RA #10

The song that I have chosen to do my rhetorical analysis is Billie Jean by Michael Jackson. This is one of my all time favorite songs by Michael Jackson but I have never really stopped and looked at the lyrics, especially to analyze them. It was hard for me to pick out his target audience because he is more telling a story then anything but I decided that his target audience is his family and friends that are pretty close to him. I came to this conclusion because his argument seems to be pretty personal. His argument is that he is not the father of Billie Jean’s son. He says over and over again that Billie Jean is not his lover and that he is not my son. There is also another argument being made to him by his friends in this story. They have continuously told him throughout his life to be careful of what you do and to always think twice. I think that the argument is mostly done in pathos because songs are very emotional and they tend to evoke emotions in a more effective way than many other things. I think that the argument was effective because this was one of Michael Jackson’s all time best hits and has been heard a countless number of times. Whatever it is that Michael wanted to get across, which may or may not be what I mentioned, will continue to be heard for years to come.