Rhetorical Analysis Of Tom Morello

Music is something that has been around since the beginning of time and will continue to be used to evoke powerful emotions. On October 20, 2021, Tom Morello published an essay called “Songs of Justice Songs of Power”, written for the New York Times is about how songs are continuously used to give a voice to movements. Tom Morello is famous for his expert guitar riffs and for combining powerful music with political statements and activism. He spent several years in bands like Rage Against the Machine, and Audioslave. Morello is writing to the beaten down, who need an anthem to stand behind, and the people who beat them down, who need to see the movement is real. Morello effectively uses Ethos and Pathos to convince his audience that music has power. Scribbr says that “Ethos appeals to the speaker’s status or authority, making the audience more

Tom Morello’s essay is a model example of the use of ethos. Morello used the voice he gained by playing politically charged songs with his bands, to tell the public to not stick to the status quo. In his essay, he writes “I’m a union man and an unapologetic musical rabble-rouser.” (Morello, 2021). Morello is telling the audience that he is not all talk, but truly carries through with what he says about capitalism and the state of the world. Ethos is extremely important to the credibility of any essay or speech. Without it, the audience has no idea if the author is telling them the truth, or slipping misinformation into their message. But ethos is only one part of the things that make a good persuasive essay, there is also pathos, which is when an author uses emotion to connect with the audience. Emotions are what make an uninteresting, poorly written piece into something that the audience can relate to and get behind. Morello uses examples of issues that are addressed by the songs that are commonly seen and affect people