5 Folk Rock Songs That Were Way Ahead Of Their Time

Artists like the Animals, Bob Dylan, and the Byrds are credited as the godfathers of folk rock. They added the zing of electric, the steady drums and high energy of rock 'n' roll, and the people's love to the genre, which couldn't have existed without it. As such, they helped make our list of folk songs that were ahead of their time possible, but they're not alone. Folk rock would be nowhere without the protest soul of the folk revival movement or the innovative musical approaches of rock artistry — two things that have also made this list.

The folk rock genre is exactly as it sounds: a blend of folk music with rock styling — typically folk lyricism, electric instruments, and rock 'n' roll drive. Folk music has been around as long as there have been people. Folk rock, on the other hand, didn't emerge until the mid-to-late '60s when members of the folk music revival plugged in electric guitars and rocked their way to the tops of the Billboards. Many of these early songs were revolutionary or ahead of their time. They needed to be for a new genre to spring from an old. Though those early tracks aren't the only ones that can be described as such. The evolution of folk rock was all about experimentation and evolution, after all. Check out the songs that did that best.

No one truly knows the origins of "House of the Rising Sun." The song has been around for at least a century and was first recorded by Clarence "Tom" Ashley in 1933. In 1964, the Animals released their own version of the song. Except, it wasn't pure folk or even folk blues like the versions that came before. It was folk rock, and it really put the musical genre on the map for the first time, having come out the year before Bob Dylan went electric and before the Byrds dropped "Mr. Tambourine Man" — both mentioned later in this list.

To give you an idea of this reimagined folk tune's popularity: Within a week, "House of the Rising Sun" hit No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. In less than a month after getting on the chart, it was at No. 1, where it remained for three weeks. Even today, this version has almost 1.5 billion plays on Spotify, which is massive. And, sure, popularity by itself doesn't make a song ahead of its time, but this particular No. 1 ranking lent legitimacy to the emerging genre of folk rock.

It's also worth noting that frontman Eric Burdon's voice was ahead of its time as well. The rasping, almost blues quality and high, powerful tones in competing lines sound like they came straight from a harder rock era that was still a couple of years away. Some may even say it clashed with the clean cut of the Animals' black-trimmed suites in the "House of the Rising Sun" music video.

Having come long before the sounds of blues and rock 'n' roll, folk music was partially defined by its acoustic instrumentals. It didn't have any of the zing or distortion produced by electric instruments to muddy up its old-style tunes of cultural heritage. Needless to say, folk purists weren't necessarily happy when folk rock first hit the airwaves, and many of them weren't ready for Bob Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone" or his shift to electric.

We should preface this by saying the exact crowd reaction discussed in this section is up for debate. There are several differing accounts that say different things about how this set went, but the popular legend is generally the same. In 1965, Dylan performed "Like A Rolling Stone" and a couple of other songs with the rock 'n' roll stylings of electric instrumentals at the Newport Folk Festival. The folk community, in all of its sentimentality, had held Dylan in high regard. Seemingly, not anymore. Much of the crowd booed. Some accounts even suggest the crowd went so far as to boo Dylan off stage before his set was even finished.

Now, we can't say what percentage of the crowd was boos, what was applause, and what was the silence of protest. We can, however, deduce that the world of folk wasn't ready for Dylan going electric or for the folk rock jam "Like A Rolling Stone," making it undoubtedly ahead of its time.

When you listen to Steeleye Span's rendition of "Gaudete," your mind naturally awaits the drop of a wild, rapid-tempo drum beat from a modern heavy metal track, but it never comes. That's because the song isn't heavy metal. It's an ominous-sounding folk rock song that's ahead of its time for being significantly behind its time, in a sense.

Steeleye Span's version of this song came out in 1972, a few years after folk rock had really broken onto the scene. "Gaudete," however, is actually a Latin Christmas carol that dates back to the 16th century. What's more, Steeleye Span does this entire track acapella — not a single electric guitar or other instrumental you'd expect to hear in folk rock. Still, the arrangement is clearly rock. You can feel the epic, almost medieval music course through you as if it's a power metal ballad or something.

It's hard to put your finger on exactly why, but this 1582 song sounds exceptionally modern for a song revisited in the early 1970s. Probably the way the hollow acoustic sounds of the vocal reverb and harmony expertly flood your senses. The tempo and drive, likewise, don't feel like a folk song or a classical hymn either. They're sharper like more contemporary rock, yet powerfully timeless.

Bob Dylan and the Byrds were both ahead of their time in much the same way by being some of the first hit artists to put electric sound and rock drive into folk music. They were some of the true pioneers of the genre, and oddly enough, one of the classics written by Bob Dylan but then covered by the Byrds is what some deem responsible for the entire folk rock genre.

Several sources attribute the official rise of the folk rock genre to the Byrds and their cover of "Mr. Tambourine Man," though with Dylan moving towards more commercial rock, the genre seemed inevitable. Then again, co-founder of the Byrds David Crosby told Rolling Stone that it was their electric versions of Dylan's songs that convinced him to go electric in the first place.

Whether or not the Byrds officially started folk rock, they brought aspects to the newly emerging genre other artists hadn't imagined yet. A couple prime examples are the use of Roger McGuinn's electric 12-string, a sound often referred to as distinctly "jangly," and a steady rock rhythm that wasn't always popular in folk music.

Most of the songs on this list were ahead of their time for their music stylings or contributions to the origins of the folk rock genre. "Eve of Destruction" by Barry McGuire is on this list because the lyrics and subject matter were so controversial that it received radio bans and got the FBI involved.

"Eve of Destruction" came out just months after U.S. boots hit the ground in Vietnam in 1965. The Cold War was filling the air with a sense of impending doom. A racist society was fighting against the Civil Rights Movement. Rebellions and bloody conflicts were waging around the globe, sadly and much like they always have. And the lyrics of McGuire's song condemned these things — spoke out about war with a warning that "there'll be no one to save with the world in a grave."

Most of us understand that war is bad to one degree or another, and folk music is built on protest, but countries don't tend to like these two ideas coming together when they're directly involved in wars the people are protesting. Before long, "Eve of Destruction" became one of the classic rock songs banned from radio stations across the U.S. and Britain. McGuire would even claim in a later interview that the song led to the FBI "checking [him] out." It's pretty difficult to get your hands on documents confirming whether or not McGuire was a person of interest, but with the FBI of the '60s, it wouldn't be surprising.