Word: balladeering
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...legend was sealed by A Pirate Looks at Forty, a mournful 1974 ballad that is still a concert highlight. When its narrator, a pirate born "200 years too late," offers up a confession--"I've done a bit of smugglin'/ I've run my share of grass/ I made enough money to buy Miami but I pissed it away so fast"--Buffett's fans assumed he was singing about himself. In fact, he wrote the song about one of his disreputable friends. "I was never the damn pirate," says Buffett...
Give us the '40s Margaret O'Brien. Now there was a child actress who knew that childhood could be an orphanage, an abode of isolation, misery and misunderstanding. When Miss Margaret's lower lip got to quivering in Meet Me in St. Louis, why, it took a Judy Garland ballad to dredge the poor kid out of depressive hysterics...
...crooning and cooing, by whispering his way through songs, he forces listeners to really listen, to confront the emotions in his songs rather than avoid them through the cathartic escape hatch of volume. One song, the gorgeous, unhurried Submerge: Til We Become the Sun, is an abstractly worded ballad about two lovers flowing into each other and facing up to their deepest selves. "I think people are a lot smarter than they are credited for being," says Maxwell. "I like to challenge what some people think most people will accept and listen to, particularly African Americans and particularly...
Luckily, though many pleasant (and original) discoveries remain in choirgirl hotel. As one of the few ballad-type songs on the entire album. "Jackie's Strength" carries a genuinely moving note of admiration to the late Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis. Although the song may border on sappiness, Amos' poignant passion streams through the delicate piano music to create a sincere cry against the double-standards women must face--always a favorite song subject of hers. "If you love enough, you'll lie a lot," she powerfully sings, her voice standing strong enough to support the weaker lyrics...
...remade in the image of the music, and the image shifted with each new generation. In the 1930s he quickly left his skeptical parents behind to launch a career based on iron self-confidence. In the '40s, married to his doting first wife Nancy, he was the heartthrob balladeer who sang I'll Be Seeing You to World War II G.I.s and their sweethearts. In the '50s, the persona went to war with the man. Sinatra at ballad tempo was the soul-sick, lovelorn, solitary man who closes down a midtown saloon. Up-tempo, and increasingly in his life...