The Animals - The House Of The Rising Sun (1964)

Everyone knows the first major event of The British Invasion was the historic February 9, 1964, Ed Sullivan show where The Beatles played an opening and closing set of their hits, some already on the charts of the US since January and in Canada since December 1963. They would appear again the next two Sunday nights with opening and closing sets. But who remembers the second? It was, of course, the first major international #1 hit single by a British band other than The Beatles: The Animals. The song was “The House Of The Rising Sun,“ based on an old American folk song itself traced to several similar ballads sung in 16th and 17th Century England where “Rising Sun“ was used as the name of a house of prostitution. In some versions the hapless singer is a girl trapped forever in the oldest profession, and in others a man who contracts a venereal disease at a bawdy house and lies dying, bewailing the fact that had he known what was wrong with him in time he would have treated himself with mercury. As the song progressed through the 20th Century it generally indicates a man or woman hopelessly addicted to their respective lifestyles revolving around a New Orleans brothel called The Rising Sun. For me the story sounded eerily familiar to the 1962 film, Walk On The Wild Side ... parts of which are featured in the video, along with a few other films with related themes and scenes. In The Animals’ version the verses are supposedly changed to a tale about a man whose father was a gambler and drunkard, the “house“ now presumably a gambling house. Still, the lyrics are general enough and make no direct mention to a gambling house, only to say that the man is a gambler. Gamblers were often known to frequent houses of prostitution, some which also were gambling casinos, which gives us a man hopelessly in love with a prostitute and forever ensnared by gambling and alcohol addictions as well. At least that’s how it seems to me, quite like the film I mentioned. The single was released in June 1964 in the UK and August 1964 in the US. It reached #1 on the UK Singles Chart on July 1, 1964, and #1 in the US on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Cash Box Top 100 charts on September 5, 1964. It remained #1 on both US charts for three consecutive weeks. It also soared to #1 on RPM Magazine in Canada. It is considered by most rock historians as the first folk rock hit.