The song Bob Dylan stole from Dave Van Ronk
A good songwriter doesn’t just write good tracks from scratch; they also improve existing work. Well, at least that’s what David Kenneth Ritz Van Ronk could do, and that’s why he is considered one of the best ever. It’s also why another legend, Bob Dylan, stole from him.
Dave Van Ronk was born on June 30th, 1936. He became a famous artist thanks to his traditional approach to music. He knew his guitar inside out, so that was the centre around which everything else he did orbited. He understood the guitar and how things worked better than any other musician at the time, which led to him creating some excellent pieces and being considered the songwriter’s songwriter.
Van Ronk was a massive voice in Greenwich Village in New York City, where he cemented himself as an excellent musician and became friends with other artists such as Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan. Dylan was a huge fan of Van Ronk, and the two worked together on several different songs, including Dylan’s cover of ‘House of the Rising Sun’.
It’s arguably the most covered song of all time, as artists from every corner of the world have put their spin on the classic, whether that is by adding new instruments, slowing the track down, speeding it up, or taking a different approach to the way that it is performed.
The track is a tale of New Orleans and the people that inhabit it struggling to resist the city’s temptations. The building chord progression and excellent lyricism mean it is instantly likeable, and that quality is why so many different bands and artists have decided to cover the piece. One of the most famous renditions is The Animal’s version, but almost everyone who has ever picked up a guitar has given it a go, including Bob Dylan.
Bob Dylan’s debut album, Bob Dylan, released in 1962, mainly covers folk and traditional songs. It was well-received and laid the groundwork that the bard could build his career on. One of the tracks is Bob Dylan’s version of ‘House of the Rising Sun’, the most controversial piece on the record, given he famously stole the arrangement from Van Ronk.
In The Animal’s arrangement of the song (and what tends to be the arrangement used by everybody), the chord progressions go A-minor, C, D, F, A-minor, C, E, E. This version suits more prominent bands, given the chords are a lot more open and can be played much heavier; however, for a folk singer like Bob Dylan, there was a different arrangement thought up by Van Ronk, which gave the track a nice twist.
Van Ronk would continue playing A-minor, and rather than changing to a different chord altogether, he would create a descending baseline with his pinky and middle finger. Dylan much preferred Van Ronk’s version and so used it for his recording without asking permission from the songwriter.
It reflects how good Dave Van Ronk was that Bob Dylan, widely considered one of the best songwriters out there, felt the need to copy him. It may be that later in his life, Van Ronk could look back at the snub with a hint of pride, but when asked about the arrangement, he said, “That was very, very annoying.”
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