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Posted (edited)

My favourite rock star. Who can forget "House of the Rising Sun"?

 

(Wow, I just found out, it's 60 years ago this coming May, since it was recorded!)

 

 

Edited by onetrack
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Posted
5 hours ago, onetrack said:

Who can forget "House of the Rising Sun"?

It was not an original song by Burdon and the Animals. 

 

"The House of the Rising Sun" is a traditional folk song, sometimes called "Rising Sun Blues". The song was first collected in Appalachia in the 1930s, but probably has its roots in traditional English folk song.  In 1953, Harry Cox, an English farm labourer known for his impressive folk song repertoire, spoke of a song called "She was a Rum One"  with two possible opening verses, one beginning

If you go to Lowestoft, and ask for The Rising Sun,
There you'll find two old whores and my old woman is one.

 

"House of Rising Sun" was said to have been known by American miners in 1905. The oldest published version of the lyrics is that printed by Robert Winslow Gordon in 1925, in a column titled "Old Songs That Men Have Sung" in Adventure magazine. The lyrics of that version begin:

There is a house in New Orleans, it's called the Rising Sun
It's been the ruin of many poor girl
Great God, and I for one.

In 1941, Woody Guthrie recorded a version. Keynote Records released one by Josh White in 1942, and Decca Records released one also in 1942 with music by White and the vocals performed by Libby Holman. In late 1961, Bob Dylan recorded the song for his debut album, released in March 1962.  In an interview,  Eric Burdon revealed that he first heard the song in a club in Newcastle, England, where it was sung by the Northumbrian folk singer Johnny Handle. The Animals were on tour with Chuck Berry and chose it because they wanted something distinctive to sing.

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Posted

The instrumental, the "Entertainer" was first released in 1902. The original is classic piano rag written by Scott Joplin, and features only a honky-tonk piano with no backing.

Later versions ended up with almost a full orchestra backing. The Entertainer was amongst some of the earliest tunes available on piano rolls for player pianos, produced from 1910.

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It was about the only time me and Malcolm Fraser really agreed. I would have loved to have a song about a thieving swagman as our National Anthem. Instead we got some nonsense about "golden soil and wealth for toil" which proves that the author was a rich Sydney suburbanite who knew nothing about farming. Or overpopulation either.

 

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Posted
18 minutes ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

Who'll come a-soldiering for Marlbro with me

It does appear that the tune of Waltzing Matilda is the same. That is quite common for ditties in the folk song category. People know a tume and create the words to fit the beat.

 

Twinkle, Twinkle little star is one I can think of which is based on an earlier Classical air. 

Dvořák's Humoresque No. 7 became the setting for a series of mildly scatological humorous verses, regarding passenger train toilets, beginning:

Passengers will please refrain

From flushing toilets while the train

Is standing still within the station."

 

 

 

Hello Mudduh, Hello Fadduh!  by Allan Sherman is another. It is is set to the tune of Amilcare Ponchielli's Dance of the Hours, from the opera La Gioconda. 

 

 

 

 

I remember a cowboy song Wrap me up in my stockwhip and blanket that uses the tune of the old sea shanty Wrap me up in my tarpaulin jacket

 

 

 

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Posted
28 minutes ago, old man emu said:

I remember a cowboy song Wrap me up in my stockwhip and blanket that uses the tune of the old sea shanty Wrap me up in my tarpaulin jacket

Then there was the parody of that song, Charlotte the Harlot. The lyrics varied a bit with different versions.

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Posted
30 minutes ago, willedoo said:

Then there was the parody of that song, Charlotte the Harlot. The lyrics varied a bit with different versions.

She gets around a bit.  I remember seeing a faux gravestone in Kryal Castle, Victoria, over 30 years ago.  It had the inscription something like:

"Here lie the remains of Mary Charlotte

Born a virgin, died a harlot

For 17 years she kept her virginity

Which is almost a record in this vicinity"

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