Ballads Quotes

There's a story behind every old ballad or work song or nonsense song that I ever knew. Sometimes it's a fascinating story. A story of people struggling for freedom, struggling to get along in this old world. ~ Pete Seeger

Most of us remember Nat King Cole as a vocalist. His warm, grainy baritone is still so closely identified with such familiar ballads as 'Stardust' and 'The Christmas Song' that it's hard to imagine anyone else performing them. ~ Terry Teachout

Some people resemble ballads which are only sung for a certain time. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

You can't imagine parlor ballads drifting out of high-rise multi-towered buildings. That kind of music existed in a more timeless state of life. ~ Bob Dylan

Well, you can't throw heavy, analytical, thought-provoking songs at people 24/7. It's been my experience over the last 20 years that on a rare occasion, in a live setting, if you can slow people down to listen to two good ballads, then you're doing pretty good. Then throw a tempo at 'em. Then have fun. ~ Ronnie Dunn

I like "God Give Me the Strength" very much. It's not really a blues and to call it a ballad is absurd. I don't know, its mid-tempo. Mark (St. John) actually wrote it and I think its very telling of our lives in the 60s. Its just a good song, ya know ... ~ Dick Taylor

Kaye groaned. "You really are a terrible boyfriend, you know that?"
He nodded. "A surfeit of ballads makes for odd ideas about romance. ~ Holly Black

Any curly-haired boy can write windswept ballads. You have to crush people's heads. That's the only way to make those fuckers listen. ~ Don DeLillo

I revise my suicide plan to slow death by morphling. I will become a yellow-skinned bag of bones, with enormous eyes. I'm a couple of days into the plan, making good progress, when something unexpected happens. I begin to sing. At the window, in the shower, in my sleep. Hour after hour of ballads, love songs, mountain airs. All the songs my father taught me before he died, for certainly there has been very little music in my life since. What's amazing is how clearly I remember them. The tunes, the lyrics. My voice, at first rough and breaking on the high notes, warms up into something splendid. A voice that would make the mockingjays fall silent and then tumble over themselves to join in. Days pass, weeks. I watch the snows fall on the ledge outside my window. And in all that time, mine is the only voice I hear. What ~ Suzanne Collins

I wanted to be different and original but still have it be something my fans could get into. There also are some big, beautiful ballads. I told my producers that I wanted tracks that are going to blow up in the clubs, but I also wanted songs that were very melodic and with a lot of instrumentation. ~ Aaliyah

Kvothe continued, smiling himself "I see you laugh. Very well, for simplicity's sake, let us assume I am the center of creation. In doing this, let us pass over innumerable boring stories: the rise and fall of empires, sagas of heroism, ballads of tragic love. Let us hurry forward to the only tale of any real importance." His smile broadened. "Mine. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

From folk to tribal to Cab Calloway, Cole Porter, Gershwin to the Rolling Stones, whose first record was all covers, to country-western, bebop, blues, and even the referencing in classic hip hop to cliched love ballads of the '80s or whatever - that is kinda gone, and that's just terrifying to me. ~ Cat Power

I think it'd be great if Prince made an album of just romantic, slow ballads. ~ Moby

Only later I felt that poetry is like feeling another person lying next to you in the dark. Do you believe in poetry, in the spirit of poetry? I could see poetry in ballads, in the picture of the cathedral on the back of the postcard that my father sent my mother from London, in glaciers, peaks of mountains, river dust, Ian McEwan's covers of his books, cheap thrillers. Running gave me a gravitational pull. Running was my mother love. I was barefoot. There I was dressed in white. Matchstick legs. Hair standing up. I did not feel like a zero. I did not feel like a lost oar, unloved and unwanted, like a plant that needed water. A fleet of paper ships that needed to be mourned. I often felt homesick for the country of my mother. ~ Abigail George

On 'Idol,' I understood that everyone wanted to hear my vocals, so I stuck with the ballads. ~ Jessica Sanchez

O sweet, sweet Joanna
How torn my heart!
O sweet, sweet Joanna
Our kiss shall never part!
O sweet, sweet Joanna
How thine eyes do mine miss!
O sweet, sweet Joanna
Lushest green now turned to mist!
O sweet, sweet Joanna
How wicked the under-lord king!
O sweet, sweet Joanna
Who stole our cherished ring! ~ M.L. LeGette

People were saying that Southern folk song was dead, that the land that had produced American jazz, the blues, the spirituals, the mountain ballads and the work songs had gone sterile. ~ Alan Lomax

Nothing else in the whole wide world matters as much as avenging your sister. ~ Jason Jack Miller

I've sung since I talked, when I'm two, but what I sang was ballads, because it's very hard to do a dance track with your little acoustic guitar when you're a kid. ~ Gloria Estefan

Old soldiers never die; they just fade away. ~ Douglas MacArthur

In eternity this world will be like Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets. ~ Marilynne Robinson

I dated someone in the '90s who was really into Metallica, and I remember thinking at the time, 'That just sounds so heavy and hard.' But they have great ballads! Great ballads. ~ Hannah Simone

I love a ballad but even too well if it be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably. ~ William Shakespeare

What we try to do with all of our albums, is live out our musical fantasies in the most honest fashion we know how ... We want to include songs that lyrically cover subjects ranging from the heaviest things we've ever done to light-hearted experiences that can best be presented through sentimental bluesy ballads that are usually good for a chuckle or two. ~ Michael Hutchence

The farmer's daughter hath soft brown hair And I met with a ballad, I can't say where, That wholly consisted of lines like these. ~ Charles Stuart Calverley

I wanted to thank Trent, but all I could do was give him a faint smile before I lost consciousness. Everything had worked flawlessly.
I had planned the perfect murder - my own. ~ Terry Lovett

My child, you have a flawed grasp of the nature of myth-making. I am a poet and storyteller, a creator of ballads and sagas. Pray do not confuse the exercise of the imagination with mere mendacity. I am a master of the mysteries of words, their meanings and music and mellifluous magic. ~ Frances Hardinge

I'm not going to do a song that's really sad and thoughtful. Although I've done ballads like 'Dear Darlin',' I want to make them dance and be happy. ~ Olly Murs

More important for Chime were the ballads that my father sang me. I think that all of those ballads, the structure of them, the bittersweet nature of them, has gone right into my books. I can't thank my father enough; he sang me two songs every night and sometimes they'd be these long ballads with 32 verses. I grew up knowing an amazing number of stories, accompanied by these gorgeous and haunting tunes that aren't part of our modern culture. They're very Gaelic. I think that was really important to me; I would not be the writer I am if he had not sung me all those songs. So, thanks Dad ~ Franny Billingsley

For a while, it was something to try to push at people, playing old murder ballads and being upset about everything I was seeing around me. But now I feel a lot more at peace with it. ~ Frank Fairfield

Maybe you could put it out there that I don't have a built-in dislike of ballads. That was kind of the reputation I had back in the Seventies. But I've come around. Ballads have become something of an acquired taste. ~ Joe Perry

I swear that woman had a previous career as a death-hunter selling tragic ballads down around the Seven Dials," said Will. "And I do wish she wouldn't sing about poisoning just after we've eaten. ~ Cassandra Clare

The British ballads became a new kind of form in their hand. And out of them came the blues, a new kind of song of commentary and satire, a song form which, after all, has become the main musical form of the whole human species. ~ Alan Lomax

There's a song for every feeling, Bee. Every tear, every smile, every heartbreak and every victory. Music ignites the soul and strips us bare. It's our very essence. Even if you have no one else to turn to and you feel all alone, remember that you can always find comfort in ballads and melodies, serenades and love songs. ~ Julie Johnson

I'm not somebody that has an encyclopedic knowledge of ballads and could sit around a fire and sing songs for three hours. I basically only know the songs that I've taken on and reworked and recorded. ~ Sam Amidon

Well the country songs themselves are three-chord stories, ballads which are mostly sad. If you are already feeling sorry for yourself when you listen to them they will take you to an even sadder place. ~ Willie Nelson

If we hooked up, he could write me ballads and stuff. You gotta admit, nothing's sexier than a guy who writes music. ~ Becca Fitzpatrick

Singing ballads whose words had never known paper but lived only on the rasping edge of their own voices. ~ Laini Taylor

Who claims Truth, Truth abandons. History is hir'd, or coerc'd, only in Interests that must ever prove base. She is too innocent, to be left within the reach of anyone in Power,- who need but touch her, and all her Credit is in the instant vanish'd, as if it had never been. She needs rather to be tended lovingly and honorably by fabulists and counterfeiters, Ballad-Mongers and Cranks of ev'ry Radius, Masters of Disguise to provide her the Costume, Toilette, and Bearing, and Speech nimble enough to keep her beyond the Desires, or even the Curiosity, of Government. ~ Thomas Pynchon

The people who wrote the mediaeval ballads knew more about fairies than you do. It isn't only nice things that happen in fairyland. ... I never said it was wrong to enter fairyland. I only said it was dangerous. ~ G.K. Chesterton

I started to write a lot of ballads that were sultry and had a Norah Jones-for-country kind of feel. I wanted to bring elements of old soul music and old country music. ~ Laura Bell Bundy

I knew a very wise man . . . that . . . believed if a man were permitted to make all the ballads he need not care who should make the laws of a nation, and we find that most of the ancient legislators thought that they could not well reform the manners of any city without the help of a lyric, and sometimes of a dramatic poet. ~ Andrew Fletcher

I think that ballads are always something where I can really become one with the audiance. ~ Namie Amuro

I grew up singing ballads, but what I really wanted to get into was the mainstream music on the radio because I really love the beats and everything. ~ Jessica Sanchez

All melodious poets shall be hoarse as street ballads, when once the penetrating keynote of nature and spirit is sounded-the earth-beat, sea-beat, heart-beat, which make the tune to which the sun rolls, and the globule of blood and the sap of the trees. ~ Charles Ives

By the Angel, Bridget's depressing," said Henry, setting down his newspaper directly on his plate and causing the edge to soak through with egg yolk. Charlotte opened her mouth as if to object, and closed it again. "It's all heartbreak, death and unrequited love."
"Well, that is what most songs are about," said Will. "Requited love is nice, but it doesn't make much of a ballad. ~ Cassandra Clare

Mr. Bucchino occupies a special niche. His flowing, finely made piano ballads describe an urban single life in which relationships come and go ... with high expectations, high anxiety and open hearts. ~ Stephen Holden

I need all kinds of songs - fast ones, slow ones, minor key, ballads, rumbas - and they all get juggled around during a live show. I've been trying for years to come up with songs that have the feeling of a Shakespearean drama, so I'm always starting with that. ~ Bob Dylan

He thinks for a long time, about injustice, cruelty and the almighty dollar. About hypocrisy and power ballads. About ego, ambition and politics. The usual reasons stuff got done down here. Jesus looks at the glass, at the hateful, grieving faces, and speaks softly towards the microphone. 'When the truth of all this comes out none of you should be too hard on yourselves. You ... I mean, the Bible's mostly a crock, but there's no other way to say this, folks ... you know not what you did. Just try and remember,' he smiles, 'be nice. ~ John Niven

Oh, I'm a ballad queen for sure ... I don't dig dance stuff very much but I seem to hit the charts with it. Go figure ... ~ Phyllis Hyman

My solo album is different from the Black Eyed Peas albums because I'm a singer first and foremost. There are more ballads and more intimacy between me and the listener because sometimes when you're in a group you don't have space to air out your dirty laundry. ~ Fergie

I'd like to do a pop album with an R and B influence. I definitely want to have those big ballads with the uptempo hits as well. ~ Pia Toscano

We wrapped ourselves in towels and went back in, eating sandwiches on the bed while Kaidan made fun of the pop love ballads on Marna's playlist. Funny how he knew the words to so many of them. ~ Wendy Higgins

Even Soviet love songs were first and foremost propaganda, ballads of metalworkers or farmers who loved their country first and each other second. ~ Oksana Marafioti

Even on the most serious ballads, I'll throw in a tongue-in-cheek remark. ~ Brad Paisley

A lot of ballads are about the mistakes we inevitably make while trying to figure out how to live our lives. ~ Stephanie Kuehnert

You are brave, kicking a chained prisoner. They must sing heroic ballads about you on winter nights! (Alanna) ~ Tamora Pierce

Preston Black couldn't sleep the whole night through, Preston Black couldn't sleep the whole night through. He'd lay in bed 'til the morning came, but the devil'd visit him just the same. Preston Black couldn't sleep the whole night through. ~ Jason Jack Miller

Lee Morgan used to stand behind me when I was playing a ballad and he'd be hollering, "Play the pretty notes, man, play the pretty notes." I thought I was playing the pretty notes, but you know, things like that help you to reach a little further. ~ Gary Bartz

In Van Halen there were moments, like in some of the ballads, I put my heart and soul into those records. Those lyrics when I sang 'em, I gave myself goosebumps. ~ Sammy Hagar

Fergie will sing ballads to the dogs and they'll sit there rapt. You know your wife's a star when she keeps the dogs entertained for 20 minutes. ~ Josh Duhamel

I have decided long ago that my songs and ballads would not get the hugs and kisses of the capitalistic experts. ~ Woody Guthrie

I have a passion for ballad ... They are the gypsy children of song, born under green hedgerows in the leafy lanes and bypaths of literature,
in the genial Summertime. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

You are not a handgun. More like a pellet gun. Maybe even a slingshot. ~ Jason Jack Miller

After tea, we discussed a variety of topics before the fire; and Mrs. Micawber was good enough to sing us (in a small, thin, flat voice, which I remembered to have considered, when I first knew her, the very table-beer of acoustics) the favourite ballads of "The Dashing White Sergeant", and "Little Tafflin". ~ Charles Dickens

Cosmic terror appears as an ingredient of the earliest folklore of all races and is crystallised in the most archaic ballads, chronicles, and sacred writings. ~ H.P. Lovecraft

Besides my fast and slooow songs, I further divide my work into three main song types: the ballad or story song, the variation on a theme (saying the same thing over and over and over again) song, and the weird song. It's important to have weird songs, but I find that a little weirdness goes a long way. ~ David Massengill

Well first of all, I'm a singer. I sing since I talk. So the great ballad singers, the people that sang with so much feeling, jazz, blues, all those singers, they were songs that I listened to, records that my mom played for me, and then later I bought. ~ Gloria Estefan

What's the deal with the bossman?" Urian asked him.
Alexion shrugged. "I don't know. He came in last night with a book, went to his room to read, I suppose, and then he came out here this morning and has been playing ... those songs ever since."
Those songs were ballads, which Acheron never played. God-smack, Sex Pistols, TSOL, Judas Priest, but not ...
"Is that ... " Urian physically cringed before he spat out the name, "Julio Iglesias?"
"Enrique."
Urian grimaced in horror. "I didn't even know he knew any mellow shit. Dear gods ... is he ill?"
"I don't know. In nine thousand years, I've never seen him like this before."
Urian shuddered. "I'm beginning to get scared. This has to be a sign of the Apocalypse. If he breaks out into Air Supply, I say we sneeak up on him, drag him outside and beat the holy shit out of him. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

He makes her think sometimes of a mouse singing amorous ballads under the window of a giantess. ~ Michael Cunningham

I wish to go with you, not as man and wife, but merely as friends, travel companions, the sort of happy-go-lucky chums about whom rollicking old ballads of the road are written. ~ Alex Flinn

Robin Goodfellow is a very old faerie. Not only that, he has ballads, poems, and stories written about him, so he is very near immortal, as long as humans remember them. Not to say he is immune to iron and technology-far from it. Puck is strong, but even he cannot resist the effects. ~ Julie Kagawa

I have always been a sucker for ballads, but you have to be careful these days, you can't overload people. ~ Joe Cocker

In his eyes I forget time, burnt diaries, midnight, and ballads. I forget that I am growing older. One day I will be an old woman. ~ Abigail George

We are what ballads are written of, what bards sing of. We are epic, you and I. ~ Samantha Garman

But Christian ... he was unique, a rose blooming in a frozen tundra.
Had Christian been a woman, he might have married a king. As a man, he could have any woman's bed, or all of them.
He could inspire ballads. He could inspire wars. ~ Eli Easton

Dandelion, staring into the dying embers, sat much longer, alone, quietly strumming his lute. It began with a few bars, from which an elegant, soothing melody emerged. The lyric suited the melody, and came into being simultaneously with it, the words bending into the music, becoming set in it like insects in translucent, golden lumps of amber.
The ballad told of a certain witcher and a certain poet. About how the witcher and the poet met on the seashore, among the crying of seagulls, and how they fell in love at first sight. About how beautiful and powerful was their love. About how nothing - not even death - was able to destroy that love and part them.
Dandelion knew that few would believe the story told by the ballad, but he was not concerned. He knew ballads were not written to be believed, but to move their audience.
Several years later, Dandelion could have changed the contents of the ballad and written about what had really occurred. He did not. For the true story would not have move anyone. Who would have wanted to hear that the Witcher and Little Eye parted and never, ever, saw each other again? About how four years later Little Eye died of the smallpox during an epidemic raging in Vizima? About how he, Dandelion, had carried her out in his arms between corpses being cremated on funeral pyres and buried her far from the city, in the forest, alone and peaceful, and, as she had asked, buried two things with her: her lute and her sky blue pearl. The pearl ~ Andrzej Sapkowski

I love ballads. I'm not into fast songs. I love to put my heart and all of my feelings into a song. ~ Leah LaBelle

I'm a maker of ballads right pretty
I write them right here in the street
You can buy them all over the city
yours for a penny a sheet
I'm a word pecker out of the printers
out of the dens of Gin Lane
I'll write up a scene on a counter
- confessions and sins in the main, boys
confessions and sins in the main

Then you'll find me in Madame Geneva's
keeping the demons at bay
There's nothing like gin for drowning them in
but they'll always be back on a hanging day, on a hanging day

They come rattling over the cobbles
they sit on their coffins of black
Some are struck dumb, some gabble
top-heavy on brandy or sack
The pews are all full of fine fellows
and the hawker has set up her shop
As they're turning them off at the gallows
she'll be selling right under the drop, boys
selling right under the drop

Then you'll find me in Madame Geneva's
keeping the demons at bay
There's nothing like gin for drowning them in
but they'll always be back on a hanging day, on a hanging day ~ Mark Knopfler

I wanted to be in love like in the storybooks and songs and ballads. Love that hits you like a lightning bolt. And I'm sorry, because yeah, I get that you think I'm ridiculous. I get that you think I'm hilarious. I know, I get that you're mocking me. I get how stupid I am, but at least I know. ~ Holly Black

I should have known better than to trust a man who loved power ballads. ~ Jodi Picoult

The music was loud but mellow. It was a mix-tape of ballads but by heavy metal artists. All the songs said the same thing: it's okay to take a three-minute break from fighting and fucking and drinking; love your girlfriend and be sad; unclench your fist and hold someone until it's time to rock again. ~ Dave Newman

I've been very influenced by folklore, fairy tales, and folk ballads, so I love all the classic works based on these things
like George Macdonald's 19th century fairy stories, the fairy poetry of W.B. Yeats, and Sylvia Townsend Warner's splendid book The Kingdoms of Elfin. (I think that particular book of hers wasn't published until the 1970s, not long before her death, but she was an English writer popular in the middle decades of the 20th century.)
I'm also a big Pre-Raphaelite fan, so I love William Morris' early fantasy novels.
Oh, and "Lud-in-the-Mist" by Hope Mirrlees (Neil Gaiman is a big fan of that one too), and I could go on and on but I won't! ~ Terri Windling

In my early 20s, I had this idea that I was going to front a band, like Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin. I didn't just want to be the chick singing ballads about somebody breaking my heart. Everyone in the business said, 'Why don't you do what Olivia Newton-Jonn and Linda Ronstadt are doing?' But I wanted to sing as a powerful female who wasn't afraid to speak her mind or be sexual. ~ Pat Benatar

I also plan to release a ballads collection. ~ Vinnie Vincent

Actually when I'm depressed or feeling down, I seem to play quiet music and enjoy the time. So I listen to a lot of ballads and I try to enjoy the time with music. ~ Kim Tae-yeon

My love was Bob Dylan, but as I got older I realized a good ballad was a good ballad. ~ Bonnie Raitt

One of her dearest and handsomest friends was a sorcerer, and from him she had learned so much magic even her hairpins got up and started living serious-minded lives, writing hairpin-ballads, celebrating hairpin-holidays, and inventing several new schools of philosophy. ~ Catherynne M Valente

I do ballads that say what every man wants to say and that every woman wants to hear, or I do songs about social issues. ~ Kenny Rogers

Tis a morning pure and sweet, And a dewy splendour falls On the little flower that clings To the turrets and the walls; 'Tis a morning pure and sweet, And the light and shadow fleet; She is walking in the meadow, And the woodland echo rings; In a moment we shall meet; She is singing in the meadow, And the rivulet at her feet Ripples on in light and shadow To the ballad that she sings. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

May your glass always be full, may there always be a roof over your head, and may you dirty sinners be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows you're dead. ~ Jason Jack Miller

Now ballads, I can mess around and get up on somebody on a ballad. People ain't seen it yet, but I can mess around and get up in there. I've had Ruben Studdard up in my house, Brian McKnight, Tank. Every once in a while I throw down with them. ~ Jamie Foxx

Even the sad roots songs have a lot of good stories to them, and the murder ballads are good too. I mean, who doesn't like to watch a nice gory murder film on TV? ~ Valerie June

The alleged music preached of the wrongs democracy had perpetrated on the people and how to protest against the causes of their pain, which would be, according to the fascist propagandists, the police, the military, the rich and the current American government. His ballads were to call for youth and the downtrodden to unite and fight against poverty, injustice and social ills - by destroying the American way of life. Radio ~ Louis L'Amour

His bedroom was a reflection of Bryant's mind, its untidy shelves filled with games and puzzles stacked in ancient boxes, statues and mementoes competing for space with books on every subject imaginable, from Sensation and Perception in the History of Experimental Psychology to Illustrated British Ballads and A History of Indian Philosophy.
"What are you reading at the moment?' asked May.
"Batman," said Bryant. "The drawings are terribly good. ~ Christopher Fowler

There have never been so many women in the music industry, but they're doing ballads and pop. Where's the new Joan Jetts and the Wanda Jacksons and the Debbie Harrys, all these strong women? I wanna be the woman that rocks. ~ Imelda May

We not only wish to be pleased, but to be pleased in that particular
way in which we have been accustomed to be pleased. ~ William Wordsworth

Oscar Wilde said that "All crime is vulgar, just as all vulgarity is crime," and then got sent off to Reading Gaol to reconsider and write ballads. ~ Mark Forsyth

I love karaoke. I love maudlin country ballads. In another life, I'd be Loretta Lynn. ~ Sam Taylor-Wood

I didn't want to be a solo Westlife - covers and ballads - and the reason I signed with Capitol Records was because they wanted me to write songs myself. It was pretty scary, but they put me in a studio in Nashville with some new songwriters, and the results were pretty good. ~ Shane Filan