House of the Rising Sun
by the Animals:
I know that several of you gentleman grew up during this era of music.
Most of the songs from this time period had some sort of underlying drug theme.
My question is: what does this song mean? What's it about? other than a house down in New Orleans.
I know that several of you gentleman grew up during this era of music.
Most of the songs from this time period had some sort of underlying drug theme.
My question is: what does this song mean? What's it about? other than a house down in New Orleans.
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quote:Originally posted by ebeshirs
by the Animals:
I know that several of you gentleman grew up during this era of music.
Most of the songs from this time period had some sort of underlying drug theme.
My question is: what does this song mean? What's it about? other than a house down in New Orleans.
I always thought it was about a house of "ill repute."0 -
Yep, a house of "ill repute", gambling and alcoholism experienced by the writer's father. 0 -
It's an old blues song talking about a life gone bad. The House of the Rising Sun refers to a house of prostitution. Check out the link.
http://www.risingconviction.com/house-of-the-rising-sun/house-of-the-rising-sun.asp0 -
I thought it was talikng about school. Don 0 -
This is a waaay old song about a bordello.
Listen to the words - they have a lot of meaning.
D.0 -
quote:Originally posted by dcon12
I thought it was talikng about school. Don
Well it was educational..Houses of ill repute that is..0 -
NO style Mustang Ranch! 0 -
Yeah, but the trailers are pretty nice.
D.0 -
How many of ya'll know you can sing 'House of the Rising Sun' to the tune of 'Amazing Grace' and vice versa?
Just a little bit of useless unsolicited information!!
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quote:Originally posted by Doug Wilson
Yeah, but the trailers are pretty nice.
D.
Hey Mustang had a section of trailers before they closed!0 -
I always heard it was "Rising Son". A reference to a father bringing his son in for his first "experience".
Pete0 -
quote:Originally posted by Spider7115
Yep, a house of "ill repute", gambling and alcoholism experienced by the writer's father.
+1 AND the sins of the father are being visited upon the son (Eric Burdon singing) who is following in dad's footsteps.0 -
Lotta that going around.
D.0 -
quote: How many of ya'll know you can sing 'House of the Rising Sun' to the tune of 'Amazing Grace' and vice versa?
Just the Chambers Brothers that is. [;)]0 -
I had always thought it was a song about a gambling house.
At any rate, Eric Burdon and the Animals hit it out of the park with their version. One of the great pop songs of all time.
I saw a documentary on the music scene in New York in the early sixties.
A musician named Dave van Ronk had dug up this old song and done his own arrangement of it. He played it in the coffee houses for a couple of months. It was getting a good reception, and he planned to cut it as a single in a few more weeks.
He ran into Bob Dylan at a party. Dylan told him that he really liked van Ronk's version of this song. Dave van Ronk told Dylan that he was going to record it as a single in a week or two. Dylan then admitted that he had just recorded and released the song on that very day.
Dave van Ronk was not very happy that Dylan had taken "his" song.
For a year or two Dylan's song was fairly popular, and he was credited as the arranger of this song.
Then the Animals did their version, it went to number one, and people quickly forgot about Dylan's version of the song.
Dave van Ronk said he got some satisfaction from seeing Dylan's acclaim for this song fade away.0 -
Frijid Pink Also had a big hit with this song in the 70's. It was pretty big at the time, but the Animals cut is by far the most remembered.
http://www.google.com/musicl?lid=YzyQRsPnmFM&aid=4mZfKKb2K5J0 -
The words to the 'Green Acres' theme sung to the music of 'Purple Haze' is pretty cool too.[:D] 0 -
quote:Originally posted by fugawe
The words to the 'Green Acres' theme sung to the music of 'Purple Haze' is pretty cool too.[:D]
scuse me while I climb the pole.....0 -
There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God I know I'm one
My mother was a tailor
She sewed my new bluejeans
My father was a gamblin' man
Down in New Orleans
Now the only thing a gambler needs
Is a suitcase and trunk
And the only time he's satisfied
Is when he's on a drunk
Oh mother tell your children
Not to do what I have done
Spend your lives in sin and misery
In the House of the Rising Sun
Well, I got one foot on the platform
The other foot on the train
I'm goin' back to New Orleans
To wear that ball and chain
Well, there is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God I know I'm one
According to Eric Burden, the Animals originally heard Josh White perform Risin' Sun in Europe in the early 60's and decided to cover it, which they did in 1964.0 -
Joan Baez also had a version that was slightly different from the one the Animals did. I really liked hers better, but hated her politics.
D.0 -
She was not real crazy about yours either Doug. [}:)] 0 -
Origin
Like many classic folk ballads, the authorship of "The House of the Rising Sun", sometimes called "Rising Sun Blues", is dubious. Folklorist Alan Lomax, author of the seminal 1941 songbook Our Singing Country, wrote that the melody was taken from a traditional English ballad and the lyrics written by a pair of Kentuckians named Georgia Turner and Bert Martin. Other scholars have proposed different explanations, although Lomax's is generally considered most plausible. The phrase "House of the Rising Sun" is 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.
The oldest known existing recording is by Clarence Ashley and Gwen Foster and was released in 1934. Ashley thought he had learned it from his grandfather, Enoch Ashley. Texas Alexander's "The Risin' Sun", which was recorded in 1928, is sometimes mentioned as the first recording, but this is a completely different song. Roy Acuff, who recorded the song commercially on November 3, 1938, may have learned this number from such neighboring Smoky Mountain artists as versatile entertainer Clarence Ashley or the Callahan Brothers, an influential duet team of the '30s and '40s.
Many artists have covered the song, and it has been a standard cover for at least four decades by bar bands and major recording artists alike. In an interview by Martin Scorsese in his Dylan biopic No Direction Home, folksinger Dave van Ronk recounted that he had originally worked out the arrangement that Dylan then "borrowed" for his first album, and which was subsequently borrowed in turn by Eric Burdon, who, in 1964, took the song to newfound popularity when it was recorded by his British rock group The Animals. The Animals' version (which was arranged by the whole band but accidentally only credited to their keyboard player Alan Price) has become a staple of oldies and classic rock radio stations. An interview with Eric Burdon revealed that the Animals heard Josh White perform "House" in Europe in the early 60's, and decided to cover it. In 1969 Frijid Pink released a particularly well-known psychedelic version.
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. The Animals version was sung from a perspective of a male, warning about gambling and drinking.
[edit] The real house?
Various places in New Orleans, Louisiana have been proposed as the inspiration for the song, with varying plausibility. 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. An excavation and document search in early 2005 found evidence supporting this claim, including an advertisement with language that may have euphemistically indicated prostitution. The second 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. Definite links to gambling or prostitution, if any, are undocumented for either of these buildings, neither of which still exists.
It is 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 New Orleans Prison for Women, 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.0
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