House of the Rising Sun

House of the Rising Sun is one of those karaoke staples sung by your neighborhood toma boys. Something in the same vicinity of "My Way" and maybe "The Whiter Shade of Pale" and why-why-why-Delilah.

The song's origins is uncertain, as most folk pieces are, but much has been made of that house that was the "ruin of many a poor girl." It's always been thought of as a New Orleans song, draped with scarves and red lights. The search for the real Rising Sun stretched across generations, as the song was handed over from its 1930s incarnation as a blues number, to its more popular rock version sung by The Animals in 1964.

Recently, excavations done in a parking lot unearthed a suspiciously large number of liquor bottles and rouge pots, prompting the historical organization to dig deeper, hoping to finally unearth the legendary bordello song. Interesting bits found at the site include bones of exotic animals, which added more fuel to the mystery. According to research, girls who reside in houses of ill repute are more apt to keep pets of exotic origins, most likely birds.

Quite interesting read not just for those into pop music, but also for those into archeology and sociocultural research.