House of the Rising Sun

(The Animals, 1964)

The other night at Tyler's graduation party this song came on. Our genius friend, Steve, asked me if I knew who sang it. I promptly called over Kate, who immediately knew the answer, even though the song was written 18 years before she was born. She's funny like that. And very much her father's daughter. I know a lot of music; she likes a lot of music. Big difference. Right now, Ron's in the other room asleep with the radio on, and there's a trumpet screaming some sort of obscenity that's supposed to pass for jazz. Don't get me started on jazz. Most of it makes me feel like I've taken eighty-five hits of speed and I'm doing everything I can not to jump out of my skin. Not a big fan. Not even a little fan.

But back to "The House of the Rising Sun." In fifth grade my best friend, Alesia Thomas, sang that song in our school talent show. Now, there are two things funny about that. First, she used her brother's bass guitar, which was taller than she was and a bit unwieldy for her little hands. Girls playing bass guitars were fairly rare back then (try nonexistent) and I'm surprised that our elementary school allowed that sort of subversive activity to take place. The song only has about three chords, so it wasn't hard to play, but just picture this skinny little dark haired pre-teen belting out this tale of a life gone bad. Pretty darn funny. Second, she was a hard core Assembly of God member and I'm pretty sure her parents would have had her exorcised (or healed or whatever it is they would do to remove the stain of sin) if they knew that the song referred to a brothel in New Orleans. Ok, really maybe the funniest part about the whole thing is that she and I then sang a duet of "How Great Thou Art." Maybe that was supposed to cancel out the other song about prostitution and debauchery. Also featured in the talent show: a lovely rendition of "Que Sera, Sera," sung by yours truly.

I think about Alesia now and then, and wonder where she is. We also wrote a looooong short story entitled, "Love and Tragedy," a torrid love story about vampires and witches and warlocks. We would pass it back and forth, each writing a few pages. I'd give a billion dollars if I could find it. Alesia probably changed her name to Anne Rice and is fabulously rich and I'm stuck here writing blogs, begging (practically paying) my friends and family to read it. Que sera, sera.