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A “Ballad” is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later North America, Australia and North Africa. Many ballads were written and sold as single sheet broadsides. The form was often used by poets and composers from the 18th century onwards to produce lyrical ballads. In the later 19th century it took on the meaning of a slow form of popular love song and the term is now often used as synonymous with any love song, particularly the pop or rock power ballad.
The origin of ballads
The ballad probably derives its name from medieval French dance songs or ‘ballares’ (from which we also get ballet), as did the alternative rival form that became the French Ballade. In theme and function they may originate from Scandinavian and Germanic traditions of [Read more...]
storytelling that can be seen in poems such as Beowulf. The earliest example we have of a recognisable ballad in form in England is ‘Judas’ in a thirteenth-century manuscript.
The ballad form
Most, but not all northern and west European ballads are written in ballad stanzas or quatrains (four-line stanzas) of alternating lines of iambic (an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable) tetrameter (eight syllables) and iambic trimeter (six syllables), known as ballad meter. Usually, only the second and fourth line of a quatrain are rhymed (in the scheme a, b, c, b), which has been taken to suggest that, originally, ballads consisted of couplets (two lines) of rhymed verse, each of fourteen syllables. As can be seen in this stanza from ‘Lord Thomas and Fair Annet’:
The horse| fair Ann|et rode| upon|
He amb|led like| the wind|,
With sil|ver he| was shod| before,
With burn|ing gold| behind|.
However, there is considerable variation on this pattern in almost every respect, including length, number of lines and rhyming scheme, making the strict definition of a ballad extremely difficult. In southern and eastern Europe, and in countries that derive their tradition from them, ballad structure differs significantly, like Spanish romanceros, which are octosyllabic and use consonance rather than rhyme.
In all traditions most ballads are narrative in nature, with a self contained story, often concise and relying on imagery, rather than description, which can be tragic, historical, romantic or comic. Another common feature of ballads is repetition, sometimes of fourth lines in succeeding stanzas, as a refrain, sometimes of third and fourth lines of a stanza and sometimes of entire stanzas.
The composition of ballads
Scholars of ballads are often divided into two camps, the ‘communalists’ who, following the line established by the German scholar Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) and the Brothers Grimm, argue that ballads arose by a combined communal effort and did not have a single author, and ‘individualists’, following the thinking of English collector Cecil Sharp, who assert that there was a single original author. The communalist position tends to lead to the view that more recent, particularly printed broadside ballads, where we may even know the author, are a debased form of the genre. The individualists position has tended to lead to the view that later changes in the words of ballads are corruptions of an original text. More recently scholars have pointed to the interchange of oral and written forms of the ballad.
Classification of ballads
European Ballads have been generally classified into three major groups: traditional, broadside and literary. In America a distinction is drawn between ballads that are versions of European, particularly British and Irish songs, and ‘native American ballads’, developed without reference to earlier songs. A further development was the evolution of the blues ballad, which mixed the genre with Afro-American music. For the late nineteenth century the music publishing industry found a market for what are often termed sentimental ballads, and these are the origin of the modern use of the term ballad to mean a slow love song.
Traditional ballads
The traditional, classical or popular (meaning of the people) ballad has been seen as originating with the wandering minstrels of late medieval Europe. From the end of the fifteenth century we have printed ballads that suggest a rich tradition of popular music. We know from a reference in William Langland’s Piers Plowman, that ballads about Robin Hood were being sung from at least the late fourteenth century and the oldest detailed material we have is Wynkyn de Worde’s collection of Robin Hood ballads printed about 1495.
Early collections of ballads were made by Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) and in the Roxburghe Ballads collected by Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Mortimer (1661-1724). In the eighteenth century there were increasing numbers such collections, including Thomas D’Urfey’s Wit and Mirth: or, Pills to Purge Melancholy (1719-20) and Bishop Thomas Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765). The last of these also contained some oral material and by the end of the eighteenth century this was becoming increasingly common, with collections including John Ritson’s, The Bishopric Garland (1784), which paralleled the work of figures like Robert Burns and Walter Scott in Scotland.
Key work on the traditional ballad was undertaken in the late nineteenth century in Denmark by Svend Grundtvig and for England and Scotland by the Harvard professor Francis James Child. They attempted to record and classify all the known ballads and variants in their chosen regions. Unfortunately since Child died before writing a commentary on his work it is uncertain exactly how and why he differentiated the 305 ballads printed that would be published as The English and Scottish Popular Ballads.
There have been many different and contradictory attempts to classify traditional ballads by theme, but commonly identified types are the religious, supernatural, tragic, love ballads, historic, legendary and humorous.
Broadside ballads
Broadside ballads (also known as ‘roadsheet’, ‘stall’, ‘vulgar’ or ‘come all ye’ ballads) were a product of the development of cheap print from the sixteenth century. They were generally printed on one side of a medium to large sheet of poor quality paper. This could also be cut in half lengthways to make ‘broadslips’, or folded to make chapbooks. They were produced in huge numbers, with over 400,000 being sold in England annually by the 1660s. Many were sold by travelling chapmen in city streets or at fairs. The subject matter varied from what has been defined as the traditional ballad, although many traditional ballads were printed as broadsides. Among the topics were love, religion, drinking-songs, legends, and early journalism, which included disasters, political events and signs, wonders and prodigies.
Literary ballads
Literary or lyrical ballads grew out of an increasing interest in the ballad form among social elites and intellectuals, particularly in the Romantic movement from the later eighteenth century. Respected literary figures like Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott in Scotland both collected and wrote their own ballads, using the form to create an artistic product. Similarly in England William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge produced a collection of Lyrical Ballads in 1798, including Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’. At the same time in Germany Goethe cooperated with Schiller on a series of ballads, some of which were later set to music by Schubert. Later important examples of the poetic form included Rudyard Kipling’s ‘Barrack Room Ballads’ (1892-6) and Oscar Wilde’s ‘Ballad of Reading Gaol’ (1897).
Ballad operas
Painting based on The Beggar’s Opera, Act III Scene 2, William Hogarth, c. 1728
In the eighteenth century ballad operas developed as a form of English stage entertainment, partly in opposition to the Italian domination of the London operatic scene. It consisted of racy and often satirical spoken (English) dialogue, interspersed with songs that are deliberately kept very short to minimize disruptions to the flow of the story. Subject matter involved the lower, often criminal, orders, and typically showed a suspension (or inversion) of the high moral values of the Italian opera of the period. The first, most important and successful was The Beggar’s Opera of 1728, with a libretto by John Gay and music arranged by John Christopher Pepusch, both of whom probably influenced by Parisian vaudeville and the burlesques and musical plays of Thomas D’Urfey (1653–1723), a number of whose collected ballads they used in their work. Gay produced further works in this style, including a sequel under the title Polly. Henry Fielding, Colley Cibber, Arne, Dibdin, Arnold, Shield, Jackson of Exeter, Hook and many others produced ballad operas that enjoyed great popularity. Ballad opera was attempted in America and Prussia. Later it moved into a more pastoral form, like Isaac Bickerstaffe’s Love in a Village (1763) and Shield’s Rosina (1781), using more original music that imitated, rather than reproduced, existing ballads. Although the form declined in popularity towards the end of the eighteenth century its influence can be seen in light operas like that of Gilbert and Sullivan’s early works like The Sorcerer. In the twentieth century, one of the most influential plays, Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s (1928) The Threepenny Opera was a reworking of The Beggar’s Opera, setting a similar story with the same characters, and containing much of the same satirical bite, but only using one tune from the original. The term ballad opera has also been used to describe musicals using folk music, such as The Martins and the Coys in 1944, and Peter Bellamy’s The Transports in 1977. The satiric elements of ballad opera can be seen in some modern musicals such as Chicago and Cabaret.
Ballads beyond Europe
Native American ballads
Native American ballads are ballads that are native to North America (not to be confused with ballads performed by native Americans). Some 300 ballads sung in North America have been identified as having origins in British traditional or broadside ballads. Examples include ‘The Streets of Laredo’, which was found in Britain and Ireland as ‘The Unfortunate Rake’; however, a further 400 have been identified as originating in colonial north America, including among the best known, ‘The Ballad of Davy Crockett’ and ‘Jesse James’. They became an increasing area of interest for scholars in the nineteenth century and most were recorded or catalogued by George Malcolm Laws, although some have since been found to have British origins and additional songs have since been collected. They are usually considered closest in form to British broadside ballads and in terms of style are largely indistinguishable, however, they demonstrate a particular concern with occupations, journalistic style and often lack the ribaldry of British broadside ballads.
Blues ballads
The blues ballad has been seen as a fusion of Anglo-American and Afro-American styles of music from the nineteenth century. Blues ballads tend to deal with active protagonists, often anti-heroes, resisting adversity and authority, but frequently lacking a strong narrative and emphasising character instead. They were often accompanied by banjo and guitar which followed the blues musical format. The most famous blues ballads include those about John Henry and Casey Jones.
Bush ballads
Cover to Banjo Paterson’s seminal 1905 collection of bush ballads, entitled The Old Bush Songs
The ballad was taken to Australia by early settlers from Britain and Ireland and gained particular foothold in the rural outback. The rhyming songs, poems and tales written in the form of ballads often relate to the itinerant and rebellious spirit of Australia in The Bush, and the authors and performers are often referred to as bush bards. The nineteenth century was the golden age of bush ballads. Several collectors have catalogued the songs including John Meredith whose recording in the 1950s became the basis of the collection in the National Library of Australia. The songs tell personal stories of life in the wide open country of Australia. Typical subjects include mining, raising and droving cattle, sheep shearing, wanderings, war stories, the 1891 Australian shearers’ strike, class conflicts between the landless working class and the squatters (landowners), and outlaws such as Ned Kelly, as well as love interests and more modern fare such as trucking.
Sentimental ballads
Now the most commonly understood meaning of the term ballad, sentimental ballads, sometimes called “tear-jerkers” or “drawing-room ballads” owing to their popularity with the middle classes, had their origins in the early ‘Tin Pan Alley’ music industry of the later nineteenth century. They were generally sentimental, narrative, strophic songs published separately or as part of an opera (descendants perhaps of broadside ballads, but with printed music, and usually newly composed. Such songs include ‘Little Rosewood Casket’ (1870), ‘After the Ball’ (1892) and ‘Danny Boy’. By the Victorian era ballad had come to mean any sentimental popular song, especially so-called “royalty ballads”, which publishers would pay popular singers to perform in Britain and the United States in “ballad concerts.” Some of Stephen Foster’s songs exemplify this genre. By the 1920s, composers of Tin Pan Alley and Broadway used ballad to signify a slow, sentimental tune or love song, often written in a fairly standardized form (see below). Jazz musicians sometimes broaden the term still further to embrace all slow-tempo pieces.
Jazz, blues and traditional pop
As new genres of music, such as ragtime, blues and jazz, began to emerge in the early twentieth century the popularity of the genre faded, but the association with sentimentality meant led to the term ballad being used for a slow love song from the 1950s onwards. Most pop standard and jazz ballads are built from a single, introductory verse; usually around 16 bars in length, and ending on the dominant; the chorus or refrain, usually it is 16 or 32 bars long, and in AABA form (though other forms such as ABAC are not uncommon). In AABA forms the B section is usually referred to as the bridge; often a brief coda, sometimes based on material from the bridge, was added as in “Over the Rainbow”. Other key traditional pop and jazz ballads include: “Body and Soul” by Johnny Green; “Misty” by Erroll Garner; “The Man I Love” by George Gershwin; “My Funny Valentine” by Rodgers and Hart, “God Bless the Child” by Billie Holiday, “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye” by Cole Porter, the instrumental ballad “Naima” by John Coltrane, “In a Sentimental Mood” by Duke Ellington and “Always” by Irving Berlin.
Pop and rock ballads
To emphasize the emotional aspect of a power ballad, crowds customarily held up lit lighters
The most common use of the term ballad in modern pop music is for an emotional love song. When the word ballad appears in the title of a song, as for example in The Beatles’s “The Ballad of John and Yoko” or Billy Joel’s “The Ballad of Billy the Kid”, the folk-music sense is generally implied. Ballad is also sometimes applied to strophic story-songs more generally, such as Don McLean’s “American Pie”.
Power ballads
Simon Frith identifies the origins of the power ballad in the emotional singing of soul artists, particularly Ray Charles and the adaption of this style by figures such as Eric Burdon, Tom Jones and Joe Cocker to produce slow tempo songs often building to a loud and emotive chorus backed by drums, electric guitars and sometimes choirs. According to Charles Aaron, power ballads came into existence in the early 1970s, when rock stars attempted to convey profound messages to audiences. He argues that the power ballad broke into the mainstream of American consciousness in 1976 as FM radio gave a new lease of life to earlier songs like Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” (1971), Aerosmith’s “Dream On” (1973), and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” (1974). Other notable examples include Nazareth’s version of “Love Hurts” (1975), Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is”, Scorpions “Still Loving You”, (all from 1984), Heart’s “What About Love” (1985) and Whitesnake’s “Is This Love” (1987).
List of rock ballads
The following is a list of rock ballads from the 1950s till present. These include all slow rock songs, power ballads and acoustic ballads, but does not include any soft rock content.
1
18 and Life
2
21 Guns
A
À Tout le Monde
À Tout le Monde (Set Me Free)
Across the Universe
After All These Years
After Midnight
Again
Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)
Against the Wind
All for Love
All I Need
All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You
All the Young Dudes
Almost Paradise
Alone
Alone Again
Always
Amanda
Amazing
Angel
Angels
Angie
As Tears Go By
At My Most Beautiful
B
Because the Night
Bed of Roses
Behind Blue Eyes
The Best of Times
Beth
Bette Davis Eyes
Big Log
Bird of Paradise
Bitter Sweet Symphony
Bittersweet
Black Hole Sun
Blaze of Glory
Bohemian Rhapsody
The Boys of Summer
Brazen (Weep)
Bringin’ On the Heartbreak
Broken Heart
Broken Wings
Brothers in Arms
C
Californication
Can’t Cry Hard Enough
Can’t Fight This Feeling
Can’t Get It Out of My Head
Carrie
Cemetery Gates
Champagne Supernova
Changes
Chasing Cars
Child in Time
China in Your Hand
Civil War
Cloud Number Nine
Come Back to What You Know
Come Sail Away
Coming Home
Comfortably Numb
Crazy
Cry Over Me
Cryin’
The Crystal Ship
D
Daysleeper
Do I Have to Say the Words?
Don’t Cry
Don’t Dream It’s Over
Don’t Go
Don’t Know What You Got (Till It’s Gone)
Don’t Speak
Don’t Stop Believin’
Dream On
Dreamer (Europe)
Dreamer (Ozzy Osbourne)
Drive
The Drugs Don’t Work
Dust in the Wind
E
Edie (Ciao Baby)
Endless Rain
Eternal Flame
Europa (Earth’s Cry Heaven’s Smile)
Every Breath You Take
Every Rose Has Its Thorn
Everybody Hurts
(Everything I Do) I Do It for You
Everywhere
Eyes Without a Face
Everlong
F
Fade to Black
Faithfully
Fake Plastic Trees
Fall at Your Feet
Far Away
Far Behind
Feel Like Makin’ Love
First Time
Fix You
The Flame
Flying
Follow You Follow Me
Forever
Forever Autumn
Forever Love
Free Bird
The Freshmen
G
Glory of Love
God Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll to You II
Golden Brown
Good Enough
Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)
Goodbye for Now
Goodbye My Lover
Goodbye to Love
Goodbye to Romance
H
Handbags and Gladrags
Hard Habit to Break
Hard to Say I’m Sorry
Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad
Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?
Have You Ever Seen the Rain?
Hazard
Headed for a Heartbreak
Heaven (Bryan Adams)
Heaven (Warrant)
Heaven for Everyone
Hedonism (Just Because You Feel Good)
Here I Go Again
Here Without You
Hey Jude
Hey There Delilah
Hey You
High
High Enough
High and Dry
Hold on My Heart
Hold On to the Nights
Hole Hearted
Home
Home Sweet Home
Honestly (Harem Scarem)
Honestly (Stryper)
The House of the Rising Sun
How Do You Talk to an Angel
How to Save a Life
Human Touch
Hungry Eyes
Hysteria
I
I Could Not Ask for More
I Don’t Love You
I Don’t Wanna Live Without Your Love
I Don’t Want to Live Without You
I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing
I Finally Found My Way
(I Just) Died in Your Arms
I Live My Life for You
I Remember You
I Shall Be Released
I Should Have Known Better
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
I Want to Know What Love Is
I Wish It Would Rain Down
I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)
I’d Lie for You (And That’s the Truth)
I’ll Be
I’ll Be There for You
I’ll Be Waiting
I’m on Fire
I’m With You
If I Could Turn Back Time
Imagine
In a Darkened Room
In My Darkest Hour
In the Air Tonight
In the Army Now
In Too Deep
In Your Eyes
Inevitable
Innuendo
Iris
Is This Love
Isn’t it Time
It Must Have Been Love
It’s a Heartache
It’s Been Awhile
It’s a Hard Life
Itchycoo Park
J
Jealous Guy
Jesus of Suburbia
The Joker
Just Between You and Me
K
Karma Police
Kayleigh
Keep Holding On
Keep On Loving You
Kiss Me
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Kyrie
L
Lady
Lady in Black
Lavender
Let It Be
Let’s Make a Night to Remember
Life After You
Life in a Northern Town
Life on Mars?
Light On
Lights
Linger
Listen to Your Heart
Little Lies
Little Wing
Live and Let Die
Living in Sin
The Living Years
Look Away
Losing My Religion
Love Bites
Love Don’t Come Easy
Love Hurts
Love Is a Battlefield
Love Is on the Way
Love Me Tomorrow
Love Song
Love Walks In
Love of My Life
Love of a Lifetime
Love, Love, Love
Loving the Alien
Lullaby
M
Making Love Out of Nothing at All
Mama Said
Mama, I’m Coming Home
Michelle
Miles Away
Miss You in a Heartbeat
Missing You
More Than Words
More Than Words Can Say
More Than a Feeling
My Immortal
My Oh My
My Way
N
Never Say Goodbye
Never Say Never
Never Surrender
Never Tear Us Apart
New Divide
Nights in White Satin
Nobody’s Home
Northern Downpour
No Surprises
Nothing Else Matters
Nothing Ever Happens
Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now
Nothingness
November Rain
Now and Forever
O
Ode to My Family
Oh Yeah (On the Radio)
One
Only God Knows Why
Ooh La La
Open Arms
Open Your Eyes
Over My Shoulder
P
Patience
Perfect
Photograph
Please Forgive Me
Private Investigations
Purple Rain
Q
R
Radio Ga Ga
Right Here Waiting
The River
The Road to Hell
Road to Nowhere
Romeo and Juliet
Rosanna
Rough Boy
Run
Runaway Train
S
Sail Away
Sailing
Sara
Save Me
Save You
Savin’ Me
Scar Tissue
The Scientist
The Search Is Over
Second Chance
Secret
Secret Garden
Secrets
See You On The Other Side
Send Me an Angel
Shadow of the Day
Show Me Heaven
Show Me the Way
The Show Must Go On
Silent Lucidity
Silent Night
Since I’ve Been Loving You
Sister Christian
Slow Motion
Slowly Slipping Away
So Far Away
Somebody to Love
Something
Something to Believe In
Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough
Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own
Soul to Squeeze
Space Oddity
Stairway to Heaven
Still Loving You
Stop and Stare
Straight from the Heart
Stranded
Streets of Philadelphia
Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of
Sultans of Swing
Sweet Child o’ Mine
Sweet Home Alabama
T
Take It on the Run
Tears
Tears in Heaven
Thank You For Loving Me
The Day That Never Comes
The Way It Is
These Are the Days of Our Lives
These Dreams
This Could Be the Night
This Love
Thought I’d Died and Gone to Heaven
Time After Time (Cyndi Lauper)
Time After Time (Ozzy Osbourne)
The Time of My Life
To Be with You
Together Again
Too Much Love Will Kill You
Total Eclipse of the Heart
A Touch of Evil
Turn
Two Is Better Than One
Two Steps Behind
U
Under the Bridge
The Unforgiven
Untitled (How Could This Happen to Me?)
Use Somebody
V
Valerie
Vermilion
Victims of Love
W
Waiting for a Girl Like You
Wake Me Up When September Ends
Walking in Memphis
Wanted Dead or Alive
Wasting Love
We Are the Champions
Weather with You
What About Love
What About Now
What It Takes
What I’ve Done
What Kind of Man Would I Be?
What’s Love Got to Do with It
What’s Up?
When I’m with You
When I Look Into Your Eyes
When I See You Smile
When Love & Hate Collide
When You’re Gone
When the Children Cry
Where Are You Now
Wherever You Will Go
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
A Whiter Shade of Pale
Who Wants to Live Forever
Who’ll Stop the Rain
Who’s Crying Now
Why Does It Always Rain on Me?
Wildflower
Wild Horses
Wild West Hero
Will You Still Love Me?
Wind of Change
Wish You Were Here
With Arms Wide Open
With or Without You
Wonderful Tonight
Wonderwall
Wrapped Around Your Finger
X
Y
Yesterday
Yesterdays
You Found Me
You and Me
You and Your Heart
You’re Beautiful
You’re My Best Friend
You’re the Inspiration
You’re the Voice
Your Decision
Youth of the Nation
Z
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