"House of the Rising Sun" by Cheryl Shantz

A Piano and Instrumental arrangement of the folksong "House of The Rising Sun" by composer Cheryl Shantz. While the origin of "The House of the Rising Sun" is uncertain, some musicologists trace it to an 18th century broadside (a 16th to 19th century newspaper) ballad that was taken to America by early settlers. The song might have been lost to obscurity had it not been collected by folklorist Alan Lomax. Lomax and his father were curators of the Archive of America Folk Song for the Library of Congress from 1932 and they collected several versions of the song. In 1948, Huddie Ledbetter, known as Lead Belly, recorded a version called "In New Orleans" in the sessions that later became the album Lead Belly's Last Sessions. One popular version was done in 1964 by the British rock group The Animals. Alan Price of The Animals claimed that the song was originally a 16th century English folksong about a Soho brothel, and that English emigrants took the song to America where it was adapted to its later New Orleans setting. Various places in New Orleans and Louisiana have been proposed as the inspiration for the song. The phrase "House of the Rising Sun" refers to a brothel, but it is not known whether the house described in the lyrics was an actual or fictitious place. One theory speculated that the song is about a daughter who killed her father, an alcoholic gambler who had beaten his wife. Therefore, the House of the Rising Sun may be a prison, from which one would be the first person to see the sun rise (an idea supported by the lyric mentioning "a ball and chain," although that phrase has been used as slang to describe marital relationships for at least as long as the song has been in print). Because the song was often sung by women, another theory is that the House of the Rising Sun was where prostitutes were detained while they were treated for syphilis. To see a listing of other folksong arrangements by Cheryl Shantz, visit the following website: http://cshantz.blogspot.com/ To see a listing of her original song compositions, visit the following website: http://cmshantz.blogspot.com/ For a listing of Cheryl Shantz's compositions for full orchestra visit: http://www.cherylshantz.blogspot.com/

Lyrics:

There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Risin' Sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy.
And God, I know I'm one.

My mother was a tailor.
She sewed my new blue jeans.
My father was a gamblin' man
Down in New Orleans.

Now, the only thing a gambler needs
Is a suitcase and a trunk
And the only time that he's satisfied
Is when he's on a drunk

Oh, Mother, tell your children
Not to do what I have done.
Spend your lives in sin and misery
In the house of the risin' sun.

Well, I've got one foot on the platform.
the other foot on the train.
I'm goin' back to New Orleans
To wear that ball and chain.

Well, there is a house in New Orleans
They call the Risin' Sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy.
And God, I know I'm one.