I always loved the 1977 disco version by HOT R.S.
Hey, this clip is from the Jimmy Saville hosted Pop Gear! Bet that’s not going to get a complete re-release for a long time.
I went to see Burdon in concert around 15 years ago; he was obviously a little drunk, and fell off the stage during the set. It didn’t seem to phase him.
I expect that there’s lots of pubs called the Rising Sun but there’s one in Eltham that puts this darn track in my head every time I see it. It never occurred to me that there’s a slim chance that it could have been THE house of the rising sun (I’ll have to check to see if it has stood for that long under that name, or you know, not bother), I always thought that it’d be more of a western style saloon with prostitutes and gunslingers everywhere.
Dear God that’s awful.
Burdon was 23 when he recorded this, and his voice and facial expression already had the grizzled gravitas belonging to someone with a lifetime of hard living and existential tragedy behind him.
Plus, everyone in that video looks hungover as hell.
I like the guitarist cracking up near the very end.
Fuck Eric Burdon. I was working backstage at a blues festival a number of years ago and he was the headliner. He was a major league asshole to everyone backstage, cut the set short and trashed his hotel room. Prick.
It’s the first version I heard, so I think it’s brilliant. I love the electronic bassline.
Perhaps another (arguably not) Dylan-popularised tune mangled more to your taste?
PubsHistory puts the first registered owner at 1832, and Hidden-London mentions it briefly as Later 18th Century, which is late 1700s.
Whenever this song comes on the car radio I crank it up to 11. Still gives me the chills. One of the best rock tunes ever. Thanks for posting this.
My favorite version:
Love that version. Love that video too with the careful camerawork, careful walking around choreography and the trying to present those wild young musicians as somber suit wearing somethings. The late 60’s just so ready to breakout from all that control.
I remember reading that the song’s origin was not as a song but as a church sponsored anti-white slavery pamphlet from the late 1890’s. What we would call anti-trafficking now a days. It had all these emotional appeals and hooks built in. It speaks about all this sin, regret, ruin. Sadly my google-fu fails me and I can’t find such and article to prove others what I think I know. Can’t find an article from years ago.
Wow… I told my son they had another hit… I’m just a soul something something good, and he said, “intentions are good, dad.” I guess The Animals are not forgotten!
Oh mother, tell your children
Not to do what I have done
Spend your lives in sin and misery
In the House of the Rising Sun
One of my favorite songs ever. Love it when they just jam on the organ.
Never saw a video for it. Very cool.
I miss the radio of my youth. My parents would listen to oldies stations on trips to grandmas etc. So I grew up listening to the classics of the 50s and 60s. Some really, really good music that never gets played around here. All the oldies stations are 70s/80s stations with maybe a few dips into the 60s.
That would be Alan Price – dig this:
I actually heard of him years before I found out who The Animals were (or, later, that Price had been a member). My dad had heard “Left Over People” on the radio, and brought the album home. I was about 4 or 5 when this came out.
On a similar note, I knew about Paul Simon before I knew about Simon & Garfunkel, and I assumed he had always looked like this:
Good jerb! I’ll be well chuffed if that’s the one them younguns are singing about.
It’s
###so
##fucking
#good!
