Traditional · Key of Am · Public domain
Opens in the Chord Sheet Maker: transpose to your key, change chords, add strumming patterns, or print a clean copy. No account needed to start.
House of the Rising Sun is one of the great mysteries of American folk music. Nobody knows who wrote it, and its origins reach back through Appalachian oral tradition, possibly to much older English broadside ballads. The earliest known recording was cut in September 1933 by Appalachian musicians Clarence "Tom" Ashley and Gwen Foster under the title Rising Sun Blues, and Ashley claimed he had learned the song from his grandfather, which would place it in the era of the Civil War. In 1937 the folklorist Alan Lomax recorded a 16-year-old Kentucky miner's daughter named Georgia Turner singing it, and her version became the template for most of what followed.
The song tells of a life ruined in New Orleans, sung as a warning. In the traditional versions collected in the 1930s the narrator is usually a woman, which is how this chart presents it. The Animals' famous 1964 electric arrangement changed the narrator to a man and turned the song into a worldwide number one, but the words and melody here are the traditional ones that belong to everybody.
The song moves in a rolling 6/8 feel. Arpeggiate each chord (low string first, then let the upper strings ring) and the accompaniment plays itself. The Am, C, D, F, E7 progression is one of the most beloved chord sequences for beginners: every change teaches a useful transition, and the E7 pulling back to Am at the end of each verse is a perfect first lesson in tension and release.
Prefer tab notation? Play the House of the Rising Sun guitar tab
Further reading: A Brief History of the House of the Rising Sun (American Blues Scene)
