- The song was originally a folk song, so nobody knows who originally wrote it.
- It was recorded numerous times before The Animals got hold of it. Some say the first recording of it was by a 16 year old girl called Georgia Turner in 1937, but other sources say it was recorded before that, in 1932 by Clarence “Tom” Ashley in 1932 as Rising Sun Blues, and even before that in the 1920s by Texas Alexander.
- In more recent times it was recorded by Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, Josh White, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Nina Simone and Bob Dylan.
- No-one can claim rights to the song, which may be part of the reason it's been covered so many times. However, artists can claim credit for the arrangement of the song. For The Animals version, only Alan Price was credited on the label because, according to the record company, there was only room for one name.
- Eric Burdon of The Animals said in an interview that the group first heard it in a club in Newcastle, where it was sung by the Northumbrian folk singer Johnny Handle. They were looking for a distinctive song to sing on their tour with Chuck Berry and decided this song fitted the bill.
- When it came to recording the song, since The Animals had already sung it many times during the tour, they were able to record it in one take.
- Opinions differ as to what the song is actually about; what kind of establishment the “House of the Rising Sun” actually was, if, indeed, it was anything at all other than a place someone simply made up. One theory is that it's about a brothel which actually existed in New Orleans at 826-830 St. Louis Street. This establishment was named after Madame Marianne LeSoleil Levant, which is French for rising sun. It opened in 1862 and was frequented by Union soldiers during the US Civil War, and closed in 1874 after neighbours complained. Another theory holds that it was the Orleans Parish women's prison which had a rising sun depicted on its gate. The fact that there's a line in the song about a ball and chain lends credence to this theory.
- The lyrics aren't the same in every version. In Georgia Turner's version, the song is a tale told by a woman whose life has been ruined, whether by prison or prostitution we don't know for sure. Her sweetheart is a drunkard. The Animals sing about a man who has been led astray, and whose father was a drunkard and a gambler – more suitable for broadcast on the BBC than anything to do with brothels.
- It was the first song since 1962 by a British band to reach number 1 in America that wasn't written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
- A 2005 Channel Five poll ranked it as Britain's fourth-favourite number one song.
NEW!!
Over the Rainbow
'We're not in Trinity anymore,' says Leonard Marx, quoting a line from an old Innovian movie. The moon is different; the planes flying overhead are different. Nobody has any idea where they are or if it's possible to get home.
In this strange new world, people from the highly technical Innovia and the less advanced Classica must co-operate in order to survive. In addition, travel through the inter-dimensional wormhole has given some people unusual and unexpected powers.
Innovia mourns the loss of its superhero, Power Blaster, last seen carrying a nuclear bomb to the upper atmosphere away from the inhabited Bird Island. They don't believe he could possibly have survived. Power Blaster has survived, but is close to death and stranded in the new dimension. He is nursed back to health by a Classican woman, Elena. She has no idea who he is, only that she is falling in love with the handsome stranger.
Shanna sets out to discover what happened to Nathan Tate, who didn't return from his hiking holiday, not knowing her life is about to be turned inside out and upside down.
Meanwhile, Desi Troyes, the man responsible for the catastrophe, is at large on the new world, plotting how he can transfer his plans for world domination to the planet he now finds himself on - Earth.
Available from Amazon and Amazon Kindle
No comments:
Post a Comment