Great post. Had never cottoned to that symbolism, that New Orleans is where virtually every waterway in middle America ends up, right before they join the infinite ocean, the end of the line for everyone that gives up. You have to wonder if NO occupied a subliminal dark place in midwestern and midsouthern psyches. You could get sold downriver. Or you could just drift there.
I also feel compelled to note that in the version Woody Guthrie recorded, and in the first known recording made of this song (folklorist Alan Lomax recording Kentuckian Georgia Turner), the speaker is a woman, and it’s implied she’s a prostitute/has been trafficked. See more here:
The very first time I heard the song, despite it being The Animals' version, the instinctive vibe I got from the song was that the House of the Rising Sun was a brothel.
The lyrics make the most sense if that is true — voiced by a woman, who was trapped in a life of prostitution. The words sin and ruin, for example, and even a place called “House of the Rising Sun.” That’s a brothel name.
Of course, songs are open for interpretation. When The Animals sang this, it was assumed to be about drug addiction.
I am sorry to learn about your brother. Wondering how many thousands of miles of navigable streams and rivers ultimately end up in New Orleans, and the forgotten parts of the stories that drifted to shore somewhere along the way. Dig in those mud banks and you might find words. Or maybe the words are always there but it takes floodwaters to free them, and some get tangled into legible rafts that form songs or stories before they reach the gulf.
Enjoyed the read Thank you!!! My family was recorded by Lomax in 1940. I easily know over a thousand songs by heart. I am a in-my-time flame keeper of the old songs and their place in my lived culture. I perform about 175 concerts a year. And yes I know HotRS
For me it was “Pete’s”. The store where my grandma wld walk to all by herself. I see her pulling a small cart, her head down as she walked past our house. My dad wld bitch that ‘she never stops to visit…she’s got g’damn grandchildren in this house and she just walks by every time’. Then one day I pushed open the screen door and ran out to join her. I don’t remember the conversation. I don’t remember if she even looked up whn I joined her….but we became two travelers on our way to discover sights, sounds, smells, thoughts, and conversations that I could not even recall 70 yrs later. I just know that over months over our travels we watched the construction of the new St Rita’s Church….the scaffolding, the tile floors, and then the placement of magnificent stained glass windows waaaay up high. And then the crowning glory for me was across the street at Pete’s. An old skool, everything you need on long & tall overloaded shelves. The meat department was waaay down the aisle where Grandma wld give Pete her order for the day. Don’t know what that even could’ve been. I do remember she cooked liver and onions. And that she ate liverwurst sandwiches and drank Brown Derby beer. But to this day whenever I go by those coffee bean grinder machines in a store I flashback to Pete’s and the smell that hit me at the front door
After a youth spent growing up (while feeling deprived) in the Ozarks, I embarked on seeing the world and what life had to offer. Following a non-illustrious era in Vietnam, I chose formal education. My studies led me to medical school in New Orleans and I remained for the next 30 years. The nostalgia you elicited within me is indescribable.
My House of the Rising Sun was Jack Daniels, and I thank Almighty God for helping me step off that train prior to the final destination, which was approaching like a T-Rex in the rear view mirror. It’s now been 29 years.
As strange as it may seem, I don’t look back on it with regret, because I learned-deeply. The only kind of learning that an individual can experience as with holding a cat by its tail. I have deep ties to the city and visit my son there frequently, although I now am only about 60 miles southeast of you.
Thank you for stirring my soul. I need a good shaking now and then.
Some years ago I ran a community service program in Houston. To those guys who wanted to talk, I’d ask them what they did, though I had their offenses on file. I was interested in how they framed it. There was an even split between those who considered themselves victims of circumstances and those who wanted to own their decisions. I liked most of the guys.
As a subtle joke, and a reprieve from my enforced playlist of Willie & Waylon, I’d like to play Leadbelly’s version of “The Midnight Special”:
Excellent piece. America has evolved into a place where half the population has become rootless - generations removed from life in the country / small town - while the other half still remembers. I grew up in a small city (Wichita) but my grandparents were in the country (one set on a farm in Kansas, the other in rural Mississippi and then Tennessee), so have the connection. Some of the trends of the past decades are from people trying to create roots and identities to replace what was no longer remembered. When I was in college in Texas, I knew people from New Orleans (city folk) and from "upstate" Louisiana (country folk). Your point about the unique fusion laboratory that was American music - most striking in the decades after the civil war - is very true. It had inputs from European folk music, African folk music, and (with New Orleans as a main point) music from the Caribbean and South America. I think the combination of so many different traditions is what has made it universally appealing.
Some parts of the fusion were hard to predict: there are a number of Cowboy folk songs ("Old Paint") credited to the African-American cowboy Charley Willis - recording a cattle drive to Wyoming. I saw the lyrics in the journal/book I am following for the 250th (Discovering America Again by MacCutcheon and Duncan). They used to call America the melting pot, but it is really more like a blender - the pieces are torn up and mixed together but you can still see the traces of where they came from!
I’m glad to discover your work. The roots of the oral tradition stretch back to antiquity out of our dreams where the banjo and bagpipes linger in the freezing mist and the forest.
Beautifully written, James. Leaves me ready to read the whole book. I identify with your experience. I grew up in Illinois. No, not Chicago. I was 150 miles south of Chicago, yet people will still leap to the conclusion that I am from Chicago. Funny thing about Illinois, most of it is remote, quiet countryside, with tractors, combines, corn and soybeans. A lot of young people have a similar experience to the very rural one you describe, even though there is technology beckoning. The call of the House of the Rising Sun beckons to them as well. If their anchor isn't firmly imbedded in the rich black soil, they eventually begin to migrate. But the songs they grew up with go with them.
I love this post and I love this song. I also know it as performed by The Animals and Eric Burton but because it is so very old, I am guessing that it may have been written by a woman, a prostitute who dreams of escaping "the life". Women who wrote anything, let alone a prostitute who wrote anything, were rarely credited. It could be that one of your "travelers" heard it and went off with it in his repertoire
New Orleans is a strange and mystical place, a mix of so many slices of history.
The news of your brother made me sad. It's so hard to leave addiction behind, to survive its' ravages. I'm sorry you lost him.
Great post. Had never cottoned to that symbolism, that New Orleans is where virtually every waterway in middle America ends up, right before they join the infinite ocean, the end of the line for everyone that gives up. You have to wonder if NO occupied a subliminal dark place in midwestern and midsouthern psyches. You could get sold downriver. Or you could just drift there.
The genius.
Thanks for this, James!
I also feel compelled to note that in the version Woody Guthrie recorded, and in the first known recording made of this song (folklorist Alan Lomax recording Kentuckian Georgia Turner), the speaker is a woman, and it’s implied she’s a prostitute/has been trafficked. See more here:
https://www.americanbluesscene.com/2011/11/a-brief-history-of-house-of-the-rising-sun/
The very first time I heard the song, despite it being The Animals' version, the instinctive vibe I got from the song was that the House of the Rising Sun was a brothel.
The lyrics make the most sense if that is true — voiced by a woman, who was trapped in a life of prostitution. The words sin and ruin, for example, and even a place called “House of the Rising Sun.” That’s a brothel name.
Of course, songs are open for interpretation. When The Animals sang this, it was assumed to be about drug addiction.
I am sorry to learn about your brother. Wondering how many thousands of miles of navigable streams and rivers ultimately end up in New Orleans, and the forgotten parts of the stories that drifted to shore somewhere along the way. Dig in those mud banks and you might find words. Or maybe the words are always there but it takes floodwaters to free them, and some get tangled into legible rafts that form songs or stories before they reach the gulf.
Wow. Beautiful words, Clark.
Very poetically put.
Enjoyed the read Thank you!!! My family was recorded by Lomax in 1940. I easily know over a thousand songs by heart. I am a in-my-time flame keeper of the old songs and their place in my lived culture. I perform about 175 concerts a year. And yes I know HotRS
Wow! You’re the real deal, then?
Yes I am 5th generation of 7 music makers and flame keepers.
That’s amazing. Wish we could hear that old recording somewhere!
I'm a writer from New Orleans, and I want to thank you for capturing something I've never been able to put my finger on.
For me it was “Pete’s”. The store where my grandma wld walk to all by herself. I see her pulling a small cart, her head down as she walked past our house. My dad wld bitch that ‘she never stops to visit…she’s got g’damn grandchildren in this house and she just walks by every time’. Then one day I pushed open the screen door and ran out to join her. I don’t remember the conversation. I don’t remember if she even looked up whn I joined her….but we became two travelers on our way to discover sights, sounds, smells, thoughts, and conversations that I could not even recall 70 yrs later. I just know that over months over our travels we watched the construction of the new St Rita’s Church….the scaffolding, the tile floors, and then the placement of magnificent stained glass windows waaaay up high. And then the crowning glory for me was across the street at Pete’s. An old skool, everything you need on long & tall overloaded shelves. The meat department was waaay down the aisle where Grandma wld give Pete her order for the day. Don’t know what that even could’ve been. I do remember she cooked liver and onions. And that she ate liverwurst sandwiches and drank Brown Derby beer. But to this day whenever I go by those coffee bean grinder machines in a store I flashback to Pete’s and the smell that hit me at the front door
I want to hear more, B. Gallagher.
Love this. My big brother, too, unfortunately. So sorry.
I’m so glad I found you, James.
You have spoken deeply to my heart.
After a youth spent growing up (while feeling deprived) in the Ozarks, I embarked on seeing the world and what life had to offer. Following a non-illustrious era in Vietnam, I chose formal education. My studies led me to medical school in New Orleans and I remained for the next 30 years. The nostalgia you elicited within me is indescribable.
My House of the Rising Sun was Jack Daniels, and I thank Almighty God for helping me step off that train prior to the final destination, which was approaching like a T-Rex in the rear view mirror. It’s now been 29 years.
As strange as it may seem, I don’t look back on it with regret, because I learned-deeply. The only kind of learning that an individual can experience as with holding a cat by its tail. I have deep ties to the city and visit my son there frequently, although I now am only about 60 miles southeast of you.
Thank you for stirring my soul. I need a good shaking now and then.
Some years ago I ran a community service program in Houston. To those guys who wanted to talk, I’d ask them what they did, though I had their offenses on file. I was interested in how they framed it. There was an even split between those who considered themselves victims of circumstances and those who wanted to own their decisions. I liked most of the guys.
As a subtle joke, and a reprieve from my enforced playlist of Willie & Waylon, I’d like to play Leadbelly’s version of “The Midnight Special”:
“If you're ever in Houston
Well, you better do right
You better not gamble
There, you better not fight, at all
Or the sheriff will grab ya
And the boys will bring you down
The next thing you know, boy
Whoa, you're prison bound”
Stevie Winwood did a great version with the Spencer Davis Group too.
Excellent piece. America has evolved into a place where half the population has become rootless - generations removed from life in the country / small town - while the other half still remembers. I grew up in a small city (Wichita) but my grandparents were in the country (one set on a farm in Kansas, the other in rural Mississippi and then Tennessee), so have the connection. Some of the trends of the past decades are from people trying to create roots and identities to replace what was no longer remembered. When I was in college in Texas, I knew people from New Orleans (city folk) and from "upstate" Louisiana (country folk). Your point about the unique fusion laboratory that was American music - most striking in the decades after the civil war - is very true. It had inputs from European folk music, African folk music, and (with New Orleans as a main point) music from the Caribbean and South America. I think the combination of so many different traditions is what has made it universally appealing.
Some parts of the fusion were hard to predict: there are a number of Cowboy folk songs ("Old Paint") credited to the African-American cowboy Charley Willis - recording a cattle drive to Wyoming. I saw the lyrics in the journal/book I am following for the 250th (Discovering America Again by MacCutcheon and Duncan). They used to call America the melting pot, but it is really more like a blender - the pieces are torn up and mixed together but you can still see the traces of where they came from!
I'm sorry for your loss, James. What a beautiful tribute to all the seekers out there; I know I'm one.
I’m glad to discover your work. The roots of the oral tradition stretch back to antiquity out of our dreams where the banjo and bagpipes linger in the freezing mist and the forest.
Hauntingly beautiful, mournful, Biblical.
Truly one of the most memorable songs ever, but I didn't know its origins.
Now, it all makes sense.
Beautifully written, James. Leaves me ready to read the whole book. I identify with your experience. I grew up in Illinois. No, not Chicago. I was 150 miles south of Chicago, yet people will still leap to the conclusion that I am from Chicago. Funny thing about Illinois, most of it is remote, quiet countryside, with tractors, combines, corn and soybeans. A lot of young people have a similar experience to the very rural one you describe, even though there is technology beckoning. The call of the House of the Rising Sun beckons to them as well. If their anchor isn't firmly imbedded in the rich black soil, they eventually begin to migrate. But the songs they grew up with go with them.
well hell. I need to subscribe to this magazine. but I am broke. maybe I’ll go down to the blood bank, don’t think it’s to soon to give plasma again.
and yeah, great piece. I live in the area so this is right in my neck of da woods, literally.
I love this post and I love this song. I also know it as performed by The Animals and Eric Burton but because it is so very old, I am guessing that it may have been written by a woman, a prostitute who dreams of escaping "the life". Women who wrote anything, let alone a prostitute who wrote anything, were rarely credited. It could be that one of your "travelers" heard it and went off with it in his repertoire
New Orleans is a strange and mystical place, a mix of so many slices of history.
The news of your brother made me sad. It's so hard to leave addiction behind, to survive its' ravages. I'm sorry you lost him.
Beautiful writing