The House of the Rising Sun

I first heard The House of the Rising Sun as performed by Eric Burdon and the Animals in 1964.  I heard the song while riding in a car with both of my parents and three of my four sisters.  I remember staring at the radio—embedded in a chrome grill within the dash of the car—amazed by the power of the song radiating from there.  Hooked by the first three notes and then grasped by the soulful voice of Eric Burdon, the song froze me as I listened from the back seat of that car.  I was eight years old at that time.  And from that day on I have considered the song may favorite.

In the time since that day, I have had other songs stop me cold like that—freeze me with their power and beauty.  I can tell you exactly where I was and what I was doing when I first heard them.  As example, while driving down Eleventh Avenue in Helena one day in 1979, I heard Sting screeching the opening of the song Roxanne.  Within a block of first hearing that, I pulled my car off into a parking lot and listened until the song ended.  The song Sweet Dreams by the Eurythmics woke me one morning on my radio alarm.  Years later, while driving to work in the deep blue of predawn, I heard an obscure but haunting song performed by a relatively unknown Native American artist.  That song, Glitter Nights, so haunted me, I spent four years seeking the song until I finally found the name of the artist and the song and then located a CD with the song included.

At this stage of my life—with nearly fifty more years of musical inputs behind me—the chances of me abandoning The House of the Rising Sun song as my favorite seem unlikely.  Even within the last year I had one occasion when hearing the song on my truck’s radio forced me to pull over to the side of the road so I could close my eyes and listen.

What is the power in that song?

Absolutely everything.

Every word and every note strikes at the perfect time and finds the perfect emotion.

A funny thing, all of that.  The song is of uncertain origins.  The first recorded versions were captured in the 1930’s by artists who performed in the Appalachian Folk Music movement.  Some indications suggest that the song is rooted to an 18^th century English Ballad.  Nobody has been given credit for writing the song.

That song belongs to the universe.

--Mitchell Hegman

The House:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwAw9ThDQmk