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What is a Ballad?

Ballad poems are mainly used to portray a story about tragedy, hardships, romance, and love. These stories often reflect events that have actually occurred and it leaves the audience to deduce the moral of the story. Many musicians use lyrical ballads to create the songs many people hear in concerts and on the radio.

There are many different types of ballads but here are six popular types of ballads:

1) Stall Ballad

2) Lyrical Ballad

3) Popular Ballad

4) Blue Ballad

5) Bush Ballad

6) Fusion/Modern Ballad

Example of a Lyrical ballad:

‘Day after day, day after day
We stuck nor breathe, nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean’

Example of a Modern ballad:

‘From a town known Wheeling, Wes Virginia
Rode a boy with six gun in his hands
And his daring life crime
Made him a legend in his time
East and west of Rio Grande’

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