Weekly Blog Post 6

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble’s video “Couldn’t Stand the Weather” employs a specific structure that contributes to the logos of the piece and it helps develop their ethos and pathos throughout the video.

One aspect of the video that contributes to logos is the concept of time. The video progresses in a very chronological manner, but it is sped up. From the very opening scene in which clouds begin to cover up the sunset and they are obviously moving at a faster pace that normal clouds would be moving in. Then as it gets cloudier, rain drops start to fall and then it gets faster as well as windier. Not only is the weather, which is a background occurrence for parts of the video, paced quickly but the people arguing, which is the central and analogous part of the video, is also in fast forward it seems. The people are speaking or yelling at a much faster rate than people normally would or that you would see. Because time is something no one can stop and the passing of it is inevitable, to have it go even faster contributes to the idea presented by the song that a final “storm” (argument) is inevitable when you can’t “stand the weather” (the bad relations you are having with other people), with the lyrics as referenced to in Weekly Blog Post 4.

Another aspect that is part of the arrangement of the video what the camera allows the audience to see. When the music begins, every object that is introduced including the sun and the instruments being played is very large in the screen. Then the camera zooms out and the audience can see the entire band playing for a bit which is necessary in a video that actually shows the band performing. Then for the rest of the video, the camera only focuses on one or two characters at a time. When Stevie sings, it zooms in nearing to his face and when the camera shows the people arguing, all the audiences is allowed to see are their faces and the background flag behind them. Also, the people are arranged symmetrically so that you see the exact same amount of one person arguing as the other. This combined with a zoomed-in effect brings the focus to middle of screen where their words are figuratively collecting as they yell at each other.

These features contribute to the ethos in the video in the way that the band is the first group of the people that the audience is introduced to and also the only thing in the video that is shown in real time instead of the quickened or high speed of the weather moving and the people arguing. Also their use of the goggles and the fact that they can stand up the weather and still play establishes their authority that they are able to relay this message to the audience.

Weekly Blog Post 5

The rhetorical strategies of ethos, logos, and pathos are perhaps not the most obvious in the “Couldn’t Stand the Weather” video but are indeed there. Pathos is the most prevalent, as seen in the visual aspect and in the lyrics of the song, as well as the actual music. A build-up, pause and continuation in the music contribute to the pathos aspect of the song that the lyrics also contribute to, especially the title. This build-up of anger and discontent of the people that are shown arguing in the video that “couldn’t stand the weather” is accompanied by and introduced in the very opening music. Also, pathos is employed at the end when the title of the song is truly proven, in that the rain has proved too much for the people who had just been arguing and they begin to wash away in it.

This segment also establishes some ethos for Stevie Ray and the band because even though they are out in the rain with instruments, they have goggles and are doing just fine in the weather. They lyrics also help establish this because Stevie is speaking with the authority of experience and that he knows exactly what is happening to himself and the person that he refers to when he says “we just couldn’t stand the weather.” He also speaks with the authority of knowledge from experience when he later discusses issues that every person deals with.

Looking at it as an overall structure, the lyrics and the visual aspect of the video also contribute to the logos of the argument. The lyrics are divided into two major stanzas divided by guitar parts. The first stanza is his own personal experience of dealing with things that “ain’t feelin’ right” and his own other person that he has been arguing with, just like each other person in the video has one person they are arguing with. The second stanza states major ideas that apply to all people in general, that “we all deal with trials and tribulations” and it is a logical approach to be able to relate with the audience that he is speaking to. The visual aspect of the video contains logos in a chronological sense, that all the build-up of each pair arguing is contributing to this greater problem and it is most always inevitable that when something has been brewing and building up for such a long time it will end in a storm, as the one shown in the video.