The House of the Rising Sun

For the Lost episode, see House of the Rising Sun (Lost).

"The House of the Rising Sun" is a United States folk song.

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. Even Tangerine Dream created their own rendition.

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. Shawn Mullins' recent covered version on his album "9th Ward Pickin' Parlor" is sung from the female perspective. The 80s punk rock band Adolescents also made a cover for the Blue Album.

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.

Lyric

The traditional lyric, as recorded by Lomax, is as follows:

There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun.
It's been the ruin of many a poor girl,
And me, O God, for one. 

If I had listened what Mamma said,
I'd 'a been at home today.
Being so young and foolish, poor boy,
Let a rambler lead me astray. 

Go tell my baby sister
Never do like I have done
To shun that house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun. 

My mother she's a tailor; 
She sold those new blue jeans.
My sweetheart, he's a drunkard, Lord, Lord,
Drinks down in New Orleans. 

The only thing a gambler needs
Is a suitcase and a trunk.
The only time he's satisfied
Is when he's on a drunk. 

Fills his glasses to the brim,
Passes them around
Only pleasure he gets out of life
Is hoboin' from town to town. 

One foot is on the platform
And the other one on the train.
I'm going back to New Orleans
To wear that ball and chain. 

Going back to New Orleans,
My race is almost run.
Going back to spend the rest of my days
Beneath that Rising Sun.

Trivia

• "The House of the Rising Sun" was the first song Tony Blair learned to play on the guitar, according to an interview with him on Top of the Pops, 2005-01-25.
• The song "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by the Charlie Daniels Band makes a reference to this song in the lyric "the devil's in the house of the rising sun".
• Was featured in a Gatorade commercial.
• This is the title of one particular episode of Lost, but the lyrics' relevance to the plot of the episode is open to interpretation, though the episode focused on Sun, a Korean woman.
• In Martin Scorsese's Bob Dylan biopic No Direction Home, Dave Van Ronk states that Dylan took his (Van Ronk's) coffee house version of the song and recorded it without his permission on Dylan's first album on Columbia Records. Eric Burdon then took Dylan's recorded version and arranged for his electric band, The Animals, and enjoyed a significant hit with the song, much to Dylan's chagrin (and to Van Ronk's ironic sense of justice). Dave Van Ronk 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 plagiarizing Burdon's version. Another source claims that The Animals are said to have learned this song from Nina Simone, who recorded it two years before Dylan's version. Bob 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.
• The song has the same rhyme scheme as "Amazing Grace", and is occasionally performed live with those lyrics. The song is written in traditional ballad stanzas, as is "Amazing Grace".
• Is featured in the final scenes of the movie Casino.
• In August of 1989 while police were investigating the murders of five college students in Gainesville, Florida, they came across a campsite containing a tape recording of a song set to the music of "House of the Rising Sun", but with different lyrics. It was recorded by Danny Rolling, who was later charged and convicted in the killings.
• Rock groups U2 and Green Day included the opening lines of the song in their track "The Saints are Coming", played during the first game at the New Orleans Superdome in October, 2006. However, the opening lines were edited slightly. Instead of 'There is a house in New Orleans they call the Rising Sun', they changed it to 'There is a house in New Orleans they call the Superdome'. They later released a video of the song, shorter than normal and with the traditional lyrics. It included videos from Hurricane Katrina, referring to how the song has in its lyrics: "House in New Orleans."
• Independent wrestler Jimmy Rave started using The Animals' version as his entrance music beginning in late 2006, introduced by the quote "Shall we begin like David Copperfield? I am born, I grew up... or shall we begin when I was born into darkness?" from Interview with the Vampire.

External links

• SecondHandSongs: List of cover versions
• MP3 Version, Lyrics and Guitar Chords at Roger McGuinn's Folk Den
• Instrumental version (mp3 and wma) by John Too Cool McCool
• Lyrics & Discussion at the Mudcat Cafe
• 250+ covers, some of dubious origin.
• Easybyte — free easy piano arrangement of "House of the Rising Sun"
• Songfacts "House Of The Rising Sun" entry