"The House On The Hill" - Audience (1971)

One of the things I had mentioned doing with this blog was the idea to ask people to suggest songs/artists/albums that I had never listened to before. This is one of those, suggested by a coworker. In a bit of miscommunication, I thought she was suggesting the song, not the album. I wish I had clarified. This song is a bit rough on the brain.

It starts out with a little horn solo, then goes straight into all three verses:

I've been told about the house on the hill

So high and old, the house on the hill

Say that there's a King Rat who wears a judge's black cap

And I wouldn't go near the house on the hill

The story goes 'bout the house on the hill

That when it snows around the house on the hill

The rat becomes a maiden, her soul endowed by Satan

And I wouldn't go near the house on the hill

As is her sin, yeah, in the house on the hill

She lures travelers into the house on the hill

Enchants them with her charms then she falls on and devours them

And I wouldn't go near the house on the hill

One minute thirty seconds into the song, and all three verses have been sung. There's no chorus. The song is seven minutes 29 seconds.

Up next is a flute solo, for about a minute, straight into a drum solo which lasts for about another minute. This leads to a very weird trumpet (?) solo, which sounds like it was played backward. Actually, upon listening again, it sounds more like a sax. My bad. At the 4:43 mark, all the instruments (except, oddly, the flute) kick back in out of nowhere, which is actually a nice section. Except the sax. That damn thing is making me want to shove pencils in my brain stem.

At 6:19, the vocals come back, singing the second and third verses again. At the conclusion of the third verse, the song ends.

So.

This was a pretty fun experiment. And honestly, I don't hate the song now that I've listened to it a few times. The singer's voice is a bit annoying, yet considering this is in the prog rock era, his voice, while unique, does remind me of other singers of that time, a bit.

If not for the saxophone, I probably would actually enjoy this song a lot. That two minute sax solo, though... "painful" doesn't even feel like the right word. It's flat out brutal.

My work friend told me to check out a few of the other songs on the album instead of this one, and to write about one of them instead, when we clarified the miscommunication. I was already committed to writing about this song, though, so I got the pleasure of listening to this multiple times. I don't regret it, to be honest. The lyrics are cheesy and the sax solo is musical death. The rest of the song, though, is actually enjoyable.

And I will take my coworker's advice, and listen to some of the other songs on the album.