My Favorite Song (House of the Rising Sun)
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This article is about the 1964 song by The Animals.
"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. The most successful commercial version, recorded in 1964 by the British rock band The Animals, was a number one hit on the UK Singles Chart and in the US and Canada.As a traditional folk song recorded by an electric rock band, it has been described as the "first folk rock hit".
Contents
Lyrics
The Animals
The Animals are an English rock band, formed in Newcastle upon Tyne in the early 1960s. They were known for their gritty, bluesy sound and deep-voiced front man Eric Burdon. The band balanced tough, rock-edged pop singles against rhythm and blues oriented album material and were part of the British Invasion of the US.
Origins
Folk song collector, Alan Lomax has stated that the "Rising Sun" was a name used for English pubs. He later suggested that the location of a particular "Rising Sun" was relocated from England to the United States by white Southern performers.
Meanwhile, folklorist Vance Randolph proposed an alternative French origin; that the "Rising Sun" refers to the decorative use of the sunburst insignia dating to the time of Louis XIV, which was then brought to North America by French immigrants.
The Earliest American version, "House of the 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. The lyrics of that version begin: There is a house in New Orleans, it's called the Rising Sun It's been the ruin of many poor girl Great God, and I for one.
The Animals' Version
An interview with Eric Burdon (lead singer) revealed that he first heard the song in a club in Newcastle, England, where it was sung by the Northumbrian folk singer Johnny Handle. The Animals were on tour with Chuck Berry and chose it because they wanted something distinctive to sing. The Animals had begun featuring their arrrangement 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. It got a trememdous 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 in Kingsway in London to capture it.
Recording and Releases
In June 196, the transatlantic number-one hit "The House of the Rising Sun" was released. Burdon's vocals and the particular arrangement, featuring Price's hanting organ riffs, created perhaps the first folk-rock hit. Debate continues regarding the Animals' inspiration for the arrangement, which has been variously ascribed to prior versions by Bob Dylan, folk singer Dave Van Ronk, blues single Josh White (who recorded it twice in 1944 and 1949) and singer/pianist Nina Simone (who recorded it in 1962 for Nina at the Village Gate). The arrangement is said to owe much to the band's desire to become the most memorable of the many acts on tour in the UK.
The song was recorded in just one take on May 18, 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 as the north-east English coal town of Newcastle that spawned him." 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."
As recorded, "The 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 initially did not really want to record the song at all, said that 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." 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."
In the US, however, the original single was a 2:58 version. The MGM Golden Circle reissue featured the unedited 4:29 version, although the record label gives the edited playing time of 2:58. The edited version was included on the group's 1964 US debut album The Animals, while the full version was later included on their best-selling 1966 US Greatest Hits album, The Best of the Animals. However, the very first American release of the full-length version was on a 1965 album various groups entitled "Mickie Most Presents British Go-Go," the cover of which under the listing of "House of the Rising Sun," described it as the original uncut version. Americans could also hear the complete version in the movie "Go Go Mania" in the spring of 1965.
Cash Box described the US single as "a haunting, beat-ballad updating of the famed folk-blues opus that the group's lead delivers in telling solo vocal fashion."