Many Different Houses of many Rising Suns
Mar. 23rd, 2007 02:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ajvaI'm meeting up with that guitarist Spike tonight to play through a couple of things. One of the songs I thought it might be interesting to try out was that old American folk classic House of the Rising Sun. So I've been on YouTube looking at a mountain of different covers. There's a fabulous Nina Simone live version, for example, and an interesting attempt by Duran Duran.
But I saved the Animals version for last; I've not listened to it for years and it just sends shivers down the spine. That classic video where Eric Burdon lip synchs (fairly shittily, it has to be said - but hey, it was the 60s) to himself is so potent.
It's the believability of the character, I think. He carries it off so well. For all his sharp-suited crisply haircut Englishness, his eyes are like two black holes and you can just believe he's the type to go drinking, gambling and whoring himself into oblivion.
I rather suspect, given my well-publicised liking for civilised chaps who can be convincing bad boys, that I would have been an Animals groupie had I been a teenager in the 1960s. Hey-ho. ;o)
But I saved the Animals version for last; I've not listened to it for years and it just sends shivers down the spine. That classic video where Eric Burdon lip synchs (fairly shittily, it has to be said - but hey, it was the 60s) to himself is so potent.
It's the believability of the character, I think. He carries it off so well. For all his sharp-suited crisply haircut Englishness, his eyes are like two black holes and you can just believe he's the type to go drinking, gambling and whoring himself into oblivion.
I rather suspect, given my well-publicised liking for civilised chaps who can be convincing bad boys, that I would have been an Animals groupie had I been a teenager in the 1960s. Hey-ho. ;o)
