House of the Rising Sun Lyrics
There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it's been the ruin of many poor soul
And, Lord, my father's one
My mother, she's a tailor
She sews those new blue jeans
To keep my gambling father drunk
Deep down in New Orleans
[Chorus]
It's a happy happy happy happy fun day day
[Verse 2]
Like a bird flying over forest fire
My father feels the heat beneath his wings
And in debt he leaves for another town
Where he gambles and, drunk, he still drinks
My mother hides from pleasure
And thinks of Father on her knees
Lifted in the arms of God
Away from New Orleans
[Chorus]
Happy happy happy happy fun day day
Happy happy happy happy fun day day
About
The May 2017 issue of Q Magazine described this song as a cover and mentioned that it features contributions from twenty classical guitarists. Before the song became available alt-J hid a YouTube link to The Animals' well-known version of the folk song in their website’s exploration game but in an interview with Philadelphia’s Radio 104.5 keyboardist Gus Unger-Hamilton described the song as “not a cover of The Animals” but rather “sort of our version of the folk song”. In a later interview, he added that the second verse and chorus of their version are original and that “it’s an original piece of work and not just chucking in a cover to fill space as it were”.
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
We have always seen ourselves as a bit of a folk band, and so it seems fitting to try our hands at a song like this. No one knows for sure where this song originated, but our version is very much set in New Orleans. The first verse is mostly from the folk song, the second is our own, thus continuing the folk process of taking a song, changing it, and passing it on.
–NPR
alt-J consider it more their own take on this song than a cover, yes. A little more than half of the lyrics in this version are original.
The band weren’t even offended when NPR’s Ari Shapiro told them it was his favorite song on the album:
Ari Shapiro: I hope it doesn’t sound rude, but I think one of my favorite tracks on this album is actually your cover of “House of the Rising Sun.”
Joe Newman: No, I think that’s great. We are a folk band and we’ve taken a very old folk song and we’ve kind of reimagined it.
Ari Shapiro: There are lyrics I’ve never heard before and I didn’t know if they were lyrics from an early version of the song that I just wasn’t familiar with, or if you’d written them yourself. But this line, “Like a bird flying over a forest fire, my father feels the heat beneath his wings.” That just stopped me dead.
Gus Unger-Hamilton: That’s original, original stuff. Joe wrote a second verse for it, and the first verse of our version is based on Woody Guthrie’s version. And then there’s the chorus which we wrote, and the second verse. So it’s more original material than cover really, this song.
