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Rhetorical Analysis of Visual Text

The document discusses the song One More Try by George Michael and a cover of the song by the group Divine. It analyzes both versions of the song and their music videos, highlighting how Divine's version brought new depth and exposed the song to a new audience while retaining its emotional impact.

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Edward Simmons
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30 views4 pages

Rhetorical Analysis of Visual Text

The document discusses the song One More Try by George Michael and a cover of the song by the group Divine. It analyzes both versions of the song and their music videos, highlighting how Divine's version brought new depth and exposed the song to a new audience while retaining its emotional impact.

Uploaded by

Edward Simmons
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Simmons 1

Edward Simmons

Prof. Cook

ENG 1201

29 September 2021

One More Try

Though I'm technically a child of the '80s, I didn't find myself introduced to the song One

More Try by George Michael himself. I never even saw his video until a decade later on pop-up

video where they detailed bits and pieces of little-known and interesting facts about the recording

of the song, video, and artist. I didn't fall in love with the music itself until I heard it sang by a

then-emerging girl group known as Divine. They are technically remembered as one-hit wonders

even though they released two singles from their debut album.

With George Michael's version, in this version, we are given a soaring ballad that moves

from haunting lower tones to deeply moving fully belted notes that leave the listener sobbing.

The video setting in a coldly hazily lit mansion, where Michaels's furniture was draped with drop

clothes coupled with Michaels's powerful tenor vocal range, takes the viewer/listener on an

emotional ride they won't soon forget. I feel like this song is one of the classic breakup songs, a

song so cathartic that it brings up all the feelings of betrayal, loss, and heartbreak and washes

your soul clean of all of them with your tears.

Even the lyrics that Michael chose to use in the song held a weight that the adolescents

who listened so aptly weren't fully equipped to grasp in total, for instance.
Simmons 2

'Cause Teacher

There are things that I don't want to learn

And the last one I had

Made me cry

So, I don't want to learn to

Hold you, touch you

Think that you're mine

Because it ain't no joy

For an uptown boy

Whose teacher has told him goodbye, goodbye, goodbye

Michael uses the analogy of a teacher as he describes his past relationships. He was

alluding that each love we experience in life teaches us unique life lessons that often leave us

scared and reluctant to venture into love again. Though he's grown from the experiences, he

doesn't want to learn to love, hold, or touch another person, only to have them leave him hurt and

broken again. This feeling is a feeling I can say with moderate certainty we all have felt at one

point or another throughout our lives.

George Michael will ever have a place in the pop hall of fame for this masterwork in

balladry so that it was honored by the R&B group Divine. It was their second single, and the

ladies took to the song as if it had been for them. The combined vocals of Nikki Bratcher, Kia

Thornton, and Tonia Tash brought a depth to the music that one voice couldn't achieve alone.
Simmons 3

Divine's video was staged so much more differently than George Michael's, where his video

immediately exuded a sense of isolation and sadness. Divine's video was set in what looked to be

a Japanese tea house or something to that effect; they were even dressed in modernize Japanese-

inspired clothing. With that aside, the women still deliver fantastic performances with the

complexity of their three-part harmonies. They bring a warmth and sense of being enveloped in

the song that Michael didn't achieve.

You become lost in the musicality of the artists and bypass the odd imagery of the video

with its sentient incense smoke, Asian themes of rickshaws, and tea sets. The scene in the video

that gave light to any hint of sadness was the scene at the 2:07 time mark where they are

primarily dressed in black in a black room that was foggy with black stone spheres scattered

around them.

As they sang about sitting at the feet of their lover and not knowing the danger they were

in, they now felt the heat of their anger and betrayal. They learn that though in the beginning,

love can be a pretty and shiny thing, that doesn't last once the honeymoon phase is over you get

to see a person for who they are, and you no longer have the blinders of love available to gloss

over a person's faults flaws.

Nothing is left out in this rendition of the song; it gained weight and depth from the new

arrangement and sound. It was brought forward into a new genre and decade and exposed the

music to a new audience. However, both versions might be seen as less than desirable amongst

today's youth. I think it would still be a timeless classic that reaches multiple audiences from

men to women of all ages, cultures, and ethnicities because we've been unlucky in love.
Simmons 4

Works Cited

Divine- One More Try- Original Video

"One More Try." YouTube, GAMAN WORLDWIDE MUSIC VIDEOS, 28 Dec. 2007,
https://youtu.be/cC8gRv-JsjM. Accessed 2 Oct. 2021.

George Michael- One More Try- Original Video

“One More Try.” YouTube, GAMAN WORLDWIDE MUSIC VIDEOS, 28 Dec. 2007,
https://youtu.be/cC8gRv-JsjM. Accessed 2 Oct. 2021.

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