“House of the Rising Sun” is also one of the first things young boys in junior high school learn to play on the guitar. The boys love to sit amongst a circle of young girls, playing a few bars that vaguely sound like the opening of the song.
Then the girls smile and sigh, and say, “Oh, how cool.”
~VOW
I always thought it was about heroin. You learn something new every day.
I always wondered about the Japanese connection. 
Or to the tune of the “Gilligan’s Island” theme.
I was taught to play this song on guitar, in the 5th grade. By a nun.
Wait…it’s not supposed to be set in Japan? I’m so confused.
If there’s snark there it’s wasted, because I don’t get it. I enjoyed time spent drinking beer with friends in college. I strongly suspect many other people did too.
Reno? Vegas burbs?
I think the joke was that you enjoyed spending time in a gay brothel, as per the thread title. Didn’t read like snark to me.
Ah. Well, that would explain the loud whooshing noise I seem to be hearing, then.
Carry on.
Well the important thing we have learned from this thread is that if the Knights Templar wanted to spend time in a gay brothel, drinking and having fun, there should be a piano player with bands on his sleeves and a straw hat.
Don’t forget the Amazing Grace and Gilligan singing. That’s important, too.
As well as to any of the following:
Mickey Mouse Club Theme Song
Stairway to Heaven
Yankee Doodle
Pop Goes the Weasel
Peaceful Easy Feeling
I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing
Yellow Rose of Texas
Ghost Riders of the Sky
Rocky Top
Lion Sleeps Tonight
Tangled Up in Blue
Whiter Shade of Pale
Light My Fire
O Little Town of Bethlehem
Jingle Bells
God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
Greensleeves
Jolly Old St. Nicholas
The First Noel
O Tannenbaum
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
I’ll Be Home for Christmas
Take Me Out to the Ball Game
In-a-Gadda-da-Vida
Marines’ Hymn
Wabash Cannonball
America the Beautiful
The Internationale
Onward Christian Soldiers
Ode to Joy
Mack the Knife
A Hundred Bottles of Beer
Clementine
La Cucaracha
Semper Paratus
The Wearing of the Green
(The Rising of the Moon)
The Itsy-Bitsy Spider
I’ve Been Working on the Railroad
Sympathy for the Devil
Rollin’ Down to Old Maui
Acres of Clams
Bread and Roses
Sink the Bismarck
Forest Green (UK “Little Town of Bethlehem”)
Tomorrow Belongs to Me
The Girl I Left Behind Me
The Wabash Cannonball
MacNamara’s Band
The man went to a brothel
for a 3 hour trip
A 3 hour trip …
I think that most of the earliest versions of the song (collected in Appalachia, I think in the 1920s) were sung by women. While it makes sense as a man’s song- it works better as a woman’s song. Joan Baez does a lovely version of it on one of her albums.
It can also be sung to the English language Pokemon theme that goes “I want to be the very best…”
Also, a LOT of Christian hymns in general.
Look up “common meter” and “ballad meter”.