On Ballads

What happened to the old ballad form of music, the rhymed quatrain (four) lined stanza poems often but not always set to slow emotional music and telling an impacting story? I think it is quickly dying as a popular music format, another casualty of the electronic age with it's high technology and low human impact design. Ballads are simple songs with deep messages, often emotionally heart wrenching. The songs that have the greatest impact on me tend to be ballads because they are not throw-away music.

Like poetry not put to music, ballads are more timeless than most other music. And though some dislike them , seeing them as maudlin or silly, I find the ballad to be the music of the people and story of their ordinary thoughts and emotions. The most valuable art is that which touches the most people by relating to the most common matters of our lives.

There are many kinds of ballads, but I am not going to try (I am not qualified and would only do it badly) to define them. What I miss is the modern ballad, songs we all have heard and been touched by but not longer are written and performed very often. They do what too many of us say we "don't have time for" today. They make us think about core ideas in our lives. I defy anyone to say the old Irish Ballad, Danny Boy, for instance, doesn't do that.

For a more personal example of a ballad I relate to, try the link below. The simple words are below but don't come to life until sung emotionally. It's a song I remember as a child and always loved, sung by the great baritone, Roger Whittaker, from (of all places) Kenya. I remember hearing it many times as a boy and how it impacted me as a melancholy tune. Only recently, after my move from New Orleans to Portland does the Durham Town relate to me personally. My own move from New Orleans contains a message similar to that of the Durham Town ballad. Here is the link. Listen to the Yu tube first . Then read the words below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utyVHRjHybk

I have got to leave old Durham town,
I have got to leave old Durham town.
I have got to leave old Durham town,
And the leaving´s going to get me down.

Back in nineteen forty-four,
I remember Daddy walking out the door.
Mama told me he was gonna war, he was leaving,
Leaving, leaving, leaving, leaving me. - fade

I have got to leave old Durham town,
I have got to leave old Durham town.
I have got to leave old Durham town,
And the leaving´s going to get me down.

When I was a boy, I spent my time,
Sitting on the banks of the river Tyne.
Watching all the ships going down the line, they were leaving,
Leaving, leaving, leaving, leaving me.

I have got to leave old Durham town,
I have got to leave old Durham town.
I have got to leave old Durham town,
And the leaving´s going to get me down.

The last week Mama passed away,
Good-bye, son, was all she would say.
Theres no cause for me to stay, so I am leaving,
Leaving, leaving, leaving, leaving free.

I have got to leave old Durham town,
I have got to leave old Durham town.
I have got to leave old Durham town,
And the leaving´s going to get me down.

I have got to leave old Durham town,
I have got to leave old Durham town.
I have got to leave old Durham town,
And the leaving´s going to get me down.

No offense to Lady Gaga and the rest of modern music styles, but I wish there would be a resurgence in this kind of ballad. There should always be a place for music that tells a story that makes us laugh or cry or just think deeply. Someone ought to write a ballad about the decline in ballads....