Why is "the house on the hill" considered so desirable? Hank Williams

[raccoon]

and Bruce Springsteen both wrote a song about the "Mansion on the Hill."

[Jokerman]

1. Because shit flows down hill?

Just a guess.

[Tobin S.]

2. I guess the view is probably pretty good.

It might add to a sense of superiority that the owner may have by being rich and all. Hell, I don't know. I'd need to see the song lyrics.

[raccoon]

3. Here ya go.

The Hank Williams lyrics:

Tonight down here in the valley
Im lonesome and o how I feel
As I sit here alone in my cabin
I can see your mansion on the hill

Do you recall when we parted
The story to me you revealed
You said you could live without loving
In your loveless mansion on the hill

Ive waited all through the years love
To give you a heart true and real
Cause I know youre living in sorrow
In your loveless mansion on the hill

The light shine bright from yer window
The trees stand so silent and still
I know youre alone with your pride dear
In your loveless mansion on the hill



The Bruce Springsteen lyrics:

There's place out on the edge of town sir
Risin' above the factories and the fields
Now ever since I was a child I can remember that mansion on the hill

In the day you can see the children playing
On the road that leads to those gates of hardened steel
Steel gates that completely surround sir the mansion on the hill

At night my daddy'd take me and we'd ride through the streets of a town so silent and still
Park on a back road along the highway side
Look up at that mansion on the hill

In the summer all the lights would shine there'd be music playin' people laughin' all the time
Me and my sister we'd hide out in the tall corn fields
Sit and listen to the mansion on the hill

Tonight down here in Linden Town I watch the cars rushin' by home from the mill
There's a beautiful full moon rising above the mansion on the hill

[Tobin S.]

4. The William's tune seems to be about

A lost love of his who dumped him for a rich guy.

The Springsteen song is about working class people aspiring to move up the social ladder.

In both cases the mansions are metaphors for wealth and social status.

That's what I make of it anyway.

[RebelOne]

5. Because if you live in Georgia, at least the water

can't run uphill when we have floods like the past few days.

[MissMillie]

6. Well, I imagine both are preferrable to

"The Fool on the Hill"

[Orsino]

7. Like a feudal lord's castle, it lets the owner look down on those around him...

...and means that those around have to look up to see him. It's a position of at least symbolic power.

[jobycom]

8. Goes back to ancient times.

You built manors and castles on hills for a few reasons. They were easier to defend, but also the hills weren't good agricultural land, so you weren't tying up useful dirt. Those who could afford to make someone else work their fields lived on hills where the fields weren't, and those who worked the fields lived near the fields they worked. So the whole image of the house on the hill being where the lord lived, and where people went for protection, became ingrained. It became a religious symbol, with the House on the Hill symbolizing Heaven, the lord symbolizing THE Lord, etc.

So for thousands of years the "house on the hill" was where you aspired to live for a life of luxury and ease and safety, and it gained a religious significance--you can see that the songs you mentioned.