Two other reasons to be grateful to the Animals WLD,In Britain this was the first song to go to number 1 in the charts in spite of an airplay ban on singles of more than 3 minutes duration.
The ban was lifted as a consequence which was a good day for music.
Secondly,as an electric reading of what was, in effect ,a folk song this was arguably the first example of folk rock.
Incidentally I neglected to mention in my previous post that the pub in Wallsend was well known to the Animals & this fact influenced their decision to record it.