Almost everyone interested in rock music has surely heard the legendary song ‘The House of the Rising Sun’ by The Animals. As a constant track in almost every collection of rock legends, it is still a nice song for the listeners, even those who are not direct fan of the classic rock. However, the most important feature of this song is the time it was originally recorded.
Young people may think that it is simply a good rock song like several similar ones recorded in the late 1960s. By exploring the common style of rock music in the mid 1960s, the creativity of writing this song in 1964 becomes obvious.
In fact, the song is more like the rock records of the late 1960s. One may think that being ahead for 4 years is not worth of such attention; but this period was the time of a revolution in rock music, which changed The Beatles’ pop rock to the Black Sabbath’s heavy metal.
The Original Song and Its Rock Performance
The song is originally an American folk song performed by many local musicians. In the early 1960s, it was released in Bob Dylans' first album, and was also performed by the American singer Josh White. Although, The Animals' version was initially adopted from Josh White performance, but the final song sung by Eric Burdon was not musically or lyrically identical to the Bob Dylan or Josh White versions.
There are different stories about this song, and like almost all folk songs, its origin is not clear. In Eric Burdon's lyrics, it is apparently about a poor girl who killed her alcoholic gambler father, and ‘the house of the rising sun' refers to her cell in the prison, as she had to gaze at the rising sun. The lyric is mysterious and about a social problem, with all vital elements of rock lyrics.
On the other hand, the music is a perfect rock performance, and all instruments provide a collection of notes making a musical environment for the lyrical story. Contrary to the common rock vocals of that time, Eric Burdon's vocal is not a pop narration and has musical alternations as well as the other musical instruments.
A Different Sound of Rock Music
The song is started with a simple rhythm of guitar (accompanied by bass sound) and drum. The vocal is not monotonic from the beginning, and it is dependent on the lyrical story like an opera. When the story becomes tragic, the keyboard becomes the dominant instrument, which keeps its position until the song end. In a sentimental part of the song (i.e. accompanied by mourning in the story), the harsh keyboard is pushed backward and the dominant sound is the string rhythm after a strong keyboard solo, and finally the song is finished by the fading sound of keyboard.
The song structure and length (4:30) was quite unusual in its time, but very common in the later time when rock music evolved. The song was a pioneer of rock music from several aspects. For instance, the strong dominant keyboard including keyboard solo was later followed by the rock performers and then became a feature of the late 1960s and 1970s rock. In other words, keyboard with a harsh and fuzzed sound (like other instruments of rock, particularly electric guitar) found a vital position in rock music.
The Pioneering Keyboard Performance
The most dominant feature of the song is its keyboard sound (both in rhythm and solo), which was not common that time. The style of keyboard playing is comparable with the pioneering performances of Deep Purple’s legendary keyboardist, Jon Lord, in the late 1960s (and from that time forth). Although Alan Price himself has never performed a keyboard piece as he did in the song ‘The House of the Rising Sun’, but this pioneering performance was enough to introduce the magic of fuzzed keyboard for rock records, as followed by various rock bands in the late 1960, when it was matured by legendary keyboardists like The Doors' Ray Manzarek, Deep Purple's Jon Lord, etc.
Note: This article is Part II in the series of Rock In Time, and Part I in the series of The Rock Legendary Songs.
