Meant to add that, to the modern music listener, a "ballad" is, as somebody noted above, a soothing song, often encountered while dancing, sung by a "crooner," or pre-rock 'n roll music star. It's "bailar" all over again!

Thus Jo Stafford, or Bing Crosby, or Perry Como, or Peggy Lee, or Frank Sinatra would "croon" a "ballad," meaning, perhaps, something like "Embraceable You," or "Melancholy Baby" -- I'm not complaining, as these are two pop oldies I happen to like.   More recently I guess you could say Barry Manilow, Tom Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck and their ilk were in the ballad business.

But you can see that semantics have taken their toll. One word means two violently different kinds of song.

Us folkies have that happen to us all the time. The mainstream takes over all our cherished terms of reference. Like "folk," for example, which to us means traditional, but to the everyday guy on the street means the style, songs and persons of contemporary singer-songwriters. Again, two violently different meanings for one word.

But that's our beloved English language for ya.

(Sigh.)