Songs through Time ….. back from 1964 over 3,600 years

I like programmes which take you on a journey, and so it is with Time to the Music, which this week looked at that pop classic The House of the Rising Sun.

Broadsides from London, 1967

In the space of 30 or so minutes we ramble back from the Animals version of the song which came out in 1964, to the origins of Broadside music and right back 3,600 years to the oldest notated song found on clay tablets in a dig in modern Syria.

“In Time to the Music is the story of a piece of music, song, an air or melody travelling through time as a folk tune, a theatre melody, a hymn, a composition, a symphony - reinterpreted across years, centuries or millennia through revival, musical revolution, social fashions or archaeological discovery. 

We examine why certain tunes have managed to reach out over time, across genres, class, race and continents, how some are reimagined by oppressors even though they were written by its oppressed, how melodies from earlier periods are borrowed by subsequent composers, and how these illusive musical engravings change genre - from hymn to reggae, from court song to rock and roll - all with the passage of time.

The third episode explores the journey of The House of the Rising Sun - was it based on a 17th-century broadside ballad that travelled from northern England to the Appalachian Mountains in the US? Some version of it or a similar ballad passed down through generations until it was captured in a recording by celebrated musicologist Alan Lomax in the 1930s. It was a key song in the folk revival of the 1960s before becoming a hit for The Animals in 1964. The programme also examines other music that has travelled through time.

More London Songs, 1968

Featuring musicologists Professor Laura Tunbridge, Professor Richard Dumbrill, singer Ian Shaw and pianist and educator Gareth Williams.

Written and Presented by Andrew McGibbon

Assistant Producer: Saul Sarne Producer: Nick Romero

A Curtains For Radio production for BBC Radio 4”*

But hurry it is available  for just 26 more days.

Pictures; cover albums from the Critics Group, Sweet Thames Flow Softly, 1967, A Merry Progress to London, 1968, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The House of the Rising Sun, In TimeLondon songs through time, 1968 to the Music, Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001hwws