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I'm puzzled by a line in Cole Porter's "Anything goes" it's from this section:
If driving fast cars you like,
If low bars you like,
If old hymns you like,
If bare limbs you like,
If Mae West you like,
I get these:
fast cars are reckless behavior
low bars we'd call dive bars
bare limbs and Mae West are violations of sexual mores
However, I can't figure out what "old hymns" is doing in there. Genius.com says it has to do with sacrilege. That certainly fits the theme of the song, but I don't see the connection. Doing a google ngram search of books from the 1930s, the only usage I see of "old hymns" is talking about literal old hymns. In most of the reference they are making the opposite point of Cole Porter and saying we need to bring back those old hymns to get back to that old time religion.
Can anyone help me out?
Just speculating that perhaps "old hymns" may refer to the reported use of drinking song melodies in a number of hymns. That would match up with the sense of the other lines that refer to "party-time" behavior.
Some other famous songs have a documented origin in secular songs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Anacreon_in_Heaven
"The Anacreontic Song", was the official song of the Anacreontic Society, an 18th-century gentlemen's club of amateur musicians in London.
Francis Scott Key "The Star-Spangled Banner" adopted as the national anthem of the United States of America, in 1931.
The whole song is an ode to contrarian behavior.
Hymnals only last a limited time before they start to look shabby. The various publishing houses produce a new hymnal about every two decades. They include popular new song intended to thrill choir directors and organists, so that churches will choose their hymnal rather than somebody else's.
As my mother was organist not only of our own Methodist church, but also at times, the Disciples of Christ or the Presbyterian churches a block away (and one summer, for all three - she was a very popular organist, and churches would change their worship times to get her), I ended up overhearing many discussions and rants about the new hymnals. She ended up creating a looseleaf hymnal containing beloved old hyns that people would request for weddings, funerals, offertories, preludes and postludes. If the congregation was to sing the hymn, of course, they had to be songs in the current hymnal, but soloists weren't so constrained. All I can say is that when "The Old Rugged Cross" disappeared, there was a minor crisis, and if Be Still My Soul (Finlandia) or Holy, Holy, Holy were to go pffft, thre would be riots. In fact, one pastor requested Finlandia be played as the offertory at least once a month; he swore it led to fatter piles in the collection plates.
George and Ira were known for their senses of humor, and I think they thought liking old hymns - songs that no longer were in the hymnals - was at least as antisocial as enjoying clothing malfunctions. But these days, anything goes! In the 1960s, going braless or wearing short skirts was considered extremely lewd, but these days, we see starlets getting out on the red carpet in a manner that we can see whether the carpet matches the drapes, and wearing yoga pants that mimic the toes of camels. As one guy on Facebook said last week, he can't wait to see what women are wearing in 2040!
So I followed up on cjacobs1066's thought and looked at the association between drinking songs and "old hymns," and I think you've got it. People claim the practice goes back to Martin Luther and Charles Wesley, but it's pretty certain that Francis Crosby and William Booth used barroom songs.
I see some hymnals from the 1930s that talk about re-writing some of the tunes of the songs to no longer sound like drinking songs.
Another way this might be code for drinking is that Anything Goes hit Broadway in 1934 and prohibition had just been lifted at the end of 1933. The temperance movement had their own anti-drinking hymns that were not that popular despite the movements efforts. Many people did prefer the old hymns to these, and prohibition was repealed. (Maybe a stretch.)
The Lost Cajun Kitchen is owned by David and Sharon Prudhomme, David being a nephew of the late Paul Prudhomme. They were in a couple of other locations, including Leola, but about 20 years ago, they bought the Columbia Hotel in Columbia, PA, and they moved the restaurant there. A sign near thew entrance indentifies the place as the House of the Rising Sun.
I don't know when that sign went up. Perhaps it was there when they bought the hotel; perhaps they used it at their prior locations. However, given the bedrooms upstairs (long term resident only) and the fact that they play up their New Orleans cuisine, I suspect it was painted and installed when they bought the Columbia
Hotel.
The song never explicitly proclaims what kind of house the Rising Sun is, only that it's a place young men would do well to steer away from. I assumed in 1964 that it was a whorehouse and Alan Lomax understood it to be a bawdy house. The singer is catching a train to go back to wear a ball and chain. However, one could experience ruin in a gambling house - the singer's father was a gambling man - or, considering the song came from rightpondia pub. Pub is short for "public house". I was informed by an online friend from Leeds.
And in New Orleans, it wouldn't surprise me that the House of the Rising Sun used bawds to attract young men who drank up and gambled their funds away.
I've eaten there a number of times; the food is excellent and the prices reasonable. I've never met David, but Sharon is often present. She's a big woman, with lots of curves, an easy laugh, and a killer smile, and I was often tempted to make reference to the sign and ask her if I could go upstairs with her. I think she'd realize that I was joking, and would take no offense, but I never asked, perhaps out of fear that she'd grab my hand and lead me to the stairs. A gent needs to be careful not to make an offer if he doesn't want it accepted!
Oh mother, tell your children just to do what I have done
Spend your mealtime in dining ecstasy, in the House of the Rising Sun
EmmettRedd said
Speaking of repurposing tunes with different lyrics, have you heard the lyrics of Amazing Grace sung to the tune of The House of the Rising Sun?
The words to "O Little Town of Bethlehem" also go nicely with that tune. My wife used to be in church choir, and had told her fellow singers about lyrics that could be sung to other tunes, and gave "O Little Town of Bethlehem" as an example ("House of the Rising Sun" "Gilligan's Island" theme song, etc.). The night of the Service of Carols arrived, and when the choirmaster announced "Bethelehem" the choir dissolved in giggles, for some reason...
Martha Barnette
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