There is a house in New Orleans

Who wrote “House of the Rising Sun?”

It mysteriously popped up in the Appalachian mountains a hundred years ago.

It has been performed by many artists, including Joan Baez, Nina Simone, Bob Dylan, and The Animals.

The lyrics tell the story of a mythical place in New Orleans–the house of the rising sun–which consumes all who enter it.

It’s a song about addiction, pleasure, and how those forces took someone the singer loves–and how badly they want to warn others not to go there.

But where did it begin?

How folk songs are born

Long before radio, people passed folk songs around in the Appalachia hills by word of mouth.

The songs would evolve as they moved around the land like a giant game of Chinese telephone.

Songs written like this — by decentralized propagation — tend toward archetypal and mythical.

Only the lyrics and melodies that shake the bottom of the soul linger in the mind long enough to be passed along to the next singer, and “The House of the Rising Sun” was a particularly memorable song.

The oldest remaining recording belongs to Clarence “Tom” Ashely.