What is the House of the Rising Sun? 

The one by The Animals

the one by The White Buffalo for Sons of Anarchy

The original is my fav but I love to hear different takes on it

My favorite has to be the one by The Animals but the one by Joni Mitchel is a close second

Santa Esmeralda staring Leroy Gomez. Best. Version. Hands down.

and I take it they are both in the middle of our street?

@@johndunham9236 WHAT ?!!!?!?!?! Sheer Madness!

Just down the street from a very underground and not very well known Cafe Eclectica. But don't worry, you'll see it if you're sitting on the park bench.

Yeah, apparently they all lie on the highway to hell just a bit past the stairway to heaven.

@@eve_squared Outstanding!!!

Scrolling for this.. the old flag of Japan looked alot like a rising sun.. as im sure you are aware

@@KeatingJosh you are talking about the imperial japanese navy "rising sun" flag. Also Japan is often called the land of the rising sun, due to it being very far east

@@KoprolitySenior I believe that's also what "Japan" and "Nippon" mean in the first place.

They made me sing the Creedence rain tune all the time and I hate that shit.

It is both, a song about pain of addictions and nickname for Japan. I understand Japan was given that nickname by China because, to see the sun rise over Japan, one would have to be in China.

Yep, the 'sum of the parts' of The Animals 'take'/ recording took the song to another level which is very unlikely to be bettered.

Agreed

Yes, that version wins, hands down. You are right, the organ gives it that... something.

Or maybe it’s just the most overplayed version that everyone has heard over 1000+ times on the radio, therefore making you predisposed to being biased

@@Awimpyman69 Nah. Many covers surpass their original takes

so cool man

HAHHA RIP Grandfather

Wow very enlightening.

It's a creepy response! I shuddered too!

History is deep, and most of it nobody would ever get paid to record, and it was lost. Knowledge used to be so, so expensive to save because it was rarified. It's unusual for something undocumented so close to becoming so widespread. But this is the earliest time anybody was capable of recording or interested in academically studying American folk culture, especially black Folk Culture, its bound to serve as the onboarding to history of countless verbal traditions without determinable origin. The reasons for this obscurity are entirely human. We just forgot to remember. At least the song lasted.

i feel that lol

There was a time when I was too young to know that I was far too young to know that song.

marasmusine………..Same 😯😯

This comment contains mythical power. I can already hear the stories forming around it.

@@Drekromancer Then write them.

@Arthur Morgan Well write it.

@Arthur Morgan I was thinking in terms of writing legends of events that would happen if someone made a wood carving of a rising sun for that bar,

Trwsandford we had a bar called the rising Sun many years after the real one in the late sixties and early seventies and it was full of an assortment of people hippies old beatniks and other types of younger people and we had a ball. I was in my teens in 20s and this was in the late sixties early seventies and it was the bomb

Reminds me of a rapper who was asked if one of his songs was real, his response was "This happens every day, in every major city, every waking second." I always felt that applied to the house of the rising sun. It's a den of inequity, and there is no shortage of them in our world today.

@@toastedt140 was it by any chance dance with the devil?

it has a bit of a lovecraftian feel to it somehow

@@toastedt140 I think you mean "iniquity".

Thank you for posting !

I lived in the French Quarter back in the 70's. There was a building close to the cemeteries in Ward 5 area that was considered The House of the Rising Sun. It had been recently closed down and boarded up. It was a house that was over 100-years old. It was also close the the old slave quarters, which was fenced off, but still standing at that time.

I don’t believe it because why in the world would nuns sell their old convent to a madame? Unless they’re just terrible nuns

I live here too, I’d heard that story but never in connection to the song

That is an interesting perspective on that, and it makes a lot of sense.

what if Welcome To The Internet ties into this in a way?

Brilliant interpretation. It makes a lot of sense

Maybe it's like a trope, or an archetype, that could summarize a lot of things in human culture.

For me it’s interprets Twitter. That hell hole is awful

@@stopthecap3768 ♪There's a place on the internet I call the Rising Sun♪

great writing exercise

It fits with folk music entirely

@CHIEF I agree! If you’re comfortable of course

You are always allowed to add whatever you like. Take it as a fellow singer and artist ;)

@@FeyPax hey, ur comment remindered me of Lou Reeds, SweetJane, have u heard the Cowboy Junkies cover of it? Margo Timmins added lyrics & they fit, she said that yrs later she'd heard interview where Reed says he loved her version, a cover like that tho would be tough to do right & sooo eeeasy to🔩up!

I watched it in casino for the first time and was blown away too!! I was a teenager too. Had to stop and repeat it even though it was the climax of the movie 😂

The House of the Rising Sun is an opium den. I thought everyone knew this.

Exactly That’s How I Seen It To

Also what I was told it was. Sounds right to me.

There are quite a few pubs that were also brothels in the old days,called The Rising Sun in England.There are a few old folk songs mentioning The Rising Sun and it being synonymous with a brothel.There was also an old folk song from Norfolk,where there is an old Rising Sun pub with the words ‘If you go to Lowestoft and ask for The Rising Sun,there are two old whores there,and my old woman’s one.’

I think it's a crack house.

We agree, legendary

*”I ain’t no fortunate one”*

@@verdun16 CCR? "fortunate son"?

*There is a house in New Orleans, They caaaaalll the riiiisin suuun*

It makes me feel like I’m either in a standoff in a western movie, or I’m riding down a dirt trail on my way to town in a western

Alan had some cool singles himself. Check out his version of "I Put A Spell On You".

It's such a brilliant version. First we get the guitar, then Eric starts quietly, then the Hammond creeps in. The song keeps building, Eric gets loud and emotive, then you realise that the Hammond has also built up, and as the song fades we're left with that organ. It's just phenomenal.

@@iskandertime747 Yeah man I love "I Put a spell on you", the solo there is insane

@@jameshefferan773 I agree with you completely. One minor correction however, the organ in this song isn't a hammond, but rather a Vox Continental.

@@Selvikus thank you for that. I always knew the machine in the video was too small, I just thought it was a prop. Never realised that Hammond wasn't the only oscillating organ. Now I have a bunch of songs I need to listen to with headphones. John played it on "Think For Yourself." I've only ever noticed the fuzz bass.

I recommend checking out "The Longest Johns". They sing shanties and folklore and it's so beautiful. Almost all of their songs have some sort of historic origin.

I’m curious if In the pines or 16 tons have such history

Nick Cave's Murder Ballads.

@@pricklypear7516 ?

@@pricklypear7516 what

Yes I heard that too!

I agree…..

Deep 😮

Absolutely about addiction! I think of it as a drug den. The "ball and chain" is the addiction itself.

I interpret the line "I'm going back to New Orleans, to wear that ball and chain" as the character going back to the place where their addiction began, and knowing very well that they are falling back into that dark path. Which makes it more terrifying to me. Knowing you're stepping back into the maws of hell and the line "I've got one foot on the platform, and one foot on the train" shows that they are stuck between wanting to escape it and be better, and also accepting it and willingly stepping forward.

why is it so soothing when high though?

I once ended up in the Hotel California in a DnD campaign.

I’m actually incorporating it into a larger campaign, I’m really excited for it!

You could try a more mystery themed one shot and have the house of the rising sun be the focus

Nerds

You can make it so it changes ever so slightly every time they visit it as a nod to the fact that we don't know for sure what kind of place it was in reality

Metallica killed it for everyone

All human knowledge and culture operate that way. "Intellectual property" is wholly illegitimate, and serves only to enrich those already wealthy.

@@alexf0723 Wasn't just Metallica that had the ordeal, the music business and record labels have been fighting against this for as long as pop has existed

I hope the Creative Commons licenses become more widely used, as they offer far more flexibility than traditional copyright systems. Artists and other creators can choose from a selection of licenses that bridge the spectrum between copyright (creator has absolute control over their works) and the public domain (creator has no control over their works). For example, if I write a song and I want other singers to be able to record their own versions of it, there's a Creative Commons license that allows derivatives as long as the cover artist or remixer gives credit to the original creator. The world of Creative Commons licensing is complex and I vastly oversimplified it , but I believe it has great potential to bring back at least some of the sharing and reinterpretation that made the folk traditions of the past possible.

@@alexf0723 If you're looking for someone to blame, it was more Sonny Bono and Disney than Metallica.

It's a beautiful line right? Almost Lovecraftian in its horror, like "don't ask about this, there's secrets bigger than us".

yess also the minor key he uses to sing "they call the rising sun" is very ominous, I think it sounds better that way

I like the version by The Ghost of Johnny Cash.

It makes it feel like some primordial thing, not just a song, but something that already lived within those that sang it

I think the song sounds best when its sung in a more haunting and dark way.

I agree with you. As is the 'MAN,' in CCR'S ; Born on the Bayou ! AKA the Devil & his place in both songs !

Thank you, this was interesting

Will go listen! Thanks

Interesting drumming observation.

Excellent comment

It was in the Hell's language. The fire on the mountain where the Devil is signalled the Devil was planning Korea. It was them telling their plans for Kpop and their work in surrounding Asian countries. These songs say the people are trapped pretending to be whores while the demons mind control the men till they die and feel drunk.

I found alt-j's version to be all over the place and not making it feel the original meaning

The Animals version is the best but the version by the Frijid Pink comes a close second.

I thought 'The animals' were the only ones who sang it 'til recently

@@Sinannuncioshasta--k nobody owns the writing credits.. making it one of the most covered sings out there..

@@stephens1392 I only knew of The Animal's and The Adolescents House of the Rising Sun

that's so neat!!

"actually"

Where are you from? I've heard the turners and Taylor's name connected to this song around Monroe mi.

Thank you for sharing!

@@joeydurant6267 My grandpa is originally from Michigan

*Visible confusion*

@K M Yes, and it's beautiful.

My house in New Orleans: crumbles into the void

@K M There is a year in history, They call Two-Thousand Ten, It's been the source of great memories, Of a simpler time back then...

@K M old memes are getting a revival

Someone that I used to hang with once said to me "Perception is reality"., and me, being an idiot, replied "No it isn't, reality is reality". As I was drifting off to sleep that night , I had a thought that made me 😮 - and I said out loud "Holy 💩, he's right"! The thought was that 3 people witness a hit and run car accident, and the police wind up with 3 different versions of the accident, and/or 3 different descriptions of the car that caused the accident. But being almost asleep and then realizing that, it felt more like 😱.

Ronk doesn't get anywhere near the recognition he deserves.

man, I only started getting into folk music (and Ronk too, by extension) after watching Llewyn Davis. That film made me more aware that folk songs (and all other genres too, but folk/"indie" especially) carries with it the theme of daily struggles (the slow banal kind we don't realize until our midlife crises, as opposed to the short intense one like heartbreak), and most importantly the dignified acceptance of said struggle. As an ex-filmmaker, imo it's such a great music genre that meshes well with daily-life dramas. Hopefully more and more filmmakers realize its potential.

As a Swede I can’t help to think that ol’ Eddie Meduza would have found it funny to hear about a dude called ”Ronk”. 😁

Dylan just released a new song “license to kill”

so true. i think it was the first song i learned to play at 12.

Yep, me too!!!! That was the first song I learned to play on guitar!

It was in the Hell's language. The fire on the mountain where the Devil is signalled the Devil was planning Korea. It was them telling their plans for Kpop and their work in surrounding Asian countries. These songs say the people are trapped pretending to be whores while the demons mind control the men till they die and feel drunk.

And then Smoke on the Water was released and everyone could hit a heavy lick right off!

Same here.

The Doors

Get out my head

Its a prison out in the swamp has no fence,and one road in and out..20 to 30 miles of swamp in every direction

I think it's my favorite. I love how urgent and distressed it sounds. Nina was a genius!

@@l6318 Fuck Nina Simone!!!!! Eric Burdon And The Animals version tops them ALL

@@jahchildmel6960 relax

@@jahchildmel6960 Who pissed in your cornflakes?

I'd never heard the first version!

Prolly Fren.

Nah. The real rising sun was the innocence we managed to loose somewhere along the way.

Yes, all my friends are houses

@@rubberduck8631 lucky you all mine are warehouses the have forklifts driving in and out their bays all day.

@@thistlethrook2778i feel so bad!

Except you’re wrong. Like the video said, every artist who’s written this song has had their own vice and hardships woven into the lyrics, I believe the best version is dependent on the listener and their own struggle they can relate with.

@@Awimpyman69 well, I mean, only one artist ever wrote it.

@@Livi_Noelle except you’re wrong again, because with each new artist comes new lyrics. It’s literally said in the video that the only constant lyric throughout every iteration is the “house of the rising sun”

@@Awimpyman69 cool story... Go away now, please. I don't really give two squirts of urine less for your inane and ridiculous opinions. Toodles!

@@Livi_Noelle don’t post comments publicly then if you can’t handle different opinions

the 1600s is when it was written down so it was most likely much earlier

@@noahdan1703 New Orleans is an American city, so it dates back to the early days of America.

@@simonmultiverse6349 folk music adapts and changes based on location and culture, just like the various modern musicians changed lyrics and meaning, so would have the earlier musicians. So while thus version of the song may have originated somewhere stateside, there's no doubt it may have had it's origin in England, or somewhere in europe even earlier.

@@simonmultiverse6349 The chord progression goes back much further.

@@yuothineyesasian The one I learned on the guitar was Dm F G Bb Dm C A7 (A7 lasts twice as long to make 8 measures in total); then the second half Dm F G Bb Dm A7 Dm (that last Dm takes twice as long to make 8 measures)

Yeah I always assumed it was like Hotel California

I heard someone say that Hotel California was the House of The Rising Sun of the West Coast.

my grandpa always thought it was a brothel or a place where folks are held against their will

Any time I am playing and singing it, I am always tapping into the pain that past addiction has caused me and my loved ones.

To me the House is an Opium Den. Rising Sun rises in the east, the origin of opium.

How does someone sing acapella on a guitar? Isn't that paradoxical?

@@GaidinDaishan I think you missed the point

Yeah, he missed the point. The original commenter really meant "solo", but since he expressed that he is not a musical expert, i let that go by.

Too bad he kinda bamboozled his pal Dave Van Ronk

Honestly, I think that no matter which version is being song, it is about a prison, just sometimes a more literal prison than other times. One cannot simply escape the house of the rising Sun. It is an end of the road to doom, wherever that road may have come from and however many times you may walk it.

@Michelle Campbell he may have been thinking of Midnight Special.

Is it in Reading?

Is she 200 years old?

@@CorbCorbin And US born and raised? Black?🤣. People think the Animals wrote this song. That's hilarious.

The Rising Sun is not an uncommon name for pubs in the UK. Had one in my home town until fairly recently (sadly converted to flats, of course).

I knew a pub in Bilston just out side of Wolverhampton called The Rising Sun, that was back in the late 1960's early 1970's.

My favorite version of the House of the Rising Sun are the Animal’s rendition of the song.

Animals version my favorite all time song

Gen Z here, and God do I love those kind of haunting songs. There's Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin, In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins, and Dream by Imagine Dragons to name a few.

You still bangin on the ivory at 75? That's awesome to hear, I'm 41 and play guitar I just hope my knuckles hang on for that long, take care

and God,I know I'm one

I have heard this too. Thanks for the confirmation. I have never been to New Orleans but it's this song that makes me want to visit.

You know there never was old new Orleans families right? New Orleans is and always was a ses pool, litterly built on a slight rise in the atchafalaya basin between two forks of the Mississippi. Was a shanty town built so the plantations crops of cotton, sugarcane, and rice, could be floated down on the Mississippi, mermatau and red river's consolidated there loaded onto barges and took out to the gulf where the big boats waited. The creole, cajuns and French Canadian convicts lived in New awlins. The old families, the money back from Europe money, were up in central and north Louisiana...think Nacogdoches the first city in da Louisiana territory, almost twice as old as America. It sat on a much more important point for many years, until the Mississippi was tamed, the old Spanish trail that stretched from California to Florida. The coast lands, a hundred, hundred and fifty miles or so was settled by the po folk, because every 5-8 years a hurricane would blow in and wipe out whole ass settlements, with very little warning time...didn't have doplar radar, radios, TVs like now. Bluebird skies at 10am by 3PM dark ass midnight, 180mph winds blowing off the gulf for 300-400 miles wide,sometimes bigger for a day, day and a half. Often by the time the storm died whole settlements would be gone with little or no sign that they were even there lol. Why you think us coonass', thats cajuns to y'all are so mean? That's the weather we shrimp in lol

@@thomasgross8289 Well, the family I refer to is in the records of New Orleans dating back to the mid 1800s, so I would say that is old enough.

@@powellmountainmike8853 maybe I didn't explain myself well, people lived there of course, I meant the wealthy

It was in the Hell's language. The fire on the mountain where the Devil is signalled the Devil was planning Korea. It was them telling their plans for Kpop and their work in surrounding Asian countries. These songs say the people are trapped pretending to be whores while the demons mind control the men till they die and feel drunk.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-M8Ueo7r2nbA.html Funnily, Joan Baez sings as a man, but Josh White here sings as a woman. For sheer Southern weariness, though, I think he nails it. (I love your faves as well and even Frijid Pink).

@@moragmckay7673 Thanks for the link. I like White's choice of words "Please, shun that house in New Orleans."

@James Henry Smith I agree, Sir.

A different take is that the ball and chain refers to a "wife". It's from London rhyming slang

@@Cheers_Warren Oh yeah, that is a name for that 😁

Sad. May he RIP.

@James Henry Smith- No one knows...

Maybe this is why I always thought the House of the Rising Sun was a casino...

@@ExileOnDaytonStreet lol !

But he clearly didn’t teach you how to spell

@@ryanfrancis827 English is not my first langage. Where did I make an error ?

@@HanzsKlopek you misspelled guitar. The dude who replied is an asshole. Cheers m8

There are a lot of songs for me that fall into the category: Leadbelly's Version Is My Favorite!

wayfaring stranger is another great unfortunate rake song

I didn't realize that's where St James Infirmary came from, have a few versions of that song that I adore

The streets of Laredo was popularized by Marty Robbins

Minnie the Moocher *and* Willie the Weeper

OK I felt much better after reading this comment.

A gay brothel.

Yup, lived in New Orleans for almost 6 yrs. This was the history of song for the locals. Also in later years girls were brought there with false promises through ads, traveled far to get there for work and a new life. Taking a huge risk for a better and maybe easier life. They were given room & board for a fix price, quickly in debt and forced to pay it off through prostitution. IThis was pretty much the model most brothels in Storyville used. Insane part is reading abt Storyville & learning how the cops supported the madams and returned runaways.

@@kgrimes4934 Truth!!!

Kind of like the 'Model Scam' that has lured American women into doing overseas modeling, only to be forced into prostitution when they get there.

@@edwardbeaty8899 seems to happen a lot in Japan as well

@@zk0rned Another thing in Japan is the 'Girl Group/Singer' scam. Girls are offered wealth and fame, they get the fame, but the agents and others take the wealth.

Rest in peace to that incredible artist!

Il a pompé la version des Animals (UK)... Pas "copié collé" la version US. Enfin c'est même pas lui qui a traduit ou arrangé, il a interprété une pale copie dont on aurait pu se passer.

Dave van Ronk played outside on a grassy area called The Quad where I went to college. I sat at his feet for his performance. I wanted so badly to request House of the Rising Sun, but I was really scared. During a soft love ballad, a motorcyclist revved the engine loudly. Not missing a beat, van Ronk looked over & yelled, "You're in the wrong key!"

It was in the Hell's language. The fire on the mountain where the Devil is signalled the Devil was planning Korea. It was them telling their plans for Kpop and their work in surrounding Asian countries. These songs say the people are trapped pretending to be whores while the demons mind control the men till they die and feel drunk.

I wonder if he was aware that many hymns we sing today were originally religious lyrics set to old pub/bar songs.

The founder of the Salvation Army used a lot of the popular tunes of his day for the basis for hymns. As he said, Why should the Devil have all the best music?

The musicians at my church sometimes sing Communist John Lennon's "Imagine," about as anti-religion as it gets. I find it irritating in any setting, 10X worse in a church.

Amazing Grace, set to the tune of Rising Sun, sounds amazing. The lyrics fit the music perfectly. I've long been aware of that, and I've done it myself. I can't recall how I found out about that.

@@jguenther3049 Blah. Setting a hymn to secular music is one thing, and a thing to which I am generally unopposed. But, singing Imagine during a Church service (well, I guess, if the Church is Unitarian Universalist, maybe it makes sense...) just strikes me as disrespectful, and counterintuitive. Maybe it's time to find a new Church. I felt compelled to find a new Church, after listening to the Senior Pastor preach from the book of Carly Simon, and the Associate Pastor hit on me afterwards. That was more than 20 years ago, and I've not attended a service there, since.

Same. But in my head it was always a gambling hall

Me too. Whorehouse

When sung from a woman’s perspective, it certainly sounds like a brothel.

same here. his father was a gambling man and his mother sewed his new blue jeans. could be a gambling hall as EpicVodka commented. the shame of following his no good dad's example.

@@domestikgoddez9823 good point.