Home  House Of The Rising Sun - Traditional Lyrics  Printer Friendly

There is a house in New Orleans They call the Rising Sun.
It's been the ruin of many a poor girl, and me, O God, for one.

If I had listened what Mamma said, I'd 'a' been at home today.
Being so young and foolish, poor boy, let a rambler lead me astray.

Go tell my baby sister never do like I have done.
To shun that house in New Orleans they call the Rising Sun.

My mother she's a tailor; she sold those new blue jeans.
My sweetheart, he's a drunkard, Lord, Lord, drinks down in New Orleans.

The only thing a drunkard needs is a suitcase and a trunk.
The only time he's satisfied is when he's on a drunk.

Fills his glasses to the brim, passes them around.
Only pleasure he gets out of life is hoboin' from town to town.

One foot is on the platform and the other one on the train.
I'm going back to New Orleans to wear that ball and chain.

Going back to New Orleans, my race is almost run.
Going back to spend the rest of my days beneath that Rising Sun.
When I was young, a few years back, us lads who thought we could play guitar had to master the first few bars of this tune. Back in the early 1920s, the name "Rising Sun" was attributed to brothels. The traditional version of "The House of the Rising Sun" speaks, not of a boy's experience, but of a girl's. Fact was, the Animals did not write "The House of the Rising Sun" If you look at the really small print on their 1966 album, The Best of the Animals, you'll find it was only arranged by Burdon / Chandler / Price / Steele / Valentine. According to folklorist Alan Lomax in his book Our Singing Country (1941), the melody of "The House of the Rising Run" is a traditional English tune and the lyrics were written by Georgia Turner and Bert Martin (both from Kentucky). Above are the traditional lyrics from Lomax's book. Did the House of the Rising Sun ever really exist? A guidebook called Offbeat New Orleans asserts: "The real House of the Rising Sun was at 826-830 St. Louis Street, between 1862 and 1874 and was named for its madam, Marianne LeSoleil Levant, whose surname translates to The Rising Sun". But no one knows for certain.

House of the Rising Sun has got to be the finest song ever written. Not for its content, but for its lack threreof, for its malleability. When a person, regardless how musically inclined, hears that song, they instantly invent their own rendition, somehow improving it. Though the song has no known author, it has a thousand contributors, and for that reason it becomes less a piece of art than an outpouring of creation, an expression of whatever common bond we all share.

The thing about HRS is that we can all relate to it in one way or another. We all live in a house of sin and shame and feel as if there is no escape. At best, without a Saviour, we can only hope that our good deeds will outweigh our sin in the day of judgment. Some of us just live in denial, and choose do believe there will be no day of judgment, or even that there is a God. This is indeed a true folk song with no apparent original author. It is a gift given to us to express our hearts.

Here's my presentation of an old classic. I had heard Amazing Grace sung to the tune of HRS, but I'd never heard the two put together before. It seemed appropriate to me, because it states both the problem (we were lost in sin) and the solution (we are saved by grace).

There is a house in New Orleans
They call The Rising Sun.
And it's been the ruin of many-a poor boy,
And God I know I'm one.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.

My mother was a tailor.
She sewed my new blue jeans.
My father was a gambling man
Down in New Orleans.

'Tis grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved.
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.

Now the only thing a gambler needs
Is a suitcase and a trunk;
And the only time that he's satisfied
Is when he's on a drunk.

Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come
'Tis grace that brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

Now mother, tell your children
Not to do what I have done;
To spend your life in sin and misery
In the House of the Rising Sun.

When we've been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Then when we first begun!

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