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Ballad Writing

As part of the Junior English poetry unit called American Odyssey, you will be writing a ballad about the exploits of your traveling team.  This page contains information on the ballad form and offers tips on writing one of your own.

Ballads tell of an event. They were often used to spread the news, provide entertainment, or create a "bigger than real life" story.

Ballad Writing Tips

• often have verses of four lines
• usually have a rhyming pattern: either  abac   or aabb or  acbc (usually the easiest to rhyme)
• repetition often found in ballads
  • entire stanzas can be repeated like a song's chorus
  • lines can be repeated but each time a certain word is changed
  • a question and answer format can be built into a ballad: one stanza asks a questions and the next stanza answers the question
• Ballads contain a lot of dialogue. 
• Action is often described in the first person
• Two characters in the ballad can speak to each other on alternating lines
• Sequences of "threes" often occur: three kisses, three tasks, three events, for example

Examples of Ballads

I've gathered a mix of ballads for you to look at.  Let me know if you find a ballad you like, and we'll add it to our page. Use of these ballads is intended for educational and research purposes only for my Junior English class.  

----Click on a ballad title to see the lyric----

John Henry
Appalachian Folk Ballad

John Henry said to his Captain
I ain't nothing but a man,
But before I'll let your steam drill beat me down,
I'll die with my hammer in my hand, Lord, Lord,
I'll die with my hammer in my hand."

John Henry got a thirt pound hammer,
Beside the steam drill he did stand.
He beat that steam drill three inches down,
And he died with his hammer in his hand, Lord, Lord,
He died with his hammer in his hand.

John Henry had a little woman,
Her name was Julie Ann,
She went down the track never lookin' back,
Says, "John Henry, you have always been a man, Lord, Lord,
John Henry, you have always been a man."

They took John Henry to the graveyard,
And buried him in the sand,
And ev'ry time that train comes roaring by,
Says, "There lays a steel-drivin' man, Lord, Lord,
There lays a steel-drivin' man.

Ballad of the Triangle Fire

By Ruth Rubin

In the heart of New York City, near Washington Square
In nineteen eleven, March winds were cold and bare.
A fire broke out in a building ten stories high,
And a hundred and forty-six young girls in those flames did die.

On the top floor of that building, ten stories in the air
These young girls were working in an old sweatshop there;
They were sewing shirtwaists for a very low wage.
So tired and pale and worn-out! They were at a tender age.

The sweatshop was a stuffy room with but a single door;
The windows they were gray with dust from off that dirty floor;
There were no comforts, no fresh air, no light to sew thereby,
And the girls, they toiled from early morn till darkness filled the sky.

Then on that fateful day — dear God, most terrible of days!
When that fire broke out, it grew into a mighty blaze.
In that firetrap way up there with but a single door,
So many innocent working girls burned, to live no more!

A hundred thousand mourners, they followed those sad biers.
The streets were filled with people weeping bitter tears.
Poets, writers everywhere described that awful pyre,
When those young girls were trapped to die in the Triangle Fire.

© 1968 Ruth Rubin

from the Sing Along Songbook, 1993 UCLEA NE Summer Institute for Union Women, New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 1993.

Cat's in the Cradle   by Harry Chapin

My child arrived just the other day,
He came to the world in the usual way.
But there were planes to catch, and bills to pay.
He learned to walk while I was away.
And he was talking 'fore I knew it, and as he grew,
He'd say, "I'm gonna be like you, dad.
You know I'm gonna be like you."

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon,
Little boy blue and the man in the moon.
"When you coming home, dad?" 
"I don't know when,
But we'll get together then.
You know we'll have a good time then."

My son turned ten just the other day.
He said, "Thanks for the ball, dad, come on let's play.
Can you teach me to throw?" I said, "Not today,
I got a lot to do." He said, "That's ok."
And he walked away, but his smile never dimmed,
Said, "I'm gonna be like him, yeah.
You know I'm gonna be like him."

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon,
Little boy blue and the man in the moon.
"When you coming home, dad?"
"I don't know when,
But we'll get together then.
You know we'll have a good time then."

Well, he came from college just the other day,
So much like a man I just had to say,
"Son, I'm proud of you. 
Can you sit for a while?"
He shook his head, and he said with a smile,
"What I'd really like, dad, is to borrow the car keys.
See you later. Can I have them please?"

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon,
Little boy blue and the man in the moon.
"When you coming home, son?" 
"I don't know when,
But we'll get together then, dad.
You know we'll have a good time then."

I've long since retired and my son's moved away.
I called him up just the other day.
I said, "I'd like to see you if you don't mind."
He said, "I'd love to, dad, if I could find the time.
You see, my new job's a hassle, and the kid's got the flu,
But it's sure nice talking to you, dad.
It's been sure nice talking to you."

And as I hung up the phone, it occurred to me,
He'd grown up just like me.
My boy was just like me.

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon,
Little boy blue and the man in the moon.
"When you coming home, son?" "I don't know when,
But we'll get together then, dad.
You know we'll have a good time then."

Dance Band on the Titanic by Harry Chapin

Dance band on the Titanic
Sing "Nearer, my God, to Thee"
The iceberg's on the starboard bow
Won't you dance with me

Mama stood cryin' at the dockside
Sayin' "Please son, don't take this trip"
I said "Mama, sweet Mama, don't you worry none"
"Even God couldn't sink this ship"

Well, the whistle blew and they turned the screws
It turned the water into foam
Destination sweet salvation
Goodbye home sweet home

I'm in the dance band on the Titanic
Sing "Nearer, my God, to Thee"
The iceberg's on the starboard bow
Won't you dance with me

There was a trombone and a saxophone
The bass and drums were cookin' up the bandstand
And I was strummin' in the middle with this dude on the fiddle
And we were three days out from land

And now the foghorn's jammed and moanin'
Hear it groanin' through the misty night
I heard the lookout shout down "There's icebergs around"
"But still everything's all right"

Oh, the dance band on the Titanic
Sing "Nearer, my God, to Thee"
The iceberg's on the starboard bow
Won't you dance with me

They were burnin' all the flares for candles
In the banquet they were throwin' in first class
And we were blowin' waltzes in the barroom
When the universe went CRASH!

"There's no way that this could happen"
I could hear the old captain curse
He ordered lifeboats away, that's when I heard the chaplain say
"Women and children and chaplains first"

Well, they soon used up all of the lifeboats
But there were a lot of us left on board
I heard the drummer sayin' "Boys, just keep playin'"
"Now we're doin' this gig for the Lord"

I heard the dance band on the Titanic
Sing "Nearer, my God, to Thee"
The iceberg's on the starboard bow
Won't you dance with me

There's a wild-eyed boy in the radio shack
He's the last remaining guest
He was tappin' in a Morse code frenzy
Tappin' "Please God, S.O.S."

Jesus Christ can walk on the water
But a music man will drown
They say that Nero fiddled while Rome burned up
Well, I was strummin' as the ship go down

I'm in the dance band on the Titanic
Sing "Nearer, my God, to Thee"
The iceberg's on the starboard bow
Won't you dance with me

 Taxi    by Harry Chapin

It was raining hard in 'Frisco,
I needed one more fare to make my night.
A lady up ahead waved to flag me down,
She got in at the light.

Oh, where you going to, my lady blue,
It's a shame you ruined your gown in the rain.
She just looked out the window, and said
"Sixteen Parkside Lane."

Something about her was familiar
I could swear I'd seen her face before,
But she said, "I'm sure you're mistaken"
And she didn't say anything more.

It took a while, but she looked in the mirror,
And she glanced at the license for my name.
A smile seemed to come to her slowly,
It was a sad smile, just the same.

And she said, "How are you Harry?"
I said, "How are you Sue?
Through the too many miles
and the too little smiles I still remember you."

It was somewhere in a fairy tale,
I used to take her home in my car.
We learned about love in the back of the Dodge,
The lesson hadn't gone too far.

You see, she was gonna be an actress,
And I was gonna learn to fly.
She took off to find the footlights,
And I took off to find the sky.

There was not much more for us to talk about,
Whatever we had once was gone.
So I turned my cab into the driveway,
Past the gate and the fine trimmed lawns.

And she said we must get together,
But I knew it'd never be arranged.
And she handed me twenty dollars,
For a two fifty fare, she said
"Harry, keep the change."

Well another man might have been angry,
And another man might have been hurt,
But another man never would have let her go...
I stashed the bill in my shirt.

And she walked away in silence,
It's strange, how you never know,
But we'd both gotten what we'd asked for,
Such a long, long time ago.

You see, she was gonna be an actress
And I was gonna learn to fly.
She took off to find the footlights,
And I took off to find the sky.

Lucille-- Kenny Rogers

In a bar in Toledo 
Across from the depot
On a bar stool she took off her ring
I thought I'd get closer
So I walked on over
I sat down and asked her name

When the drink finally hit her
She said, " I'm no quitter
But I finally quit living on dreams.
I'm hungry for laughter
And here ever after
I'm after whatever the other life brings."

In the mirror I saw him
I closely watched him
I thought how he looked out of place
He came to the woman
Who sat there beside me
He had a strange look on his face

The big hands were all calloused
He looked like a mountain
For a minute, I thought I was dead
But he started shaking
His big heart was breaking
He turned to the woman and said,

"You picked the fine time to leave me, Lucille.
Four hungry children and a crop in the field
I've had some bad times
Lived through some sad times
But this time your hurtin won't  heal
You picked the fine time to leave me, Lucille."

After he left us, 
I ordered more whiskey
I thought how she'd made him look small
From lights of the bar room 
To a rented hotel room
We walked without talking at all

She was a beauty, 
But when she came to me
She must have thought I lost my mind
I couldn't hold her, 
The words that he told her
Kept coming back time after time.

"You picked the fine time to leave me, Lucille.
Four hungry children and a crop in the field
I've had some bad times
Lived through some sad times
But this time your hurtin won't  heal
You picked the fine time to leave me, Lucille."


"You picked the fine time to leave me, Lucille.
Four hungry children and a crop in the field
I've had some bad times
Lived through some sad times
But this time your hurtin won't  heal
You picked the fine time to leave me, Lucille."

( Jim Croce )

Well the South side of Chicago
Is the baddest part of town
And if you go down there
You better just beware
Of a man named Leroy Brown

Now Leroy, more than trouble
You see he stands about six foot-four
All the downtown ladies call him "Treetop Lover"
All the men just call him "Sir"

And he's bad, bad, Leroy Brown
The baddest man in the whole damned town
Badder than old King Kong
And meaner than a junkyard dog

Now Leroy, he's a gambler
And he like his fancy clothes
And he like to wave his diamond rings
In front of everybody's nose
He got a custom Continental
He got an El Dorado too
He got a thirty-two gun in his pocket full of fun
He got a razor in his shoe

And he's bad, bad, Leroy Brown
The baddest man in the whole damned town
Badder than old King Kong
And meaner than a junkyard dog

Now Friday 'bout a week ago
Leroy, shootin' dice
And at the edge of the bar
Sat a girl named Doris
And ooh that girl looked nice
Well he cast his eyes upon her
And the trouble soon began
Then Leroy Brown, he learned a lesson
'Bout a' messin' with the wife of a jealous man

And he's bad, bad, Leroy Brown
The baddest man in the whole damned town
Badder than old King Kong
And meaner than a junkyard dog

Well, the two men took to fighting
And when they pulled them off the floor
Leroy looked like a jigsaw puzzle
With a couple of pieces gone

And he's bad, bad, Leroy Brown
The baddest man in the whole damned town
Badder than old King Kong
And meaner than a junkyard dog

Yeah, he's badder than old King Kong
And meaner than a junkyard dog

 

How do I start writing a ballad?

Start with a key phrase...

...that pops into your head,

...or strikes you when somebody says it,

...and is connected with something you feel strongly about.

 

It may be a line of melody or words, or both.

Grab a tape recorder (or your computer mike)

and save this rough fragment immediately.

Build on this phrase.

Images related to the phrase

Similar phrases

Rhyming words

A tune that fits the phrase

What rhymes with the key phrase?

Do these rhyming phrases trigger more images?

 

Construct verses.

Most usual is 4 lines, with the 2nd line rhyming with the last.

Arrange the verses into sequence.

 

Cobble together more verses to make a story.

The initial fill-in verses may be Yuk! but they give your imagination a framework.

Sing them over and over until, days (months?) later, better words come to you.

 

Keep going over the song.

Evolve the tune by chanting the verses.

Are any of those chord sequences in Lesson 1 suitable?

Rewrite the cobbled phrases; with repeated singing, natural phrases will come.

 

Do some editing.

Throw out unnecessary verses.

Add a chorus.

...or a refrain, or instrumental break.

Or turn the verse with that initial key phrase into a chorus.

The chorus gives the audience time to absorb the storyline...

...and lets them release all the emotions you have aroused in their souls.

Ballad Form in Detail

• Meter
• Rhyme
• Repetition
• Vocabulary
• Structure

Meter

Meter is the rhythm of a ballad. It describes where the emphasis is placed--what words are emphasized, and what words aren't. Almost all ballads have verses consisting of four or six lines, and use one of two basic Meters: 4-3-4-3 or 4-4-4-4. Here's an example of the 4-3-4-3 meter. Try speaking the verse out loud:

Haud your tongue, ye auld fac'd knight,
Some ill death may ye dee!
Father my bairn on whom I will,
I'll father nane on thee.

There are four emphasized words in the first and third lines, and three emphasized words in the second and fourth lines--in short, 4-3-4-3.

Here's an example of the 4-4-4-4 meter, where all lines have four emphasized words:

I am a man upon the land
I am a silkie on the sea
and when I'm far and far frae land
my home it is in Sule Skerry.

If you look back through the examples shown in the previous sections, you'll see that most of them fall into one of the above meters. If you can't figure out what meter a ballad is in, try speaking it out loud and listening to the rhythm of your speech.

An important thing to note about ballads, however, is that few of them have absolutely perfect meter in all of the verses. Almost every ballad has a verse with one syllable more or less. In Kempowyne, which falls roughly under the 4-4-4-4 meter, a number of lines contain one or two syllables more or less than they should.

Perfect meter  isn't essential; what is important is that the meter work with the music. Many ballads which sound rather awkward when they're spoken sound beautiful when set to their proper tunes; the rhythm of the words compliments the movement of the tune so that you don't notice any "imperfections" in the meter.

Older ballads tend more towards the 4-4-4-4 meter, while more of the later period ones have the 4-3-4-3 meter.

 

Rhyme

Most ballads use one of three different types of rhyme: abac, aabb, or abcb.

 

• The first type of rhyme, abac, is found in ballads that include a chorus in the verse: the first and third lines of each verse rhyme, while the second and fourth lines, the chorus, are the same in every verse. Here's an example:

  She went down below the thorn
  Fine Flowers in the Valley
  And there has she her sweet babe born
  And the green leaves they grow rarely
  
  She's ta'en out her little penknife
  Fine flowers in the valley
  And there she's twinned her sweet babe of it's life
  And the green leaves they grow rarely
  

  Many of the older ballads include this chorus, or "burden", in each verse, like the example above contains. One of the very oldest ballads, King Orfeo, dated to the late 1400s, uses this type of rhyme. 

   

• In the second type, aabb, the first and second lines rhyme with eachother, as do the third and the fourth lines. For example:

  As I was walking al alane
  I saw twa corbies makin' mane
  the tane untae the tither did say
  where shall we gang and dine the day?
  

  It's possible that this type of ballad evolved from the first: the burden was dropped, and two verses compressed into one. Hind Horn is another example of this type of rhyme structure.

   

• The third type of rhyme, abcb, is the most common type of rhyme found in Child's ballads. In this rhyme scheme, only the second and fourth lines rhyme:

  Her breath was strang, her hair was lang
  And twisted twice about the tree
  And with a swing she came about
  "Come to Craigy's sea and kiss with me"
  

  This type of rhyme is the easiest; there's only one pair of matching words to worry about per verse rather than two, which gives you more freedom in writing the verse content.

   

  Ballad makers weren't picky about their rhymes. Less than perfect rhyme combinations such as again/ten, blame/nane, mair/before, king/nane, wrong/won, and pap/that abound in ballads. In fact, a ballad with perfect rhymes is automatically suspect; as balladry was originally an oral tradition, and dialects varied widely, the words didn't necessarily sound like their written-down version. A singer could make even the most unlikly of rhymes work well.

  In addition, many ballads rhyme a word with itself:

  And while your body it is on
  Drawn shall your blood never be
  But if you touch me tail or fin
  I swear my brand your death will be
  

   

Repetition

Repetition can be found in all ballads, in one form or another.

 

• The oldest type of repetition is the repetition of entire verses, with only slight changes made to each one. Many of the earliest extant ballads use this type of repetition, lending weight to Hodgart's theory that ballads evolved from choral dance songs (check out The Ballads by MJC Hodgart for more on this theory.)

  The Maid on the Gallows is the most mind-numbingly repetitious one to be found; Babylon and Lord Randal also use this type of repetition (to much better effect). Even in later ballads that aren't composed entirely of repeated verses, one can often find examples of this in miniature:

  O still my bairn, nourice, 
  O still him wi' the pap!
  He winna still, lady, 
  for this nor for that.
  
  O still my bairn, nourice,
  Oh still him wi' the bell!
  He winna stil, lady,
  till ye come down yoursel.
  

  This type of repetition is a good way of building tension within a ballad as you build toward a climax, although it can become tiresome if overused.

   

• Another common type of repetition used in ballads is "question/answer" repetition. The two verses cited above are a good example of this. This type of repetition is found in a great number of ballads; indeed, some, like "The Maid on the Gallows", consist of nothing else. The ballad Edward uses this question and answer routine to great effect, and their are a great many ballads that contain at least one example of this.

   

• Burdens, or choruses used in each verse, are a third common type of repetition used in ballads. With burdens, the first and third lines of a verse rhyme, while the second and fourth line are the same for all verses:

  There were twa sisters sat in a bow'r
  Binnorie, O Binnorie
  There cam a knight to be their wooer.
  By the bonnie mill-dams of Binnorie.
  
  He courted the eldest wi' glove and ring
  Binnorie, O Binnorie
  But he lo'ed the youngest aboon a'thing.
  By the bonnie mill-dams of Binnorie.
  

  As a rule, of thumb, the older the ballad, the more repetition is involved. Many ballads use more than one type of repetition.

Vocabulary

As many of the ballads we have today were taken down from Scottish singers, a great number of them are in scottish dialect. This dialect can be rather overwhelmingly strong (Edward) or can be so slight as to seem nonexistent (Lord Randal), depending on the singer and the transcriber of the song.

Many words are English, spelled as the Scots would pronounce them: "wae" instead of "woe", "doon" instead of "down", "ane" for "one", "mair", "ta'en" and "ye" for "more", "taken" and "you". This is one of the easier ways to "balladize" a song, though care should be taken not to overdo it; speaking ballads out loud and listening to recordings (preferably by Scottish performers, if you can find them) is a good way to get the sound down.

There are also a good number of peculiarly Scottish words to be found in ballads, border ballads especially. "Bairn", "dule", "ken", and "bonnie" are four of the better known ones; there are many others. Unless you're quite familiar with them, it's best not to overload a ballad with them. It can end up sounding awkward (and make it harder for a modern audience to understand.) Again, the best way to get the hang of using Scottish words is to read and listen to the ballads and learn how they're used.

Most transcribers of ballads would readily agree with Andrew Jackson's famous statement: "It's a poor man who can think of only one way to spell a word." Spelling in ballads is iffy at best; words were, for the most part, written down the way they sounded. Sometimes the same word appears in two or even three different spellings. As ballads are meant to sung rather than read, spelling isn't of great importance; if you're going for the "look" of a period ballad, however, perfect spelling is a giveaway of modern origin.

The same goes for grammar, which is sacrificed freely for the sake of meter, rhyme and verse form:

I got it not by sea, nor got it by land
Nor got I it on a dead man's hand

But I got it at my wooing gay
And I'll gie't you on your wedding day

Structure

Most of the ballads that have survived to the present day can be divided into verses of four lines. This number can vary--sometimes a 6 or 8 line verse is inserted into the ballad (Tam Lin).

As mentioned above, the science of ballad writing was not an exact one. One old scottish woman interviewed around the turn of the 20th century said that as long as the content remained the same, small words and phrases could be changed with impunity.

As balladry was originally an oral tradition, the use of traditional motifs and phrases was heavily relied upon to "flesh out" a ballad story. In a process that has often been compared to Homer's poetic technique and that of other classical poets, the singer had a number of stock phrases--"grassy green", "milk-white steed", "massy gold", "maiden fair", "and an angry man was he," "silk so fine", to name but a few--to use when singing a ballad. If he or she forgot the exact wording of a certain line and it didn't include any action important to the ballad, a stock phrase could easily be slipped in. This process was seen at work by collectors of ballads in Scotland at the end of the last century; two people might give them the same ballad with slight differences; the gist and content were roughly the same, and much of the different material consisted of stock phrases.

A curious thing to note about some ballads--especially the later ones-- is that much of the essential action occurs in the non-rhyming lines, which makes on the spot improvisation easier. Though this is by no means a universal occurrence, it happens often enough to be noticeable if you look.

Ballads contain a lot of dialogue. Action is often described in the first person: "As I was walking all alane..."; "Oh where have ye been, my dearest dear"; "Quhy dois your brand sae drip wi' bluid", etc. Even in ballads told from a more impersonal third person point of view, dialogue is always included, usually between the two main characters. As mentioned above in the section on Repetition, one character and the other can speak in alternate verses, or one character will say something in the first two lines of a verse and the other reply in the second two lines. This standard alternation can also be a mnemonic aid. Lord Randal and Edward are composed completely of alternating dialogue, and it can also be found in the Demon Lover, Tam Lin, Lamkin, Cruel Mother, Binnorie, and countless other ballads, as can the extensive use of pairs: pairs of matching verses, an occurrence which happens twice, etc.

Another mnemonic aid is the pervasive use of threes in ballads. In Kempowyne, the main character has to win three kisses from Dove Isabel. In Edward, the mother asks her son three times why his sword is so bloody, and after Edward states his intention to go into exile, she asks him what he intends to (1.) Do with his property, (2.) Leave to his children and wife, and (3.) Leave to his mother. In Babylon, three sisters are given a life or death choice, and their fate is described in 3 verses apiece. Lord Wearie is gone three months in Lamkin, and The Wife of Usher's Well is visited by her three sons. Little Sir Hugh's mother calls three times before her son replies. Such examples are endless.

Questions?  Email:  adams@studyguide.org

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