“The House of the Rising Sun” is a traditional folk song, sometimes called “Rising Sun Blues“. It tells of a person’s life gone wrong in the city of New Orleans; many versions also urge a sibling or parents and children to avoid the same fate. Like many classic folk ballads, “The House of the Rising Sun” is of uncertain authorship. Musicologists say that it is based on the tradition of broadside ballads and thematically it has some resemblance to the 16th-century ballad “The Unfortunate Rake”, yet there is no evidence suggesting that there is any direct relation. According to Alan Lomax, “Rising Sun” was the name of a bawdy house in two traditional English songs, and it was also a name for English pubs.
The oldest known recording of the song, under the title “Rising Sun Blues”, is by Clarence ‘Tom’ Ashley and Gwen Foster, who recorded it in September 1933 on the Vocalion label. Ashley said he had learned it from his grandfather, Enoch Ashley. In 1941, Woody Guthrie recorded a version. 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; the latter was recorded in sessions that were later used on the album Lead Belly’s Last Sessions. Joan Baez recorded it in 1960 on her self-titled debut album; she frequently performed the song in concert throughout her career.
The most successful commercial version, recorded in 1964 by British rock group The Animals, was a number one hit on the UK Singles Chart and also in the United States and France. As a traditional folk song recorded by an electric rock band, it has been described as the “first folk rock hit”. An interview with Eric Burdon revealed that he first heard the song in a club in Newcastle, where it was sung by the folk singer Johnny Handle. The Animals were on tour with Chuck Berry and chose it because they wanted something distinctive to sing. The song was recorded in just one take in May 1964, and it starts with a now-famous electric guitar A minor chord arpeggio by Hilton Valentine. According to Valentine, he simply took Dylan’s chord sequence and played it as an arpeggio. The performance takes off with Burdon’s lead vocal, which has been variously described as “howling”, “soulful”, and as “…deep and gravelly. Finally, Alan Price’s pulsating organ part (played on a Vox Continental) completes the sound. Burdon later said, “We were looking for a song that would grab people’s attention”.
In 1969, the Detroit band Frijid Pink recorded a psychedelic version of “House of the Rising Sun”, which became an international hit in 1970. 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 drumming of Richard Stevers. The Frijid Pink single of “House of the Rising Sun” would give the song its most widespread international success, with top 10 status reached in Austria (number three), Belgium (Flemish region, number six), Canada (number three), Denmark (number three), Germany (two weeks at number one), Greece, Ireland (number seven), Israel (number four), the Netherlands (number three), Norway (seven weeks at number one), Poland (number two), Sweden (number six), Switzerland (number two), and the UK (number four). The single also charted in Australia (number 14), France (number 36), and Italy (number 54).
In August 1981, Dolly Parton released a cover of the song as the third single from her album 9 to 5 and Odd Jobs. 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 number 14 on the US country singles chart and crossed over to the pop charts, where it reached number 77 on the Billboard. Apologies for the delay at the start of the video but that is how was made.
The American heavy metal band Five Finger Death Punch released a cover of “House of the Rising Sun” on their fifth studio album, which was later released as the album’s second single and the band’s third single of the Wrong Side era. The references to New Orleans have been changed to Sin City, a reference to the negative effects of gambling in Las Vegas. The song was a top ten hit on mainstream rock radio in the United States. It was also featured in the video game Guitar Hero Live.
Our final selection takes us into the realm of Video Games and to the first foreign language version of the day. This version gained international recognition and was created for the soundtrack of Wolfenstein: The New Order in 2014, interpreting the song with Volksmusik instrumentation, fitting the alternate future theme of the game in which Nazi Germany won World War II, as part of a collection of ‘adapted’ pop hits. I have just included the music not the in game footage because it seemed to unneccessarily glorify violence.
