definition of a ballad

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 11:44 AM

"Well Al, let me surprise you - most "folk clubs" have never said that an English folk club should hear only English folk songs. But they should know the difference, and hear enough, and those............. etc"
Wish I'd said that.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 11:47 AM

Oh, I just wish I could hear a folk song in a folk club now and again. English would be nice - but Scottish or Irish ... or Vietnamese would do!

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 11:50 AM

"Oh, I just wish I could hear a folk song in a folk club now and again."
Wish I'd said that too - in fact, I think I have; many, many times!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: The Sandman
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 12:15 PM

I hear one every time I sing.now can wew get back to the matter in hand,definition of a ballad.

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 01:02 PM

well leader of the pack has honourable antcedents - the wild young man come to grief genre, Geordie, whatever it is St James Infirmary used to be called in English.etc.

Can't remember much about RT's song - I hear it quite often, but it sort of washes over me - I suppose you could link it with songs like Creepng Jane and Stewball - fast experiences.

If you don't 'hear' echoes of English folksong, in ordinary people spontaneously trying to express themselves in song in English - my Mother was a Quaker and she used (too often) a very irritating Quaker saying - 'perhaps you have not deeply enough about the subject.' I begin to see what she meant.

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 01:05 PM

the saying was - perhaps you have not thought deeply enough about this subject.

God! that used to piss me off!

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 01:06 PM

Leader of the Pack (and Teen Angel and Wreck of the Old 97 and Zebra Dun) are all ballads. They may or may not be folk ballads, but they are narrative songs that tell a story. Leave us not overcomplicate a fairly straightforward definition.

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 01:08 PM

I was going to as if you had left the thought out of that...

(gets coat)

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: JeffB
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 01:39 PM

So instead of trying to reconcile several different types of song under one label, can't we just say that we may loosely call any narrative song a "ballad", but within "ballads" there is an important sub-set, which we might call "Childean" or "Border" (to meet English and Scottish half-way), and (if you are unable to identify them by how they sound and how they affect you) these ballads are easily identified by provenance and by certain technical features.

Therefore, yes, "Leader of the pack" is a sort of ballad (if you should choose to listen to such garbage with a straight face). A "pop ballad", perhaps, whose main purpose was to make some recording exec a pile of cash.

Or is that a bit too simple and grown-up for you all?

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 03:21 PM

JeffB
Ah, some common sense at last!

What exactly are you after, Dick? These things have been debated ad-nauseam on just about every message board.

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: The Sandman
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 04:01 PM

Steve Gardham,the quest for knowledge.

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 05:14 PM

' A "pop ballad", perhaps, whose main purpose was to make some recording exec a pile of cash.'

The bloke who wrote Sir Patrick Spens probably did it in the hope of making a few quid by being the life and soul of some knees up back in the mists of time.

I wonder at what point it becomes morally questionable for a songwriter to have payment for his efforts.

2nd point

'"Well Al, let me surprise you - most "folk clubs" have never said that an English folk club should hear only English folk songs. But they should know the difference, and hear enough, and those............. etc"'

So just me amd Martin remember how it was.....sorry how it fell out of a midsummer eve. A pity you find yourself only able to respond to the one genre of language. gadzooks! Does that help?

perhaps it has something to do with the fact that neither of us flounced out in high dudgeon,saying - this isn't what I call folkmusic/ a ballad/ whatever. we watched the movement we loved being buggered up by intolerance.

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: RobbieWilson
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 05:21 PM

Like so many of the arguements in here most of this is completely vacuuous because people criticise what others say by pointing out the bloody obvious; that there is another way to look at it. Words, ballads or any other word, dont get used in a vacuum they get used in context; in conversation or in the middle of some text. It is completely bogus to harumph about communication being damaged by a failure to agree a single definition for a word. but then so many people are obsessed by pointing out how superior they are to the hoi poloi. That always struck me as being quite funny from people who profess to uphold the importance of folk music, the untutored music of the hoi poloi of lomg ago.

In the middle of a discussion it does not take a great deal of wit to think about what is being said and work out whether we are talking about ancient b "big songs " or 20th century story songs.

If you want to ask a meaningful question narrow it down a bit. There are many kinds of ballads which would be recognised by the disparate membership of this forum. You could add a modifier; child allads, bothy ballads, border ballads buchan ballads, pop ballads, power ballads if you really were interested in a particular area.

On the other hand if you want people to differ over their answers ask an ambiguous question.

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: The Sandman
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 05:26 PM

what was the singers club policy?
there were also clubs, where if you did a floor spot singing unaccompanied traditional material,you would not get booked,e g. Dartford,Putney Folk and Blues.
then there were traditonal music clubs,NTMC,leicester Trad music club,Bromley trad club,etc
then there were clubs that booked a broad spectrum.

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 05:57 PM

Precisely, Robbie

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: JeffB
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 06:01 PM

Err ... thanks Robbie. I suppose you mean that you agree with me. (You left out broadside ballads.)

WLD : I sincerely hope that whoever wrote Sir Pat got a sackful of .. umm ... sack, and a double dose of dubloons. It becomes morally objectionable when the stuff a professional agent is promoting is predictable and derivative mass-produced garbage, pushed onto a subservient public which knows no better because it never hears no better.

I know, and I'm sure everybody else who contributes here knows as well, any number of talented and interesting singer/songwriters who are miles superior to the rubbish which floods our airwaves, but whose listening public is restricted to a few score of appreciative folk at their local club. You might even be one yourself.

But I fear we are drifting off-thread. Wanna start a new one?

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 06:18 PM

Hoi (or rather "oi" with a rough breathing) meant "the. So "the hoi polloi" is a solecism.

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 06:34 PM

Dick,
Having had a long hard think about your original posting and having tried hard to work out what you are after, I think I detect 2 underlying currents of enquiry.
Both would depend on whether you are coming at this as a scholar, or as a performer/singer. As the latter it surely matters little where the ballad came from or what minds it has passed through.

BUT to a scholar who is wanting to study exclusively orally evolved material it matters a great deal. Much of the material in the Child ballads for instance has probably never passed through oral tradition. Some of it (e.g., most of the Robin Hood ballads) only appears to have existed in print for reading, and much of it has been so interfered with by poet/collectors it is almost impossible to tell what actually existed in oral tradition. For instance the texts published by the likes of Jamieson, Scott, Buchan, Percy and others are under heavy suspicion and some are known to have been fabricated.

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Rowan
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 07:34 PM

When he was lecturing in English at Melbourne Uni Ian Maxwell spoke often about ballads. The Public Lecture Theatre could seat 850 and was used for his First Year lectures; the venue would usually be full, with people from other parts of the uni coming to hear him. His powers of recitation brought many to tears. He also ran the studies in Old Icelandic (required for Honours students at the time) and some of the Old Icelandic ballads were not just sung, they were danced; the longer ones went for three days!

Perhaps at the other end of the spectrum of ballads from Plaisir D'Amour but. like all good discussions, it's helpful (required in scholarly ones) to start with a definition of terms and then use the discussion to explore if, why and how the definitions need to be modified for the purposes at hand. Robbie put it well, but it could be shortened to "context flavours the content"; another relevant cliche is "form follows function".

But I'm sure most of you already knew that. As an aside, I first noticed this thread when it had only two posts and. although I felt I could adequately explain my understanding of the term (as could the Cap'n, incidentally), I decided to look up "ballad" on Wikipedia. Sure enough, the definition there was roughly equivalent to what I understood (it even defined "Ballade" as a separate form not to be confused with "ballad") so I thought the Cap'n might just be poking the ant's nest. Perhaps I was mistaken. The examples that have been presented are interesting to contemplate.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 07:49 PM

well I think you've hit the nail on the head. For academics with an encyclapaedic knowledge of folk cultures of distant lands and a desire to tabulate the results of his musings. well then definitions of what a ballad is, must be bloody nearly essential.

For the local halfwit with a headful of predjudices and needing through bitter resentment to discount the talents of more hadworking musicians than himself, and frantically searching for reasons to nullify their careers. Definitions are also pretty useful.

Sad to say that second use is the one you see most commonly on the English folkscene.

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: curmudgeon
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 09:06 PM

Subject: definiton of a ballad
From: Captain Birdseye - PM
Date: 27 Aug 08 - 12:35 PM

can anyone define a genuine ballad?.

A ballad is a song that tells a story; all the rest is just explanation.

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 09:51 PM

JeffB-
Why do some folks insist on attaching a value judgment to definitions like "ballad"? Yes, "Leader of the Pack" is garbage. So what? It still tells a story, regardless of the banality of the narrative.

Further, it appears that Child's distinction between "Popular" ballads and "Broadside" ballads depends to a great extent upon our ignorance of origins..an ignorance that is gradually being dispelled.

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Aug 08 - 02:09 AM

"Leader of the Pack" is a wonderful example of a pop song. It truly is excellent. But neither being a pop song, nor being excellent necessarily makes it a ballad, nor would not being either of those things prevent it being a ballad.

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 29 Aug 08 - 02:12 AM

One thing I would like to disabuse these 'oh so obviously middle class' people about is the fact that all people in pop music make a fortune, and their sole motive is money.

Some people make a lot of money. The majority don't. They have something to say - they write maybe one hit - that's it - a career. Many of them are far more idealistic about the craft of writing songs and performing than yer average breadhead folkie - forever slapping himself on the back at how much his Martin or Lowden is worth.

A friend of mine bumped into Marc Almond when he was in the charts with Tainted Love - his management was paying him forty quid a week. I recorded the late susan Fassbender after her massive hit Twilight Cafe. She was abandoned by her conglomerate bastard record company CBS, and management. She was paying for the session herself and was very depressed - she eventually committed suicide.

When we had our hit - it was in Germany. The general consensus was - 'oh good you'll get some of the money them. the english music industry are totally unregulated - a load of gangsters'. when we got to the studio - we found we had NO control. It was such an obvious hit - that the publisher had given the arrangement royalty and fee to someone he needed to do a favour for. We were in competition with a German language version that they thought was going to be the 'real' hit - a soap star and an ex goali for Real Madrid.

Record companies and publisher have about as much respect for artists as when they made Robert Johnson use the goods entrance.

In the aforementioned Martin Carthy DVD. Martin says, People say these old songs aren't up to date. Norma says to me, what do they mean by that - there aren't motorbikes in it...?

Well as we all know, there are motorbkies in Leader of the Pack. They are there, because the writer thought it important to say what he had to say to put motorbikes in there.

I say again to you. You aren't an academic in some fusty old library. What do YOU need these definitions for? What can they be there for, except the ignoble desire to think yourself superior to another artist and discount their artistic endeavour?

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Aug 08 - 03:03 AM

"A ballad is a song that tells a story;"
Virtually all English-language folk-songs (certainly on this side of the pond) tell a story - does this mean that the English repertoire is made up almost entirely of ballads?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 29 Aug 08 - 03:15 AM

well its certainly a very widely used term, Jim. Whenever I hear it used - I never really know what to expect - I've heard the old Alfred Noyes poem - the Highwayman - described as 'being in ballad form'. So like someone said, about the very old ballads - maybe they weren't necesarily even intended to be sung.

My point was that it really is a bit of a catch all term - it tells you virtually nothing.

incidentally Stuart Gilbert in his book about Joyce's Ulysses has some insights ino the Icelandic/Viking ballads. He talks about them being performed by 'bareserks' in a trance - that's how they performed for three days on end. apparently the audience were pissed as rats also, and this saided their powers of concentration - or presumably indifference.

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: GUEST,Howard Jones
Date: 29 Aug 08 - 03:43 AM

A bit like an elephant, a ballad is hard to define but easy to recognise.

Or so I thought. I'd never thought of a song like "Marrowbones" as being a ballad, even though it tells a story, and I'd never heard it described as such until I read this thread.

It's a bit pointless arguing over how the word is used in other genres - this is a folk music forum and it should be evident that the context is folk music. The fact that the pop world uses the word to describe something different is irrelevant.

Besides the verse form, what often distinguishes a ballad is the terrible inevitability of the narrative. You just know it is going to end badly for someone. There is no characterisation, and the the story is stripped to the bone, although there may be some strange and apparently irrelevant diversions (what has that bit with the parrot in "The Outlandish Knight" got to do with it?). Nevertheless there is scope for some arresting imagery in the language.

Of course, all that could apply to "Marrowbones", but the "feel" of the song is quite different, which is why it doesn't qualify as a ballad, in my opinion.

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Aug 08 - 04:59 AM

Young man goes to sea - his lover follows him and is told he is drowned - she drowns herself (Early, Early In The Spring) - a ballad?
Man goes into a pub with a penny in his pocket, is invited into a card game - he wins (Penny Wager) - a ballad?
Troop of soldiers come into town, Captain falls in love with a prostitute; she rejects him, he dies -(Pretty Peggy O) a ballad?
Man picks up a girl, they get drunk, go to bed, she steals his clothes and money, he goes looking for her dressed in her clothes. (The Beggar Wench) - a ballad?
Man takes a horse and sells it at the fair, buyer grooms and clips it and sells it back to him at a higher price (Derry Mare) - a ballad?
A ballad is much more than a song with a story.
Howard Jones is quite right - the ballads 'feel' different - but I believe those differences can be identified.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: JeffB
Date: 29 Aug 08 - 05:52 AM

Dick : Exactly what value judgement did I attach to ballads? You must have seen that by calling "Leader of the pack" a "sort of ballad" was not meant to include it along with classical Child ballads. If you didn't, I apologise for not expressing myself clearly. But I have to say that I don't quite understand what you are criticising. You agree the "Leader of the pack" is banal garbage, then seem to say it's worth listening to simply because it's a story of sorts. So is Humpty Dumpty, who ended up in much the same situation.

WLD : Do you ever actually read other people's posts? I said "It becomes objectionable when the stuff a PROFESSIONAL AGENT is pushing". A bit earlier I said " .. a pop ballad whose main purpose was to make a RECORDING EXEC a lot of money". I never mentioned the poor sods who starve because they think they are good enough to make a living in the music market, mainly because I was trying to keep to the subject. Some of us like to keep to the subject. Next time you feel the urge to blast someone who is trying to make a serious contribution, just stop for a minute and slo-wly read what they've written, not what you think they've written, or exoect them to write.

And I ain't middleclass, never have been. Got a low-grade tech qualification and spent my working life doing what professional people told me to. I am now a pensioner living almost on the breadline. Try to keep your irrelevant and outdated attitudes on "class" to yourself.

Everyone else : Apologies for the detour. I hope we can leave the pop/rock scene for once and all.

I haven't read anything Child wrote, but I do know his contemporary Francis Gummere said that Child never concerned himself with origins. Gummere also listed some technical (perhaps I should say academic) features which he thought were diagnostic of ballads from 14th century, and which I mentioned in passing above. They are concerned with stanza construction, metre, rhyme, alliteration etc. (Plus narrative, and absence of description or emotive passages). I assume that at that stage no-one suspected that some of the Child ballads had actually been written 100 years earlier, or even less. If the question had arisen, I suppose Gummere would have looked for these features to help him decide the new from the old, and I imagine that Child used the same technical features to distinguish Classic from Broadside ballads.

Gummere had quite a bit to say about origins, most of it quotes from other theorists of the time who tended to present their wildly different opinions as incontrovertable fact, but he did say (this is from memory) that there were no longer any purely orally-evolved ballads in Europe anymore. If get him aright, he believed that as soon as printing became wide-spread the character of ballads changed enormously because professional bards with their different style of composition became widely known, and when oral transmission combined with print, something like the classic ballad became standard. But I might have misunderstood him - he isn't easy reading. In any case, it's only another theory. How could he know that an older type of ballad had disappeared if it had never been recorded in the first place?

It's interesting though that in discussing the idea of indidual composer v communal composition - a question that worried that generation of scholars a lot - he mentioned the early association of communal song and dance, in Iceland, Scotland and Germany, among other places. People actually sang while they all danced together, and part of the dance seems to have been gestures appropriate to the words. There might have been an association between singing and ball games too. But at least some of these songs were obviously not narrative ballads.

Not everyone agonised over the origins of ballads. Walter Scott took the view that the minstrel was quite sufficient to account for minstrlsy.

I would be extremely interested to hear the evidence that some of the Child ballads were composed very late. Not that I am in any position to judge - just curious.

20 years later Quiller-Couch, another lover of ballads, hints that perhaps a new classic age of balladry could be beginning with two well-known authors, Coleridge and Kipling. For me too, they are fine balladeers. Non-Childean, but the power of the text is there. Now that Kipling's Barrackroom Ballads have been given tunes, a lot of them anyway, does anyone fancy setting "The rime of the ancient mariner" to music? That could be worth hearing!

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: The Sandman
Date: 29 Aug 08 - 06:12 AM

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Steve Gardham - PM
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 06:34 PM

Dick,
Having had a long hard think about your original posting and having tried hard to work out what you are after, I think I detect 2 underlying currents of enquiry.
Both would depend on whether you are coming at this as a scholar, or as a performer/singer. As the latter it surely matters little where the ballad came from or what minds it has passed through.

BUT to a scholar who is wanting to study exclusively orally evolved material it matters a great deal. Much of the material in the Child ballads for instance has probably never passed through oral tradition. Some of it (e.g., most of the Robin Hood ballads) only appears to have existed in print for reading, and much of it has been so interfered with by poet/collectors it is almost impossible to tell what actually existed in oral tradition. For instance the texts published by the likes of Jamieson, Scott, Buchan, Percy and others are under heavy suspicion and some are known to have been fabricated
    now, this is interesting.
as a singer I do feel differently about a song that has been passed down over the years by many people,its not necessarily better just different.I also wonder as I do about my concertinas,as to who may have played/sung them,and even altered the songs before me.
to your second point,heavily fabricated versions of songs,
as a singer its quality that counts,that is why I dont discard Lloyds Tam Lin or Recruited Collier[The stubble field verse is superb]I bet that was Lloyd.
Bert lloyd missed a vocation as a songwriter.
Should not scholars be concerned with quality of text,as well as authenticity?

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: The Sandman
Date: 29 Aug 08 - 06:19 AM

the Ancient Mariner was set to music in victorian times by John Francis Barnett,and performed in st james hall,london,on february 11 1868,with band and chorus of 350 performers.
In fact ,on the same bill[but of less importance was an overture by Weber.

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Aug 08 - 11:30 AM

There is an interesting chapter on the literary ballad in Evelyn Well's The Ballad Tree. It's fascinating to see how the literary poets failed to hit the mark by overpadding and overstating.
For me, the strength of the traditional ballad lies in its use of the vernacular.
Kipling tried so hard to imitate the language of the ordinary soldier but, to my ears, always came out as trite and patronising.
There is a beautiful verse in an American version of The Golden Vanitee, which captures both the language and the experience of working people perfectly;

"Some were playing cards and some were playing dice,
And some were standing round giving good advice....

That could only have been written by somebody who has witnessed what goes on at lunchtime in a factory or some other workplace.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Lighter
Date: 29 Aug 08 - 12:08 PM

Great link to Mrs. Brewer!

Seems to me she mostly sings "All alone and alone," not "...lone," as thye transcription has it, but I've been wrong before.

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: The Sandman
Date: 29 Aug 08 - 12:19 PM

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Jim Carroll - PM
Date: 29 Aug 08 - 11:30 AM

There is an interesting chapter on the literary ballad in Evelyn Well's The Ballad Tree. It's fascinating to see how the literary poets failed to hit the mark by overpadding and overstating.
For me, the strength of the traditional ballad lies in its use of the vernacular.
Kipling tried so hard to imitate the language of the ordinary soldier but, to my ears, always came out as trite and patronising.
There is a beautiful verse in an American version of The Golden Vanitee, which captures both the language and the experience of working people perfectly;

"Some were playing cards and some were playing dice,
And some were standing round giving good advice....

That could only have been written by somebody who has witnessed what goes on at lunchtime in a factory or some other workplace.
Jim Carroll ,
spot on, Jim,
re the good advice,or some other workplace,reminds me of the betting shop.

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 29 Aug 08 - 12:52 PM

Jim,
I have to disagree with you over the English language songs not being mostly ballads. They are. They are also 90% 'broadside ballads'.
All I have to do to verify this is glance around my bookshelves at the titles as you should do yours. Your other opinions I agree with completely.

Dick,
The quality of the song/ballad is irrelevant to your thread.
BUT for WIW I agree with you about Bert.

Curious JeffB
You only have to read some of Child's own comments, and he was being generous! No-one nowadays disputes the concoctions of Percy and Scott but some of the others are still contentious. We're working on it. The jury's still out!

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Lighter
Date: 29 Aug 08 - 01:17 PM

Kipling's "Barrack-Room Ballads" seem far more patronizing today than they ever could have in 1890. In the days before radio and tape, stereotyped dialect spellings seemed less stereotypical and more like evidence of the real thing." Sounded out Cockney-style -even 120s years later - they sound more believable than they look, though obviously they're not perfect.

What's more, K's insistent use of the vernacular, spoken by characters with often decidedly unconventional points of view, was like a one-man rap revolution for English poetry. Earlier uses of working-class dialect usually just went to show how quaint or humorous the characters were. In other words, not to be taken seriously.

K's critics said he was debasing poetry and threatening the language. But that's another thread and another forum.

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 29 Aug 08 - 02:34 PM

JeffB-
You misread me. The fact that I consider any song with a narrative a ballad does emphatically not mean that I think it's worth listening to. That's what I mean about unnecessary value judgments being attached to terms. "Ballad" doesn't necessarily mean good, anymore than "folk" does.

There is a vast body of lyric songs on both sides of the pond that do not narrate stories.

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Aug 08 - 03:03 PM

If I have to 'look it up in my Funk & Wagnalls,' as they used to say on "Laugh-in," I'm already lost. I guess I've always considered ballads to be story songs; songs with a narrative that come out of the oral tradition. It was always said that Sinatra and Tony Bennett were ballad singers, but most of us would agree that we are talking about a different realm altogether. On the other hand, does the fact that a song was composed automatically mean it doesn't qualify as a ballad?

I have always admired singers who were great storytellers; people who could take a Child ballad, for instance, and make it resonate for modern audiences. It is a rare talent in this age of short attention spans and instant gratification.

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 29 Aug 08 - 04:07 PM

Lyric songs.
Arguably some of these could also be classified as ballads as often they are the remnants of ballads where all that remains is a riddle section or a lament. Many versions of the 'Died for Love' family or the 'Waly Waly' family often survive only as a collection of lyric pieces with no progression.
Then again some of the ballads in Child's collection are little more than gatherings of commonplaces from other ballads.

Just to complicate matters! Stir, stir!

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Aug 08 - 04:24 AM

Steve,
"I have to disagree with you over the English language songs not being mostly ballads. They are. They are also 90% 'broadside ballads'."
I wasn't counting broadsides as ballads - I think the term refers to a method of production rather than a description of a type of song.
The Travellers' programme (on RTE's Lyric FM at 3-30 this afternoon) is devoted entirely to Mikeen McCarthy, a 'ballad' seller from Kerry, who gave us a great deal of information on the trade, and he made it clear that what he put on his ballad sheets ranged from 'The Blind Beggar' ("a best seller, that one") and 'Early in the Month of Spring' to 'Little Grey Home in the West' and 'Did Your Mother Come From Ireland'.
The question of broadsides and their relationship to the oral tradition is an incredibly complex one. Sure, the old singers used them, but it certainly wasn't a simple case of them lifting the song straight off the sheet unaltered; the question of personal taste, skill and literacy abilities were very much part of what happened to the song after it 'left home'.
Regarding your comments on lyrical songs coming from ballads - surely we classify the songs on what they have become rather than how they started out?
The truth is that we have very little information on the subject; Bob Thomson did some great work in the UK and John Moulden in Ireland, but apart from that I believe that any work done has concentrated on production and distribution rather than influence.
Dick G is right when he says, "There is a vast body of lyric songs on both sides of the pond that do not narrate stories. ", at least, I believe that to be the case in the US and Ireland, (though it is hard to be 100% firm on this about Ireland, as much of our impression of the Irish repertoire is based on the present song revival which, in my opinion has greatly neglected its extremely rich narrative repertoire in favour of the lyrical one).
However, the English and Scots traditional repertoires are strongly dominated by narrative songs, most of which do not fall under the category 'ballad' as far as I'm concerned.
'Guest' from the posting above (but one) sums up my feelings about the ballad perfectly.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: JHW
Date: 30 Aug 08 - 05:21 AM

'a song that tells a story' as already offered, is surely the ESSENCE of a ballad if it can not be the DEFINITION.
On Radio 2 and even in the bothy the word ballad simply has a different connotation in a different setting, a very common feature of the English language.

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Folkiedave
Date: 30 Aug 08 - 07:52 AM

Simply for information....

I just hope none of this pedanry isn't there in these new University courses in England.

Just the opposite in my experience. And to be pedantic - it is only "course" as far as I know - but there is one in Scotland.

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 30 Aug 08 - 02:22 PM

Jim,
We have to agree to differ. I'm simply going by majority vote looking around my library shelves at the titles of the books. I have just about every anthology of ballads, English, Scots, Irish, American available on the market; Roxburghe Ballads, Ancient Ballads traditionally sung in New England, Ord's Bothy Songs and Ballads, Ballads of the Pubs of Ireland, The Pepys Ballads, Songs and Ballads of Dundee, the Ballad Minstrelsy of Scotland, Border Ballads, The British Broadside Ballad and Its Music, Child Ballads, Bawdy Ballads etc.

Admittedly many of them have 'Folk Song in the title' but then Ballad in this case is a category of folk song.

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Aug 08 - 05:27 AM

Steve
In which case we have to find a defining feature between 'A 'Metamorphosis on Tobacco', 'London Ordinary', 'Banks of Sweet Dundee', and 'Little Grey Home in the West' - all of which have appeared on broadsides, and are therefore 'ballads'.
If we can't, the term becomes meaningless and the question "what is a ballad" unanswerable.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 31 Aug 08 - 11:27 AM

Broadsides may or may not have been ballads (narratives); same goes for folk songs. Why complicate things? Child recognized at least two classes of ballad (Popular and Broadside), other sub-classes are certainly possible. But defining a ballad as a song that tells a story gives us, at least, a classification of such songs--a useful one, IMO.

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 31 Aug 08 - 04:35 PM

Dick,
Quite!

Jim,
You misread me. I didn't say that all items on broadsides were ballads, only the broadside ballads, i.e., the ones that are narrative.

Whilst all this discussion has been going on I realised that though I'm pretty happy with the 'essence' of our sort of ballad, I wasn't really all that clear with the meaning of the commercial world's ballad. Would this be a love song? Are there any other qualifiers?

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 01 Sep 08 - 09:55 AM

JeffB


do you ever consider what you're saying before letting fly with a streamful of abuse?


Who would do you think would be a an AMATEUR agent?

What would be the point of trying to make a moderate or a small amount of money?

We are talking about a business where breaks are rare as rocking horse shit. Maybe once in you life, three or four for the very lucky. You aren't in it for the money, just the love of the craft.

the rhyme of the Ancient mariner is a classic poem. Poems are different from songs. there is the metrical putty similar to a ballad, but the aims of the poet and the songwriter are diametrically different.

By and large poets draw attention to the language, songwriters on the other hand, work to a different discpline - what a singer can convey to the audience. What works in front of an audience.

(exceptions to this might be someone like Leonard Cohen - that 'hair sllepping on the pillow like sleepy golden storm' - that draws attention to the beauty of the language. Too much obsession - screws up a song writer - slows down the action. A grand obsession with language - is just the start for a good poet though.)

I suppose some tit of a classical composer might set STC to music. Safely protected by the BBC on its no listeners channel - (how come these classical guys always get their PRS money - BBC finds it too arduous to collect any money for the rest of us!).

At one point I tried to write a song based around the main themes of Frost at Midnight. Coleridge is complex stuff though. There might be a river, a snake, a church bell - but they are never quite what they seem.

Coleridge doesn't write verse - the thoughts conveyed in his work are not linear - one thought going on to another. His thoughts and ideas jump around like firecracker. He writes grown up poetry for people to read. Not sing - take it from one who has had a go - singing something like it....

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Rowan
Date: 01 Sep 08 - 08:47 PM

When I saw that WLD wrote I say again to you. You aren't an academic in some fusty old library. What do YOU need these definitions for? What can they be there for, except the ignoble desire to think yourself superior to another artist and discount their artistic endeavour? I tried to work out whether a particular person or a general audience was being addressed.

Speaking for myself;
I do have some (admittedly minor) academic pretensions; I've done some formal research that has been recognised and published and a large amount of my life has been spent dealing with academics, not many of whom, these days, are confined to libraries. But I like getting to the nitty gritty of an idea, and sometimes you need to be familiar with the reductionist techniques that seem to be behind some of this thread's criticisms; it's not helpful to be overwhelmed by them but they can be helpful.

Depending on the particulars of a discussion (certainly the topic and the audience, as well as the purpose) I need to understand particularities of the various definitions. Otherwise the discussion is likely to go, endlessly, around in circles; we're all familiar with that.

One of the characteristics thought to be universal among human thinking is the ability to observe collections of entities and draw out patterns and differences, allowing for categorisations (however real or relative) and encouraging interpretation (ditto). Even though I've been familiar with ballads (mostly sung, but some recited) from before I could walk and I've become familiar with more formal concepts involving them since before I reached my majority, I'm still learning things, some of them from this discussion.

People's discussion styles vary but nowhere (so far) have I got the impression that any of the posters has had a desire (ignoble or otherwise) to think themselves superior.

As an aside, anyone who could even contemplate writing a song on the themes Coleridge deals with needs all the encouragement we could give them. All power to your elbow WLD; go for it!

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Leadfingers
Date: 02 Sep 08 - 06:48 AM

A song with 99 verses ??

Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Leadfingers
Date: 02 Sep 08 - 06:49 AM

100