The House of the Rising Sun

In the early 60’s America experienced the so-called “British invasion” of rock ‘n roll music. What is so amusing about many of the tunes popularized by the Brits is that they sourced old American blues and folk tunes and simply updated the lyrics and melody for a modern audience and brought them back to the States. Such was the song The House of the Rising Sun, originally a tune written from the perspective of a young lady seduced into a life of prostitution. Alan Price, the original leader of the band The Animals and its organist, revised the lyrics to that of a male perspective—a change that emphasizes a young man’s addiction to sex. Let’s parse the tune and see what I mean:

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

New Orleans was the most decadent city in the US at the time this song was popularized, and “Rising Sun” refers to the obvious effect men would experience in the company of the brothel’s ladies. Our protagonist laments that he ever ventured into this den on iniquity. Perhaps as a way of deflecting some of his guilt for the choice he made he explains his familial structure:

My mother was a tailor
She sewed my new blue jeans
My father was a gamblin’ man
Down in New Orleans

Now the only thing a gambler needs
Is a suitcase and a trunk
And the only time he’s satisfied
Is when he’s on a drunk

So Dad is basically an absentee-father, either out of town pursuing victims of his craft, or in town sleeping off the effects of alcohol. Mom, on the other hand, is busy doing manual labor as a seamstress to keep food on the table. Our main character then goes on to exhort mothers to admonish their offspring not to follow the road he has chosen:

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

…because his addiction is so overwhelming that he cannot shake it. He realizes he is making a choice…

Well, I’ve got one foot on the platform
The other foot on the train

…but unfortunately his desire for sexual pleasure compels him to get onto to the train and return to his source of illicit gratification rather than stepping back off the platform and amending his life, knowing full well that he is literally a slave to his addiction :

I’m going back to New Orleans
To wear that ball and chain

The lesson for us today is simple: “New Orleans” has been replaced by the hundreds of thousands of pornographic websites luring men to their unseemly and sinful pleasures. With a few quick keystrokes a guy can escape the challenge and tedium of the current moment into a world catering to him with the lure of sexual gratification. Like any major addiction it requires not only prayer and familial support to subdue it but professional counseling and assistance.

We make hundreds of choices daily and the road to our loving Lord necessitates discipline to make the correct ones. Since the beauty and pleasure of sex is so intense it was designed to be “tamed”, if you will, in the context of a marital commitment so as to not overwhelm all the other also very important parts of living. Natural family planning is without question the very best way of teaching this restraint to preserve life’s proper order and to enhance our relationship with our spouse, our friends and with our God. Pornography isolates the physiological pleasure of sex from relationship to the person’s spouse, to himself, and ultimately to God, and severely cripples all other associations as well. Don’t do it! Don’t “wear that ball and chain!”