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Jason deCaires Taylor: Ocean Gaia (2025)

The Animals - The House of the Rising Sun 1964

"The House of the Rising Sun" is an American 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 song was first collected in Appalachia in the 1930s and is listed as number 6393 in the Roud Folk Song Index. Like many folk songs, "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" (also cited as source material for "St. James Infirmary Blues"), yet there is no evidence suggesting that there is any direct relation. The folk song collector Alan Lomax suggested that the melody might be related to a 17th-century folk song, "Lord Barnard and Little Musgrave", also known as "Matty Groves", but a survey by Bertrand Bronson showed no clear relationship between the two songs.

"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 oldest known recording of the song, under the title "Rising Sun Blues", is by Appalachian artists Clarence "Tom" Ashley and Gwen Foster, who recorded it on September 6, 1933. Ashley said he had learned it from his grandfather, Enoch Ashley, who got married around the time of the Civil War, which suggests that the song could have been written years before the start of the 20th century. 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.

It has been recorded by a number of artists. The most successful commercial version, recorded in 1964 by the English 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". The Animals vocalist Eric Burdon 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 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. It elicited 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 in London to capture it in just one take on May 18, 1964.

"House of the Rising Sun" was a trans-Atlantic hit: after reaching the top of the UK pop singles chart in July 1964, it topped the US pop singles chart two months later, on September 5, 1964, where it stayed for three weeks. Many cite this as the first true classic rock song, and it became the first British Invasion number one unconnected with the Beatles. It was the group's breakthrough hit in both countries and became their signature song. The song was also a hit in Ireland twice, peaking at number 10 upon its initial release in 1964 and later reaching a brand new peak of number 5 when reissued in 1982. The Animals' rendition of the song is recognized as one of the classics of British pop music. It is one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll". The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) ranked it number 240 on their list of "Songs of the Century". In 1999, it received a Grammy Hall of Fame Award. It has long since become a staple of oldies and classic rock radio.

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