Leadbelly - House of the Rising Sun
Nina Simone - The House of The Rising Sun
Odetta Live in concert 2005, "House of the Rising Sun"
The Animals - House Of The Rising Sun
Full Disclosure: I put the Animals last, because that's usually the only version people know.
I picked the others because of their differences. I grew up with both the Leadbelly and the Animals version playing in my house. The Leadbelly's a good representation of some of the oldest versions and shows what it sounded like before the Animals did their radical rearrangement. The Nina Simone is iconic and really different. The Odetta is a good representation of what some of the later versions that reclaimed the women's perspective lyrics do and is frankly beautiful in itself.
I love all of these. Each one makes the song their own. This is no shade on the versions I didn't pick. If we played every recorded version this would take forever.
There are way more versions than are presented here. No one really knows exactly how old this song is and there is some debate even about whether it's about a brothel, gambling den, etc. since by the time people started recording it there were versions with different ruins including male and female versions.
Who Sang it Better?
Leadbelly - House of the Rising Sun
Nina Simone - The House of The Rising Sun
Odetta Live in concert 2005, "House of the Rising Sun"
The Animals - House Of The Rising Sun
Voting ended onMar 4, 2025
romaincrisis
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