Another one bites the dust I see. Just as I was going to suggest that the more parameters a ballad is deemed to require to be one, the more will thus be excluded.
I'd previously thought the offering that a ballad should not contain comment was perhaps relevant, especially as it was an angle I hadn't considered. But while not even thinking about songs 'Woe be to the little foot page and an ill death may he die' came to mind so that idea goes the journey too as Musgrave is certainly a ballad.
John