One Of Folk Rock's Most-Covered Songs Has No Known Author

If you're like most people, you probably first heard "House of the Rising Sun" sung by Eric Burdon of the Animals (pictured), a '60s British invasion band that boomers are still waiting for younger generations to discover. Ominous and brooding yet playful and eccentric, the track sounds something like a demented cowboy carnival. It's perfect for acoustic guitar, which might be why it's been covered by folk rock artists again and again. They can't credit anyone with the original song, though, as it has no known author.

By the time the Animals covered "House of the Rising Sun" in 1964, it had already been in professional circulation for more than 30 years. It was first recorded in 1933 by Clarence "Tom" Ashley and Gwen Foster as a stripped-down banjo and acoustic guitar affair titled "Rising Sun Blues." The arrangement is vastly different from the Animals' version we all know, which provided the template for later covers. It's in a major key, it doesn't have the Animals' signature acoustic guitar line, and it's homey and even sweet. Ashley said the song dated back to the U.S. Civil War and got handed down to him from his grandfather, but that's where the trail grows cold. 

We at least know the song dates to a period following the founding of New Orleans in 1718, as the earliest version references the city. Its lyrics are pretty different from the Animals' version but also spin a tale of moral corruption, vice, and sin. Subsequent covers do the same, but with their own twists.

Not only do we not know who originally wrote "House of the Rising Sun" or what music they wrote to accompany the lyrics, we don't know specifically what the song is about. We mentioned moral corruption and vice, as the 1933 version talks generally about an aimless life of rambling and drinking based in New Orleans. The Animals' lyrics get more specific and paint a picture of a brothel the narrator just can't escape. Later covers have followed suit and tweaked not only the music but also the lyrics.

Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, and Joan Baez have all done their own renditions of "House of the Rising Sun," which is like a who's who of American '60s folk and folk rock. Mitchell's is painfully plaintive and changes the Animals' "Oh, mother, tell your children / Not to do what I have done" to "Go tell my baby sister / Not to do as I have done," while Dylan's version (another underrated song of his we bet you've never heard) adds, "He fills his glasses up to the brim and he'll pass the cards around." Baez's version, meanwhile, sounds soulful and desperate. 

Other cover artists include Jimi Hendrix (riffy rock), Dolly Parton (dance pop), Nina Simone (jazzy-bluesy), and Muse (operatic space-rock), all of whom made the song their own and many of whom made adjustments to the lyrics. In fact, about 870 official versions of the song have been recorded over the decades, spread out evenly all the way to the present. And to think: all this from a song that was maybe written by someone with a busted guitar in a bedroom, unknown to history.