Chords + Lyrics | House Of The Rising Sun
Intro
| 6/8 Am | C | D | F |
| Am | E | Am | E |
Verse 1
| Am | C | D | F |
There is a house in New Orleans.
| Am | C | E | E |
They call the Rising Sun.
| Am | C | D | F |
And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy.
| Am | E |
And God, I know I’m one.
Instrumental 1
| Am | C | D | F | Am | E | Am | E |
Verse 2
My Mother was a tailor.
Sewed my blue jeans.
My father was a gamblin’ man.
Down in New Orleans.
Instrumental 2
| Am | C | D | F | Am | E | Am | E |
Verse 3
Now the only thing a gambler needs.
Is a suitcase and a trunk.
And the only time that he’ll be satisfied.
Is when he’s on a trump.
Instrumental 3
| Am | C | D | F | Am | E | Am | E |
Solo
| Am | C | D | F |
| Am | C | E | E |
| Am | C | D | F |
| Am | E |
| Am | C | D | F |
| Am | E | Am | E |
Verse 4
Oh Mother, tell your children.
Not to do what I have done.
Spend your lives in sin and misery.
In the house of the Rising Sun.
Instrumental 4
| Am | C | D | F |
| Am | E | Am | E |
Verse 5
Well, I got one foot on the platform
The other foot on the train.
I’m going back to New Orleans
To wear that ball and chain.
Instrumental 5
| Am | C | D | F | Am | E | Am | E |
Verse 6
Well, there is a house in New Orleans.
They call the Rising Sun.
And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy.
And God, I know I’m one.
Outro
| Am | C | D | F |
||: Am | E | Am | E :||
| Am | E | Am | Am |
House of the Rising Sun Backing Tracks | Chord Analysis
Above, you’ll find backing tracks to use when learning House of the Rising Sun. I’ve used stem separation to extract the guitar while keeping the drums, bass, keys, and vocals intact.
After studying the chords and TAB, use my backing tracks to prepare for playing this tune with a band.
Should you want to play along with the original recording instead, you need to tune your guitar sharp to 441Hz. In the backing track, I’ve done this job for you by tuning it to 440Hz.
Chord Progressions – What’s Going On?
Often seen as a beginner guitar song, House of the Rising Sun by The Animals can be quite tricky due to its fast picking technique. I would classify it as an intermediate song, as I still find it challenging when played at full tempo!
The chords are all open-position chords, so you could practice slowly and gradually improve your picking technique. In that sense, the chords in House of the Rising Sun are an excellent exercise.
Speaking of the chords, using Roman numerals, the progression goes as follows: VI – I – IIx – IV. Then, when repeated, swap the last two chords for IIIx. The final two bars are simply VI – IIIx.
In the key of Am, this becomes:
||: Am (VI) | C (I) | D (IIx) | F (IV) |
| Am | C | E (IIIx) | E |
| Am | C | D | F |
| Am | E :||
The IIIx (E) is a very common variation of Em in the key of Am which create more tension, however, rhe real tension in the progression lies in chord IIx (D), which, if diatonic, would be Dm.
We feel this tension because the D chord contains an F# as its 3rd. Followed by the F chord, this creates a chromatic movement that feels like major to minor.
As exciting as this is, my favourite part of House of the Rising Sun isn’t just the chords—it’s how the pattern itself contains an obvious secret to improving in general: the open G string at the end of every chord.
To fully grasp this, check the TAB further down this guitar lesson.
In the TAB, we also cover how to strum the chords. This technique appears toward the end of the original recording.
Once you’ve mastered the TAB, a simple chord chart is all you need to remember how to play the chords in House of the Rising Sun. Here’s one I’ve made for you.
House Of The Rising Sun Chord Chart | PDF + iReal Pro Download
Should you want to download this chart, here’s a PDF: House Of The Rising Sun chord chart PDF.
This chord chart was created using iReal Pro, here’s a link to that file: House Of The Rising Sun iReal Pro. Using this and the iRealPro app, you can change the key.
House Of The Rising Sun TAB | Course Preview
My favourite thing about House of the Rising Sun is that the picking pattern holds an obvious secret to getting better—the open G string at the end of every chord.
You must always think like this when playing guitar: how can I create a part that changes from one chord to another in a smooth way?
With House of the Rising Sun, this has been done for us. All you need is a correct transcription to see all these great lessons.
With all this in mind, let’s look at House of the Rising Sun’s chords using TAB. Here’s the intro:
Spend plenty of time playing the intro/instrumental section using a metronome or along with my backing tracks if you can handle the tempo.
With my tap tempo metronome, you can set a timer—do this for, let’s say, 60 seconds, then increase the tempo by just 2 BPM.
Once you can play this accurately—not necessarily fast—play the verse as well. Do this mainly for variation. All the chords are the same, just repeated in a few different ways, like this:
Make sure you can see how every single last 8th note is an open G, apart from in bar 7, since we are playing an E chord again.
Finally, here’s something I haven’t seen mentioned online or in person when discussing how to play House of the Rising Sun: towards the end, the guitar stops the picking pattern and starts to strum instead.
Below, you’ll find the TAB for how you could do this. On the recording, the guitarist misses a few notes here and there, so what you see below is the ideal—not a perfect transcription.
The strumming is broken up. Aim to hit these notes; should you include a few more or fewer, that’s OK. This is not the case for the picking part, which should be played perfectly, exactly as the TAB shows.
Once you’ve spent a few days playing House of the Rising Sun as an exercise, have a go at playing along with the backing tracks from beginning to end. At full tempo, this is hardly a beginner song!
House Of The Rising Sun Chords: Continue Learning
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