The most played love song on the radio at over 8 million times is “You’v Lost that Lovin’ Feelin’ by the Riteous Brothers, which is a song that brings a powerful message. The speed and especially the tone of voice make this song powerful and would touch anyone in a relationship. It gives a very powerful message to the person’s lover in that it is saying that the person is no longer feeling what they should be feeling in this relationship.
A very romantic song to give to your partner is “I’ll be Right Here Waiting” by Richard Marx. It was submitted by a lady with a husband in Afghanistan which is powerful in itself, because there is a chance that something may be very different about him, when he returns from the war and a smaller chance that he will not return. The song shows total devotion to that person.
If your partner is at war and you are waiting at home, you would need to love them very strongly, because to wait at home means that you will not see them for long periods which is an experience full of very empty moments. The wife or girlfriend of someone in the armed forces is also acting as the rock for that person who is working in dangerous circumstances and living in uncomfortable conditions.
Listening to a song with a romantic meaning is a very cool way to spend time with your partner. A song by “Lonestar” called “Amazed” is powerful because it is about truly loving someone and seeing a future with them. “Home” by Michael Buble is very romantic because it expresses a strong need to be with someone at a specific moment in time. “You’re Where I Belong” by “Tricia Yearwood” is also romantic because it shows that the girlfriend or boyfriend has found the person that they want to spend, maybe a lifetime with.
European Ballads can be put into three main groups, Traditional begun with the wandering mistrels in medieval Europe ie Robin Hood, identified types are religious, supernatural, tragic, love, historic, legendary and humerous. Broadsides which were mass produced on cheap paper. Topics have included love, religion, drinking songs, legends, and wonders and prodigies. Literary ballads from the romantics like Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Oscar Wilde.
Ballad operas developed as stage entertainment the most successful was the Beggar’s Opera of 1728. Today the satirical side can be seen in Chicago and Cabaret.
Blues ballads are a combination of Anglo-American and African-American styles about anti-heroes such as Casey Jones. Bush ballads were taken to Australia by British and Irish settlers about mining, raising cattle and sheep shearing, often rebellious outlaw was like Ned Kelly and today about trucking.
Sentimental ballads were popular in the late 19th Century and were sentimental and narrative eg ‘Danny Boy’. Artists were paid by publishers to sing the songs.
Jazz, ragtime, blues and traditional pop ballads were what followed on and from the 50s a ballad was a slow love song, such as “Over the Rainbow”. Pop examples are “Misty” by Erroll Garner, “In a Sentimental Mood” by Duke Ellington.
In pop we see the Beatles “The Ballad of John and Yoko” and Don McLean’s American Pie which are emotional love songs.
Power ballads seemed to appear in the early 1970s when rock stars sent us powerful messages, such as Led Zeppelin’s stairway to heaven and was popularized by FM radio in America. Tom Jones and Joe Cocker, produced slow tempo songs which built to emotional endings.
A fantastic variety in this category and interesting to see how our love songs came to be!
