Song: Johnny Cash "Cocaine Blues"

I think this song at first glance comes across as a glamorization of drugs, and that was partly why I chose it, because he definitely is trying to persuade people of somthing, just definitely not that! He makes it clear in the last line of the song what his purpose is, but people may not listen to the whole thing to hear that, especially because it's not included in his performance in the movie "Walk the Line".

A big part of the rhetoric he uses is definitely ethos. The song isn't a story about some other guy, it's sung from the first person, as if it was him who the story's about. Obviously it isn't really, because Johnny Cash never killed his wife and was never in jail, though he probably did do cocaine. So I think he tells the story in first person to make his audience believe that he knows what he's talking about. He also tell the story in such detail that it seems very credible. The story seems like it could very easily be true.

Logos could be said to be used in the way the story follows a very believable chain of events. The listener needs to be convinced that doing Cocaine can lead to all the craziness that he got himself into, and hence the detail involved in the story.

I'd say pathos is used in the way he makes the song entertaining and lively and fun, so that it doesn't feel like he's preaching to the audience. I'd especially refer to the line "I thought I was her daddy but she had five more". This line kind of makes you laugh, and it also kind of makes you feel bad for the singer because, which is a feeling that I think you're kind of supposed to have throughout the song. Another part that I think utilizes pathos is the last line, where he says "come on you've gotta listen up to me", because it makes you feel like he's talking to you, and, I don't know, in a way makes you not want to let him down or something.

As far as research goes, obviously with a song there's usually not too many works cited, and that's how it is with this song. Although I think with this song the lack of a valid source could be a weakness, because the audience will probably know that Johnny Cash isn't really talking about himself, and they may wonder "What does he know about going to jail?" and such. If the story is actually a true story then it may have been more credible to tell it as the story of whoever experienced it.

I think based on his audience, which was at times people in prison, but also I think his main audience outside of the prisons were people who were of the "rebel" type, because that's the kind of attitude that Johnny Cash displayed, the argument is very effective. They would probably then have accepted him as a leader and would have probably been OK with him giving them advice.