Posted on 05/13/2011 9:14:29 PM PDT by ConservativeStatement
Last week we asked our readers to vote for their favorite ballad or slow jam of all time. Votes were all over the place – from tracks by Pearl Jam to Elvis Presley to Lionel Richie. In the end it was very close, and there was a tie so we had to expand our standard top 10 to a top 12. If this survey has reinforced anything, it's that our readers really, really love Led Zeppelin.
(Excerpt) Read more at rollingstone.com ...
That would be the one. Got hit in the rear drivers side passenger door. Was still drivable but the door was peemanently shut. Ours was yellow and a great car.
House of the Rising Sun, a folk ballad probably older than the USA, was rediscovered by Dylan in the early sixties. His version is sooooooo unspeakably hideous that nobody even remembers it. My favorite version of that is an absolutely kickass rendition done by Leslie West on his "Got Bluez?" album.
Just setting the record straight, for the kids, you understand. Nothing drives me crazier than giving authorship attribution to folks who cover songs on the lyrics pages on the 'Net.
I am with you, a ballad being, believe, being too unmotivated to look it up, traditional story telling, news reporting, actually, from times prior to printing. Which brings to mind some great ones I’d forgotten such as:
The Foggy Dew; Sinead O’Connor’s version.
I do think we are going by RS Magazine’s loose definition.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvwrSdMY7dQ
Alan Parson’s Project Time
One of my all time favorites.
Time flowing like a river, Time beckoning me.
Who knows when we shall meet again, if ever
But time, keeps flowing like a river, to the sea. Goodbye my love, maybe for forever. Goodbye my love, the tide waits for me.
Who knows when we shall meet again, if ever.
And, going from the sublime to the ridiculous, no one has even mentioned the greatest counter-culture balladeer in history. The one, the only, the immortal ... drum roll please ... thank you ... Frank Zappa. This isn't quite a ballad in the strictest sense, either, but he wrote so many, and this is closer to a ballad than many of the numbers posted here: Movin' to Montana.
That is why when Summer hits, I pull out the big Iron. We run big stuff in the winter but... A T-Bone from a Hundai driving into a full frame car is nothing. I got a wife and kid to worry about. Plus I pull the heaviest Colman Pop-Up there is, 2600 lbs and 200 lbs tongue weight. The Plantation.
I got hit by a beatup 57 ford. The driver had been drinking with beer cans in the car had an out of state temp liscense and no insurance.
Excellent. Did not know that one.
People just don’t know what words mean any more. The only Ballad I know is this stupid song I hated when I was a kid, but like now because of nostalgia. It reminds me of the argument I had in Drivers Ed class years ago about what Yield means. That word ruins everyone’s day.
Ballads? Ballads?
Those ain’t ballads.
These are ballads:
Marty Robbins - Ballad of the Alamo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL62m5umP4g
Gordon Lightfoot The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (with lyrics)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U219P_zs7w&feature=related
SSgt Barry Sadler - “The Ballad of the Green Berets” (1966)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y5GDvN9_OE
Evidently RS doesn’t know what makes a ballad. A ballad tells a story and/or makes a tribute. A ballad is usually slow and rhythmic and/or hauntingly melodic, often sad but inspirational, and always soul moving, tugging on the heartstrings.
At least, that’s how I define ballad.
I believe North to Alaska was mentioned.
And then, a couple of officiall Ballads:
The Ballad of Rocky Raccoon; Beatles
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll; Dylan
RS probably was not referring to these. I guess they could bring it up a notch and define their terms, but . . .
Ballads? We don’t need no stinkin’ ballads!
We also had the added fun of being taught that you had the right to clear an intersection. Don’t think that to this day I don’t get my steel bumpers in there to get through. I don’t even stop at 4 way signs. I just roll through on the ass of the guy in front of me because I am tired of everyone sitting there looking at each other waiting to go. All these years later I have not gotten so much as a finger doing that. Unbelievable.
“Mother of Pearl” - Roxy Music
Harry Chapin
Cats in the Cradle
Taxi
30,000 Pounds of Bananas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Chapin
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