I once heard a fairly well-known singer do a long ballad--many verses, which in itself was okay, but in addition, he was a pretty fair guitarist, and he felt impelled to play the entire melody on the guitar between each of the verses! So you got verse-guitar-verse-guitar-verse-guitar-verse-guitar-verse-guitar.....you get the idea.

Interminal! Bo-o-o-oring! And downright tasteless! As good as he is supposed to be, he demonstrated that he didn't really understand how to tell a story, which is what a ballad is.

Don Firth