House of the Rising Sun Song Meaning and Lyrics The Animals

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• Behind The Song Lyrics: “House of the Rising Sun,” The Animals
• The Song The Cure’s Robert Smith and Boris Williams Created in Two Days for ‘The Crow’ Soundtrack: “Burn”
• Videos by American Songwriter
• More From: Behind The Song
• Genius is the world’s biggest collection of song lyrics and musical knowledge
• facts about this song
• Charts

Cork International Choral Festival, celebrating its 69th birthday as one of Europe’s most prominent choral events, features fringe concerts, gala performances and free public presentations in more than 90 venues across Cork city and county. A particular highlight for choral enthusiasts is the appearance of the internationally acclaimed State Choir Latvija, which will perform at Cork City Hall on Thursday, May 2nd, with a programme that includes works by the contemporary Irish composers Michael Holohan and Rhona Clarke. Interviews/discussions include the film-maker Paul Duane, Lankum’s Ian Lynch and the writer Sinéad Gleeson. As usual, Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival pulls more than 10 rabbits out of one hat. This year’s festival features exclusive appearances (the soul great PP Arnold, Roxy Music’s Phil Manzanera, comedians Daniel Kitson and Jerry Sadowitz, and the musician and writer Luke Haines) and the Irish premiere of the (lost but now digitally restored) Billy Connolly documentary Big Banana Feet.

Behind The Song Lyrics: “House of the Rising Sun,” The Animals

And maybe he even hesitates for just a moment before committing to his return, Well, I got one foot on the platform/The other on the train. 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, they sing in the chorus. 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 first name was first alphabetically. He was nonetheless now a believer and declared it a single at its full length, saying "We're in a microgroove world now, we will release it". The Animals had begun featuring their arrangement of "The House of the Rising Sun" during a joint concert tour with Chuck Berry, using it as their closing number to differentiate themselves from acts that always closed with straight rockers.

The Song The Cure’s Robert Smith and Boris Williams Created in Two Days for ‘The Crow’ Soundtrack: “Burn”

I had learned it sometime in the 1950s, from a recording by Hally Wood, the Texas singer and collector, who had got it from an Alan Lomax field recording by a Kentucky woman named Georgia Turner. I put a different spin on it by altering the chords and using a bass line that descended in half steps—a common enough progression in jazz, but unusual among folksingers. By the early 1960s, the song had become one of my signature pieces, and I could hardly get off the stage without doing it. Keynote Records released one by Josh White in 1942, and Decca Records released one also in 1942 with music by White and the vocals performed by Libby Holman. The Kentucky folk singer Jean Ritchie sang a different traditional version of the song to Lomax in 1949, which can be heard online courtesy of the Alan Lomax archive.

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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, De Lane Lea Studios on Kingsway in London to capture it. In his 1941 songbook Our Singing Country, Lomax credits the song to Georgia Turner, using Martin's extra lyrics to "complete" the song. Roy Acuff, an "early-day friend and apprentice" of Clarence Ashley's, learned it from him and recorded it as "Rising Sun" on November 3, 1938. The Animals, from the English coal town of Newcastle, changed the gender in the lyrics, and keyboardist Alan Price created the new arrangement. Colombian band Los Speakers covered the song under the title "La Casa del Sol Naciente", in their 1965 album of the same name. The single also charted in Australia (number 14), France (number 36), and Italy (number 54).

From 2013′s Same Trailer Different Park to the recently released Deeper Well, Kacey Musgraves has increased not only her fan base but also the reach of her creative expression. The songs veer from straight country to finessed Americana and graceful folk, but what makes them truly distinctive is Musgraves’ way with relatable storylines and whip-smart lyrics. Her special guest is the US singer-songwriter Madi Diaz (whose latest album, Weird Faith, is also very much worth your time). He learned this arrangement from Dave Van Ronk, a friend and mentor, who had re-worked the song from a recording by musicologist Hally Wood. Dylan’s recording would later provide the basis for The Animals' 1964 version, which became a massive and iconic hit. By the time the ’60s rolled around, the folk legend Dave Van Ronk included an intense take on “House of the Rising Sun” as a steady part of his live repertoire.

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The second possibility was a "Rising Sun Hall" listed in late 19th-century city directories on what is now Cherokee Street, at the riverfront in the uptown Carrollton neighborhood, which seems to have been a building owned and used for meetings of a Social Aid and Pleasure Club, commonly rented out for dances and functions. Definite links to gambling or prostitution (if any) are undocumented for either of these buildings. Famous Yugoslav singer Miodrag "Miki" Jevremović covered the song and included it in his 1964 EP "18 Žutih Ruža" (eng. "Eighteen Yellow Roses"). There is a house in New Orleans, it's called the Rising SunIt's been the ruin of many poor girlGreat God, and I for one.

facts about this song

Dillard Chandler of Madison County, North Carolina sang a variant of the song beginning "There was a sport in New Orleans". The earliest known printed version from Gordon's column is about a woman's warning. The earliest known recording of the song by Ashley is about a rounder, a male character. The song is also credited to Ronnie Gilbert on an album by the Weavers released in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Pete Seeger released a version on Folkways Records in 1958, which was re-released by Smithsonian Folkways in 2009.[16] Andy Griffith recorded the song on his 1959 album Andy Griffith Shouts the Blues and Old Timey Songs.

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While the original version was sung in the character of a woman led into a life of degradation, the Animals' version is told from the view of a young man who follows his father into alcoholism and gambling ruin. White learned the song from a "white hillbilly singer", who might have been Ashley, in North Carolina in 1923. Three years after the release of her debut single, Drivers License, Olivia Rodrigo is on top of the Gen Z pop world. You could think an artist performing at such a large venue with a mere two albums might short-change an audience, but Rodrigo’s songs, from power ballads and piano pop to punk-influenced bangers, will surely be enough to fully engage her fans across two sold-out shows. We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.

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He tempers his performance, starting off low and with deadly serious intent to grab your attention. According to John Steel, Bob Dylan told him that when he first heard the Animals' version on his car radio, he stopped to listen, "jumped out of his car" and "banged on the bonnet" (the hood of the car), inspiring him to go electric. However, this meant that only Price received songwriter's royalties for the hit, a fact that has caused bitterness among the other band members ever since.

Keynote Records released one by Josh White in 1942,[27] and Decca Records released one also in 1942 with music by White and the vocals performed by Libby Holman.[28] Holman and White also collaborated on a 1950 release by Mercury Records. White is also credited with having written new words and music that have subsequently been popularized in the versions made by many other later artists. In August 1980, Dolly Parton released a cover of the song as the third single from her album 9 to 5 and Odd Jobs. Like Miller's earlier country hit, Parton's remake returns the song to its original lyric of being about a fallen woman.

The tragedy of “House of the Rising Sun” is that the narrator seems to have lost his free will. He knows that the house will be his damnation, yet he is en route while he is telling his sad story. At the very least, he tries to use his example to save others—Oh mother, tell you children not to do what I have done.

Earliest American versions, "House of Rising Sun" was said to have been known by American miners in 1905. The oldest published version of the lyrics is that printed by Robert Winslow Gordon in 1925, in a column titled "Old Songs That Men Have Sung" in Adventure magazine. "House of the Rising Sun" was not included on any of the group's British albums, but it was reissued as a single twice in subsequent decades, charting both times, reaching number 25 in 1972 and number 11 in 1982. If the music sounded almost supernatural, Burdon’s vocal gave the song its terrestrial heart, one rent in two by the loaded dice and lost bets.

That release had no songwriting credit, but the liner notes indicate that Dylan learned this version of the song from Dave Van Ronk. In an interview for the documentary No Direction Home, Van Ronk said that he was intending to record the song and that Dylan copied his version. The Animals' version of the American folk song is considered one of the 20th century’s British pop classics.