Not only does Eff The Elite D-Bags have a fantastic blog title, but he has a great post about his upcoming trip to New Orleans that he set to music. The song of course is The House of the Rising Sun
Of course the most popular version was the one made by The Animals, catchy, but never manages to excite me more than a little.
My favorite is the Bob Dylan version:
What’s interesting is according to stories I’ve heard, Dylan was heavily inspired by a version done by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Van_Ronk“>Dave Van Ronk, who felt a bit ripped off by how close Bobby Zim cribbed it. Of course later the Animals based their version on Dylan’s, so fair-is-fair. 🙂
The wife prefers the Nina Simone version which is far too slow for my tastes, and of course it lacks the pack-a-day folk-voice of Bobby Z!
One neat song to add to the mix is the Blind Boys of Alabama’s version of Amazing Grace
They had the brilliant idea of taking the Van Ronk et al chord progression and rhythm, and sing Amazing Grace over it. Makes for an interesting contrast given that House of the Rising Sun is about corruption and downfall, and Amazing Grace is about redemption.
Well there’s a smattering of songs for y’all! Enjoy!
That IS an interesting mix of music! And brings back some memories too! 🙂
That Blind Boys of Alabama version is awesome.
And while we’re talking about Amazing Grace, what’s with WV = “ZU4L”?
Zuhl? C’mon, dude …