House of The Rising Sun

Jackson Anderson
Mr. Leptak-Moreau
English 1201
10/3/2021
House of the Rising Sun

House of the Rising Sun by Five Finger Death Punch is quite the leap
from The Animals original version, but is a version that I personally prefer over
the original, it is a metal take to the folk and blues of the 1964 version. The
cover accentuates the original take on the song and sheds some new light on the
topics brought up in The Animals original.
The beginning to The Animals “House of the Rising Sun” opens with the
camera panning to show the band and the set of the next 4 minutes and 8
seconds, and is set to the iconic guitar riff we hear throughout the song. “There
is, a house, in New Orleans, they call the Rising Sun” is the first line to the song
about a brothel in New Orleans, which is about a real brothel that was occupied
by Union Troops in the late 1800’s.
The Five Finger Death Punch (FFDP) version opens very differently to
The Animals version, FFDP starts their cover with someone whistling and a
guitar in the background, while footage of the military plays over it. The
opening lyric “There is, a house, in Sin City” is slightly different to the original,
calling New Orleans a Sin City. A Sin City is an urban area that caters to vices,
like gambling or prostitution. Las Vegas is more commonly referred to as Sin
City rather than New Orleans but the definition fits.
The main claim of both of the versions is that you shouldn’t pursue the
gambler’s life, it leads to sin and misery. The evidence for this claim isn’t
anything visually but the lyrics of both versions state this claim. The origin of
the song is unknown and there is only speculation about what the song is about
so any theories could be correct. The main theories that people believe to be the
main claim of the song are that the song is about a brothel in New Orleans, or
about a women’s prison.
The 1964 version is more lighthearted than the FFDP version, many
people speculate that the song is about a brothel in New Orleans, which was
named after a French woman in 1862 when it first opened, but there are other
theories that think it is about a women's prison in New Orleans that had rising
sun artwork on the front gate. The FFDP version is about gambling in drinking,
something Zoltan Bathory, the groups founder and rhythm guitarist, said when
talking about their video. The Animals version is not the original of this song,
this song is very old, some people speculate back to the 17th century, and the
earliest recording was in 1933 but has been performed many times before, so the
meaning has most likely changed in the hundreds of years that the song has been
around for.
The biggest difference between the two versions is the way they are
played and the music video that accompanies the song, the lyrics are mostly the
same. The folk and blues seems slow and methodical, everything is perfectly
timed and the words are in their order for a reason. FFDP’s version seems to be
more of a song to listen to while one “rock’s out” in the car or at a concert. The
Animals video is very simple and doesn’t have much going on, simple white
decorations with yellow light casting a shadow on the whole scene. The Five
Finger Death Punch video is a very far cry from the counterpart, having fast
paced swooping drone footage and military members shooting at unseen targets,
or driving military vehicles through rough terrain.
The audience for The Animals version was supposed to be their audience
or people who enjoyed folk and blues, but the song exploded and became an
international smashing hit, becoming their most popular song. FFDP’s target
audience was also just their audience or people who liked metal, but they also
could cater to people who liked the song, because their version was released 49
years after The Animals made theirs, so by then the song had quite the cult
following. For both groups the songs ended up doing very well, becoming The
Animals most popular song, and one of FFDP’s most popular covers.
Both of these songs use Pathos, they try to appeal to the listeners
emotions. The Animals do this by the use of tempo, when they say “My father
was a gambling man, down in New Orleans” the pace is much slower than in the
next verse, where the drummer and keyboard get their time to shine and the
song becomes upbeat. FFDP appeals to pathos by the use of their words, they
don’t just say New Orleans, they call it Sin City and the music becomes slower
then goes upbeat like The Animals version did.
The relationship between the two versions is that they have the same
claim, the gambler's life leads to sin and misery. The versions also both appeal
to pathos, just in different ways. The songs are very different stylistically but
have the same lyrics with only slight changes between the two.
Works Cited
The Animals. House of the Rising Sun (1964). YouTube, 2009,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-
43lLKaqBQ&ab_channel=TheAnimalsTributeChannel.
Five Finger Death Punch, . House of the Rising Sun . YouTube, 2013,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=m6EBgBTs7yg&ab_channel=5FDPVEVO.
Songfacts. (n.d.). The House of the rising sun by the animals - songfacts.
Song Meanings at Songfacts. Retrieved October 3, 2021, from
https://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-animals/the-house-of-the-rising-sun.
Songfacts. (n.d.). The House of the rising sun by Five finger death punch -
songfacts. Song Meanings at Songfacts. Retrieved October 3, 2021, from
https://www.songfacts.com/facts/five-finger-death-punch/the-house-of-the-
rising-sun.

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