It tells of a person's life gone wrong in the city of New Orleans. Many versions also urge a sibling or parents and children to avoid the same fate. The song was first collected in Appalachia in the s, but probably has its roots in traditional English folk song. It is listed as number in the Roud Folk Song Index. Like many folk songs, "The House of the Rising Sun" is of uncertain authorship.
Musicologists say that it is based on the tradition of broadside ballads , and thematically it has some resemblance to the 16th-century ballad " The Unfortunate Rake " also cited as source material for " St.
James Infirmary Blues " , yet there is no evidence suggesting that there is any direct relation. Lomax also noted that "Rising Sun" was the name of a bawdy house in two traditional English songs, and a name for English pubs, [ 8 ] and proposed that the location of the house was then relocated from England to the US by Southern performers. If you go to Lowestoft , and ask for The Rising Sun, There you'll find two old whores and my old woman is one.
The recording Lomax made of Harry Cox is available online. It is considered extremely unlikely that Cox was aware of the American song. Meanwhile, folklorist Vance Randolph proposed an alternative French origin, the "rising sun" referring to the decorative use of the sunburst insignia dating to the time of Louis XIV , which was brought to North America by French immigrants.
The oldest known recording of the song, under the title "Rising Sun Blues", is by Appalachian artists Clarence "Tom" Ashley and Gwen Foster , who recorded it on September 6, , on the Vocalion label Roy Acuff , an "early-day friend and apprentice" of Clarence Ashley's, learned it from him and recorded it as "Rising Sun" on November 3, The narrative of the lyrics has varied between male and female narrators.
