton's remake reached # 14 on the U.S. country singles chart, and crossed over to the pop charts, where it reached # 77 on the Billboard Hot 100
; it also reached # 30 on the U.S AC charts. Parton has occasionally performed the song live, perhaps most notably, on her 1987-88 television show
, in an episode taped live in New Orleans.
have been proposed as the inspiration for the song, with varying plausibility. The phrase "House of the Rising Sun" is often understood as a euphemism
for a brothel
, but it is not known whether or not the house described in the lyrics was an actual or fictitious place. One theory speculated the song is about a daughter who killed her father, an alcoholic gambler who had beaten his wife. Therefore, the House of the Rising Sun may be a jail-house, from which one would be the first person to see the sun rise (an idea supported by the lyric mentioning "a ball and chain," though that phrase has been used as slang to describe marital relationships for at least as long as the song has been in print). Because the song was often sung by women, another theory is that the House of the Rising Sun was where prostitutes were detained while they were treated for syphilis. Since cures with mercury were ineffective, going back was very likely.
Only two candidates have historical documentation as using the name "Rising Sun", both having listings in old period city directories. The first was a small short-lived hotel
on Conti Street in the French Quarter
in the 1820s. It burned down in 1822. An excavation and document search in early 2005 found evidence supporting this claim, including an advertisement with language that may have euphemistically indicated prostitution. An unusually large number of pots of rouge and cosmetics were found by archaeologists at the site.
The second possibility was a late 19th century "Rising Sun Hall" on the riverfront of the uptown Carrollton neighborhood
, which seems to have been a building owned and used for meetings of a Social Aid & Pleasure Club, commonly rented out for dances and functions. It also is no longer extant. Definite links to gambling or prostitution (if any) are undocumented for either of these buildings.
Another claim is that The House of the Rising Sun actually existed between 1862 and about 1874 and was run by a Madam Marianne LeSoleil Levant whose name translates from French as "the rising sun". Bizarre New Orleans, a guide book on New Orleans, asserts that the real house was at 1614 Esplanade Avenue
between 1862 and 1874 and was purportedly named for its madam, Marianne LeSoleil Levant.
It is also possible that the "House of the Rising Sun" is a metaphor for either the slave pens of the plantation
, the plantation house, or the plantation itself, which were the subjects and themes of many traditional blues songs. Dave van Ronk claimed in his autobiography that he had seen pictures of the old Orleans Parish Women's Prison, the entrance to which was decorated with a rising sun design. He considered this proof that the House of the Rising Sun had been a nickname for the prison.
The gender
of the singer is flexible. Earlier versions of the song are often sung from the female perspective, a woman who followed a drunk or a gambler to New Orleans and became a prostitute in the House of the Rising Sun (or, depending on one's interpretation, an inmate in a prison of the same name), such as in Joan Baez
's version on her self-titled 1960 debut album, as was Jody Miller
's 1973 single. The Animals version was sung from a perspective of a male, warning about gambling and drinking. Bob Dylan's 1962 version and Shawn Mullins' recent covered version on his album 9th Ward Pickin' Parlor is sung from the female perspective.
Not everyone, however, believes that the house actually existed. On the BBC's h2g2
database, Pamela D. Arceneaux, a research librarian working at the Williams Research Center in New Orleans, is quoted as saying:
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
from the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Also called "House of the Rising Sun" or occasionally "Rising Sun Blues", it tells of a life gone wrong in New Orleans. The most successful commercial version was recorded by the English rock group The Animals
The Animals
The Animals were an English music group of the 1960s formed in Newcastle upon Tyne during the early part of the decade, and later relocated to London...
in 1964, which was a number one hit in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
, and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
.
Origin and early versions
Like many classic folk balladBallad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
s, the authorship of "The House of the Rising Sun" is unknown. Some musicologists
Musicology
Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...
believe it is based on the tradition of broadside ballads such as the "Unfortunate Rake" of the 18th century which were taken to America by early settlers. Many of these had the theme of "if only" and after a period of evolution, they emerge as American songs like "Streets of Laredo
Streets of Laredo (song)
"Streets of Laredo" , also known as the "Cowboy's Lament", is a famous American cowboy ballad in which a dying cowboy tells his story to a living one. Derived from the English folk song "The Unfortunate Lad", it has become a folk music standard, and as such has been performed, recorded and adapted...
".
Alan Price
Alan Price
Alan Price is an English musician, best known as the original keyboardist for the English band The Animals, and for his subsequent solo work....
of The Animals has claimed that the song was originally a sixteenth-century English folk song about a Soho
Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable...
brothel, and that English emigrants took the song to America where it was adapted to its later New Orleans setting.
The oldest known existing recording is by Appalachia
Appalachia
Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...
n artists Clarence Ashley
Clarence Ashley
"Tom" Clarence Ashley was an American clawhammer banjo player, guitarist and singer. He began performing at medicine shows in the Southern Appalachian region as early as 1911, and gained initial fame during the late 1920s as both a solo recording artist and as a member of various string bands...
and Gwen Foster and was made in 1933. Ashley said he had learned it from his grandfather, Enoch Ashley. Alger "Texas" Alexander's "The Risin' Sun," recorded in 1928, is sometimes mentioned as the first recording, but is a completely different song.
The song might have been lost to obscurity had it not been collected by folklorist Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...
, who, along with his father, was a curator of the Archive of American Folk Song for the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
. On an expedition with his wife to eastern Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
Lomax set up his recording equipment in Middlesborough, Kentucky
Middlesborough, Kentucky
Middlesboro, also spelled Middlesborough, is a city in Bell County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 10,384 at the 2000 census. The estimated July 1, 2009 population of the city is 14,835. The entire micropolitan area has a population of 69,060 which includes all of Bell County...
in the house of a singer and activist called Tilman Cadle. On September 15, 1937 he recorded a performance by Georgia Turner
Georgia Turner
Georgia Turner , was an American folk singer. She is credited with the first recording of "Rising Sun Blues", produced by Alan Lomax in 1937, in Middlesboro, Kentucky...
, the 16 year-old daughter of a local miner. He called it "The Risin' Sun Blues." Lomax later recorded a different version sung by Bert Martin and a third sung by Daw Henson, both eastern Kentucky singers. In his 1941 songbook Our Singing Country, Lomax credits the lyrics to Turner, with reference to Martin's version. According to his later writing, the melody bears similarities to the traditional English ballad "Matty Groves
Matty Groves
"Matty Groves" is an English folk ballad that describes an adulterous tryst between a man and a woman that is ended when the woman's husband discovers and kills them. It dates to at least the 17th century, and is one of the Child Ballads collected by 19th-century American scholar Francis James Child...
."
Roy Acuff
Roy Acuff
Roy Claxton Acuff was an American country music singer, fiddler, and promoter. Known as the King of Country Music, Acuff is often credited with moving the genre from its early string band and "hoedown" format to the star singer-based format that helped make it internationally successful.Acuff...
, who recorded the song on November 3, 1938, may have learned the song from Clarence Ashley, with whom he sometimes performed. In 1941, Woody Guthrie
Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
recorded a version. A recording made in 1947 by Josh White
Josh White
Joshua Daniel White , better known as Josh White, was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor, and civil rights activist. He also recorded under the names "Pinewood Tom" and "Tippy Barton" in the 1930s....
, who is also credited with having written new words and music that have subsequently been popularized in the versions made by many other later artists, was released by Mercury Records
Mercury Records
Mercury Records is a record label operating as a standalone company in the UK and as part of the Island Def Jam Motown Music Group in the US; both are subsidiaries of Universal Music Group. There is also a Mercury Records in Australia, which is a local artist and repertoire division of Universal...
in 1950. Lead Belly recorded two versions of the song in February 1944 and in October 1948 called "In New Orleans" and "The House of the Rising Sun" respectively, and the latter was recorded in the sessions that later became the album Lead Belly's Last Sessions (1994, Smithsonian Folkways
Folkways Records
Folkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987, and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways.-History:...
).
In 1957 Glenn Yarbrough
Glenn Yarbrough
Glenn Yarbrough is an American folk singer. He was the lead singer with The Limeliters between 1959 and 1963, and had a prolific solo career, recording on various labels.-Biography:...
recorded the song for Elektra Records
Elektra Records
Elektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived by Atlantic in 2009....
. The song is also credited to Ronnie Gilbert on one of The Weavers
The Weavers
The Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City. They sang traditional folk songs from around the world, as well as blues, gospel music, children's songs, labor songs, and American ballads, and selling millions of records at the height of their...
albums with Pete Seeger that was released in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Frankie Laine
Frankie Laine
Frankie Laine, born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio , was a successful American singer, songwriter, and actor whose career spanned 75 years, from his first concerts in 1930 with a marathon dance company to his final performance of "That's My Desire" in 2005...
recorded the song then titled "New Orleans" on his 1959 album Balladeer. Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
recorded it in 1960 on her eponymous debut album
Joan Baez (album)
Joan Baez was singer Joan Baez's 1960 self-titled debut album, featuring 13 traditional folk songs.-History:Though Baez was reportedly offered a contract with Columbia at the time, she chose to go instead with the independent Vanguard label, hoping for increased artistic license...
, and has included it in her live set list, frequently including the song in her concerts throughout her career. In 1960 Miriam Makeba
Miriam Makeba
Miriam Makeba , nicknamed Mama Africa, was a Grammy Award winning South African singer and civil rights activist....
recorded the song on her eponymous RCA album.
In late 1961, Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
recorded the song for his eponymous debut album
Bob Dylan (album)
Bob Dylan is the debut album by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in March 1962 on Columbia Records. It features two original compositions, the rest being old folk standards, and was produced by Columbia's legendary talent scout John H...
, released in March 1962. There is no songwriting credit, but the liner notes indicate that Dylan learned this version of the song from Dave Van Ronk
Dave Van Ronk
Dave Van Ronk was an American folk singer, born in Brooklyn, New York, who settled in Greenwich Village, New York, and was eventually nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street" ....
. In an interview on the documentary No Direction Home
No Direction Home
No Direction Home is a documentary film by Martin Scorsese that traces the life of Bob Dylan, and his impact on 20th century American popular music and culture. The film does not cover Dylan's entire career; it concentrates on the period between Dylan's arrival in New York in January 1961 and his...
, Van Ronk said that he was intending to record the song, and that Dylan copied his version. He recorded it soon thereafter on Just Dave Van Ronk
Just Dave Van Ronk
Just Dave Van Ronk is a 1964 album by folk/blues singer Dave Van Ronk. It has not been released on CD.-History:It is probably this arrangement of "House Of The Risin' Sun" that was developed by Dave Van Ronk that Bob Dylan — who was a close friend of Van Ronk's at the time — used on his 1962 debut...
.
Nina Simone
Nina Simone
Eunice Kathleen Waymon , better known by her stage name Nina Simone , was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music...
recorded her first version on Nina at the Village Gate
Nina At The Village Gate
Nina Simone at the Village Gate is an album by singer/pianist/songwriter Nina Simone . It was her third live album for Colpix recorded at The Village Gate. It is particularly notable for the amount of folk songs and African related songs on the album early in Simone's career. Richard Pryor had one...
in 1962. Later versions include the 1965 recording in Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
by Los Speakers
Los Speakers
Los Speakers was a Colombian rock band from the 1960s.Much of their recorded material consisted of covers of popular bands of the era including the Byrds and the Beatles, as well as a couple of obscure Spanish group Los Brincos...
in Spanish called "La casa del sol naciente", which was also the title of their second album. They earned a silver record (for sales of over 15,000 copies). The Chambers Brothers recorded a version on "Feelin' The Blues", released on VAULT records.
The Animals version
An interview with Eric BurdonEric Burdon
Eric Victor Burdon is an English singer-songwriter best known as a founding member and vocalist of rock band The Animals, and the funk rock band War and for his aggressive stage performance...
revealed that he first heard the song in a club in Newcastle
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...
, England, where it was sung by a Northumbrian folk singer called Johnny Handle
Johnny Handle
Johnny Handle is an English folk musician and singer/songwriter. Starting as a skiffle player in 1957 he soon crossed into folk music both as a soloist and as a member of The High Level Ranters. His repertoire is heavily influenced by the traditional music of North East England and, in particular,...
. The Animals were on tour with Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
and chose it because they wanted something distinctive to sing. This interview denies assertions that the inspiration for their arrangement came from Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
. The band enjoyed a huge hit with the song, much to Dylan's chagrin when his version was referred to as a cover—the irony of which was not lost on Van Ronk, who went on record as saying that the whole issue was a "tempest in a teapot", and that Dylan stopped playing the song after The Animals' hit because fans accused Dylan of plagiarism. Dylan has said he first heard The Animals' version on his car radio and "jumped out of his car seat" because he liked it so much.
Dave Marsh
Dave Marsh
Dave Marsh is an American music critic, author, editor and radio talk show host. He was a formative editor of Creem magazine, has written for various publications such as Newsday, The Village Voice, and Rolling Stone, and has published numerous books about music and musicians, mostly focused on...
described The Animals' take on "The House of the Rising Sun" as "the first folk-rock hit", sounding "as if they'd connected the ancient tune to a live wire", while writer Ralph McLean of the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
agreed that "it was arguably the first folk rock tune", calling it "a revolutionary single" after which "the face of modern music was changed forever." Dave Van Ronk claims that this version was based on his arrangement of the song.
The Animals' version transposes the narrative of the song from the point of view of a woman led into a life of degradation, to that of a male, whose father was now a gambler and drunkard, as opposed to the sweetheart in earlier versions.
The Animals had begun featuring their arrangement of "House of the Rising Sun" during a joint concert tour with Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
, using it as their closing number to differentiate themselves from acts which always closed with straight rockers. It got a tremendous reaction from the audience, convincing initially reluctant producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
Mickie Most
Mickie Most
Mickie Most was an English record producer, with a string of hit singles with acts such as The Animals, Arrows, Herman's Hermits, Donovan, Suzi Quatro and the Jeff Beck Group often issued on his own RAK Records label....
that it had hit potential, and between tour stops the group went to a small recording studio
Recording studio
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...
on Kingsway
Kingsway (London)
Kingsway is a major road in central London in the United Kingdom, designated as part of the A4200. It runs from High Holborn, at its north end in the London Borough of Camden, and meets Aldwych in the south in the City of Westminster at Bush House. It was built in the 1900s...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to capture it.
Recorded in just one take on 18 May 1964,
it started with a famous electric guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
A minor chord
Minor chord
In music theory, a minor chord is a chord having a root, a minor third, and a perfect fifth.When a chord has these three notes alone, it is called a minor triad....
arpeggio
Arpeggio
An arpeggio is a musical technique where notes in a chord are played or sung in sequence, one after the other, rather than ringing out simultaneously...
by Hilton Valentine
Hilton Valentine
Hilton Valentine is an English musician, who was the original guitarist in the The Animals.-Biography:Valentine was influenced by the 1950s skiffle craze...
. The performance took off with Eric Burdon's lead vocal, which has been variously described as "howling", "soulful", and "deep and gravelly as the north-east English coal town of Newcastle that spawned him." Finally, Alan Price
Alan Price
Alan Price is an English musician, best known as the original keyboardist for the English band The Animals, and for his subsequent solo work....
's pulsating organ
Organ (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
part (played on a Vox Continental
Vox Continental
The Vox Continental is a transistor-based combo organ that was introduced in 1962. Known for its thin, bright, breathy sound, the "Connie," as it was affectionately known, was designed to be used by touring musicians...
) completed the sound. Burdon later said, "We were looking for a song that would grab people's attention," and they succeeded: "House of the Rising Sun" was a true trans-Atlantic hit, topping both the UK pop singles chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
(in July 1964) and the U.S. pop singles chart
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
(two months later in September 1964, when it became the first British Invasion
British Invasion
The British Invasion is a term used to describe the large number of rock and roll, beat, rock, and pop performers from the United Kingdom who became popular in the United States during the time period from 1964 through 1966.- Background :...
number one unconnected with The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
); it was the group's breakthrough hit in both countries and became their signature song
Signature song
A signature song is the one song that a popular and well-established singer or band is most closely identified with or best known for, even if they have had success with a variety of songs...
. The song was also a hit in a number of other countries.
The Animals' rendition of the song is recognized as one of the classics of the British Invasion
British Invasion
The British Invasion is a term used to describe the large number of rock and roll, beat, rock, and pop performers from the United Kingdom who became popular in the United States during the time period from 1964 through 1966.- Background :...
. Writer Lester Bangs
Lester Bangs
Leslie Conway "Lester" Bangs was an American music journalist, author and musician. He wrote for Creem and Rolling Stone magazines, and was known for his leading influence in rock 'n' roll criticism....
labeled it "a brilliant rearrangement" and "a new standard rendition of an old standard composition." It ranked number 122 on Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list. It is also one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. The RIAA placed it as number 240 on their Songs of the Century
Songs of the Century
The "Songs of the Century" list is part of an education project by the Recording Industry Association of America , the National Endowment for the Arts, and Scholastic Inc. that aims to "promote a better understanding of America’s musical and cultural heritage" in American schools...
list. In 1999 it received a Grammy Hall of Fame Award. And besides critical acclaim, it has long since become a staple of oldies
Oldies
Oldies is a term commonly used to describe a radio format that concentrates on music from a period of about 15 to 55 years before the present day....
and classic rock
Classic rock
Classic rock is a radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format features music ranging generally from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, primarily focusing on the hard rock genre that peaked in popularity in the...
radio format
Radio format
A radio format or programming format not to be confused with broadcast programming describes the overall content broadcast on a radio station. Radio formats are frequently employed as a marketing tool, and constantly evolve...
s. A 2005 Five poll ranked it as Britons' fourth favourite number one song of all time.
As recorded, "House of the Rising Sun" ran four and a half minutes, regarded as far too long for a pop single at the time. Producer Most, who otherwise minimized his role on this occasion—"Everything was in the right place ... It only took 15 minutes to make so I can't take much credit for the production"—nonetheless was now a believer and declared it as a single at its full length, saying "We're in a microgroove
LP record
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
world now, we will release it."
In the United States, though, the original single (MGM 13264) was a 2:58 version. The MGM Golden Circle reissue (KGC 179) featured the unedited 4:29 version, although the label shows the edited playing time of 2:58. The edited version was included on the group's 1964 U.S. debut album The Animals
The Animals (U.S. album)
The Animals is the self-titled American debut album from British invasion group, The Animals. Released in late summer 1964, the album introduced the States to the "drawling, dirty R&B sound " that typified the group...
, while the full version was later included on their best-selling 1966 U.S. greatest hits album The Best of The Animals
The Best of The Animals (1966 album)
The Best of The Animals was The Animals' first greatest hits collection. It was released in February 1966 in the United States, but never put out in the United Kingdom...
. However, the very first American release of the full-length version was on a 1965 album of various groups entitled Mickie Most Presents British Go-Go (MGM SE-4306), the cover of which, under the listing of "House Of The Rising Sun", boasted "Original Uncut Version". Americans also had a chance to hear the complete version in the movie Go Go Mania
Pop Gear
Pop Gear is a British music review film, directed by Frederic Goode and released in 1965. It contains live concert footage of The Beatles, and lip-synched videos of some of the British Invasion bands, including The Animals, Herman's Hermits, The Nashville Teens, Peter and Gordon, Matt Monro, Billy J...
in the spring of 1965.
"House of the Rising Sun" was not included on any of the group's British albums. Rather, it was reissued as a single twice in subsequent decades, charting both times: to number 25 in 1972, and to number 11 in 1982.
The arranging credit went only to Alan Price. According to Burdon, this was simply because there was insufficient room to name all five band members on the record label, and Alan Price's name was first alphabetically. However, this meant that only Price received songwriter's royalties for the hit, a fact that has caused bitterness ever since, especially with Valentine.
Frijid Pink version
In 1970, Detroit band Frijid PinkFrijid Pink
Frijid Pink is a Detroit area blues rock band formed in 1967, best known for their version of "House of the Rising Sun," released in 1969.The initial line-up of the band included drummer Richard Stevers, guitarist Gary Ray Thompson, bassist Tom Harris, lead singer Tom Beaudry , and later added...
released a version, which was also a hit. Sometimes described as psychedelic
Psychedelic music
Psychedelic music covers a range of popular music styles and genres, which are inspired by or influenced by psychedelic culture and which attempt to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues-rock bands in the...
, their rendition is more in line with the proto-punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
sound of fellow Detroit acts MC5
MC5
The MC5 is an American rock band formed in Lincoln Park, Michigan and originally active from 1964 to 1972. The original band line-up consisted of vocalist Rob Tyner, guitarists Wayne Kramer and Fred "Sonic" Smith, bassist Michael Davis, and drummer Dennis Thompson...
and The Stooges
The Stooges
The Stooges are an American rock band from Ann Arbor, Michigan first active from 1967 to 1974, and later reformed in 2003...
. Their version is in 4/4 time
Time signature
The time signature is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each measure and which note value constitutes one beat....
(like Van Ronk's and most earlier versions, rather than the 6/8 used by The Animals), and was driven by Gary Ray Thompson's distorted guitar
Distortion (guitar)
Distortion effects create "warm", "dirty" and "fuzzy" sounds by compressing the peaks of a musical instrument's sound wave and adding overtones. The three principal types of distortion effects are overdrive, distortion and fuzz. Distortion effects are sometimes called “gain” effects, as distorted...
with fuzz and wah wah effects, set against the frenetic drum
Drum
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...
ming of Richard Stevers. Lead singer Tom Beaudry's vocal phrasing almost exactly matched Eric Burdon's.
The recording was a trans-Atlantic success, reaching number 7 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
singles chart, number 4 on the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
, and number 3 in Canada. It hit number one in a number of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an countries, including West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
and Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
. It was awarded gold record status in the U.S. in May 1970. It would be the band's only top ten hit.
Jody Miller, Dolly Parton versions
The song has twice been a hit record on BillboardBillboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
s country chart. In 1973, Jody Miller
Jody Miller
Jody Brooks is an American country music singer. Born as Myrna Joy Miller, she was born in Phoenix, Arizona and raised in Oklahoma.-Career:...
reached #29 on the country charts and #41 on the adult contemporary chart.
In September 1981, Dolly Parton released a cover of the song as the third single from her 9 to 5 and Odd Jobs
9 to 5 and Odd Jobs
Allmusic rated 9 to 5 and Odd Jobs four-and-a-half out of five stars. William Ruhlmann, who reviewed the album, stated that "most of Parton's albums are hard to recommend", but that "[the songs are] enough to put it a notch above most of Parton's RCA catalog." Critic Robert Christgau rated the...
album. Like Miller's earlier country hit, Parton's remake returns the song to its original lyric of being about a "fallen woman". The Parton version makes it quite blunt with a few new lyric lines that were written by Parton. Parton's remake reached # 14 on the U.S. country singles chart, and crossed over to the pop charts, where it reached # 77 on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
; it also reached # 30 on the U.S AC charts. Parton has occasionally performed the song live, perhaps most notably, on her 1987-88 television show
Dolly (TV series)
Dolly is a television variety show that ran on ABC during the 1987-1988 season featuring Dolly Parton.-Overview:The show was an attempt at a traditional variety show, featuring music, comedy skits and various guest stars...
, in an episode taped live in New Orleans.
The real house
Various places in New Orleans, LouisianaNew Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...
have been proposed as the inspiration for the song, with varying plausibility. The phrase "House of the Rising Sun" is often understood as a euphemism
Euphemism
A euphemism is the substitution of a mild, inoffensive, relatively uncontroversial phrase for another more frank expression that might offend or otherwise suggest something unpleasant to the audience...
for a brothel
Brothel
Brothels are business establishments where patrons can engage in sexual activities with prostitutes. Brothels are known under a variety of names, including bordello, cathouse, knocking shop, whorehouse, strumpet house, sporting house, house of ill repute, house of prostitution, and bawdy house...
, but it is not known whether or not the house described in the lyrics was an actual or fictitious place. One theory speculated the song is about a daughter who killed her father, an alcoholic gambler who had beaten his wife. Therefore, the House of the Rising Sun may be a jail-house, from which one would be the first person to see the sun rise (an idea supported by the lyric mentioning "a ball and chain," though that phrase has been used as slang to describe marital relationships for at least as long as the song has been in print). Because the song was often sung by women, another theory is that the House of the Rising Sun was where prostitutes were detained while they were treated for syphilis. Since cures with mercury were ineffective, going back was very likely.
Only two candidates have historical documentation as using the name "Rising Sun", both having listings in old period city directories. The first was a small short-lived hotel
Hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...
on Conti Street in the French Quarter
French Quarter
The French Quarter, also known as Vieux Carré, is the oldest neighborhood in the city of New Orleans. When New Orleans was founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the city was originally centered on the French Quarter, or the Vieux Carré as it was known then...
in the 1820s. It burned down in 1822. An excavation and document search in early 2005 found evidence supporting this claim, including an advertisement with language that may have euphemistically indicated prostitution. An unusually large number of pots of rouge and cosmetics were found by archaeologists at the site.
The second possibility was a late 19th century "Rising Sun Hall" on the riverfront of the uptown Carrollton neighborhood
Carrollton, Louisiana
Carrollton is a neighborhood of uptown New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, which includes the Carrollton Historic District. It is the part of Uptown New Orleans farthest up river from the French Quarter...
, which seems to have been a building owned and used for meetings of a Social Aid & Pleasure Club, commonly rented out for dances and functions. It also is no longer extant. Definite links to gambling or prostitution (if any) are undocumented for either of these buildings.
Another claim is that The House of the Rising Sun actually existed between 1862 and about 1874 and was run by a Madam Marianne LeSoleil Levant whose name translates from French as "the rising sun". Bizarre New Orleans, a guide book on New Orleans, asserts that the real house was at 1614 Esplanade Avenue
Nola art house
The Nola Art House is a Creole mansion located on Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans's Faubourg Tremé. John Orgon founded the space in 2005 in order to offer affordable housing to New Orleans-based artists...
between 1862 and 1874 and was purportedly named for its madam, Marianne LeSoleil Levant.
It is also possible that the "House of the Rising Sun" is a metaphor for either the slave pens of the plantation
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...
, the plantation house, or the plantation itself, which were the subjects and themes of many traditional blues songs. Dave van Ronk claimed in his autobiography that he had seen pictures of the old Orleans Parish Women's Prison, the entrance to which was decorated with a rising sun design. He considered this proof that the House of the Rising Sun had been a nickname for the prison.
The gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
of the singer is flexible. Earlier versions of the song are often sung from the female perspective, a woman who followed a drunk or a gambler to New Orleans and became a prostitute in the House of the Rising Sun (or, depending on one's interpretation, an inmate in a prison of the same name), such as in Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
's version on her self-titled 1960 debut album, as was Jody Miller
Jody Miller
Jody Brooks is an American country music singer. Born as Myrna Joy Miller, she was born in Phoenix, Arizona and raised in Oklahoma.-Career:...
's 1973 single. The Animals version was sung from a perspective of a male, warning about gambling and drinking. Bob Dylan's 1962 version and Shawn Mullins' recent covered version on his album 9th Ward Pickin' Parlor is sung from the female perspective.
Not everyone, however, believes that the house actually existed. On the BBC's h2g2
H2g2
h2g2 is a British-based collaborative online encyclopedia project engaged in the construction of, in its own words, "an unconventional guide to life, the universe, and everything", in the spirit of the fictional publication The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy from the science fiction comedy series...
database, Pamela D. Arceneaux, a research librarian working at the Williams Research Center in New Orleans, is quoted as saying: