I decided to choose to write about Jason Michael Carroll's song "Alyssa Lies". This song is about child abuse. Carroll tells a story about how is daughter meets a new girl at school named Alyssa and his daughter is worried about her friend. In the song, the chorus goes like this: “Because Alyssa lies to the classroom, Alyssa lies every day at school, Alyssa lies to the teachers as she tries to cover every bruise". This is showing that Alyssa is lying about being abused by her parents. This also shows that she covers everything up and keeps to herself. When someone is told about a child being abused, they automatically start to feel sorry for the child and show anger toward the person causing the abuse.
In the song toward the end of it, it says “My little girl asked me why everybody looked so sad the lump in my throat grew bigger with every question that she asked. Until I felt the tears run down my face and I told her that Alyssa wouldn't be at school today 'Cause she doesn't lie in the classroom she doesn't lie anymore at school Alyssa lies with Jesus because there's nothin' anyone would do.” This is saying that the little girl was killed by being abused and obviously he felt guilty because he didn’t do anything. Normally, anyone would feel bad because they didn’t act on it when they were told about it. So this song obviously shows a lot of emotion which is also known as pathos.
