Sunday, August 18, 2013

House of the Rising Sun

Nobody seems to know who wrote the song Pete Seeger sang it.  Andy Griffith sang it(!)  Joan Baez put it on her first album, and Bob Dylan sang it on his first album, too.   

And of course the most amazing version is from an English band, the Animals.  A song about a whorehouse, in 1964, here you go.



2 comments:

edutcher said...

It may have been about the poorhouse.

The story goes there was a workhouse in NOLA that had a rising sun on its gate or the city womens' prison.

And the melody line goes back to 18th century England.

chickelit said...

While the song is old, a fellow named Dave van Ronk wrote the familiar arrangement. Dylan "stole" van Ronk's version for his first album. A couple years later, The Animals ripped off Dylan. This is all discussed in interviews in Martin Scorcese's " No Direction Home"