There are many definitions for “ballad” songs and many sub categories as well such as the; Sentimental, Blues, R&B, Hard Rock, Soft Rock and of course the Power-Ballad. A ballad is generally defined as a song with emotion and sentimentality that may include a story of love, loss, longing or self reflection. It is typically a longer and slower paced song. We can trace the origins back to the singing bards and traditional folk music, through the Victorian parlours, Big Bands and all the way to songs such as Sam Smith’s “Stay with Me“. I think all of us generally know a ballad when we hear one. Today I want to talk about Pop-Rock Ballads.

“Yesterday” (recorded June 14, released August 6, 1965) written by Paul McCartney, credited to Lennon/McCartney and sang solo as a Beatles member by McCartney.  I’ve blogged on this, the most covered ‘pop’ song of all time before but not in this particular capacity, for me it ticks all the boxes for a great ballad. This was a turning point for ballads in Rock music and for that matter in popular music period. Just because the song is now almost 55 years old and most everyone knows the song doesn’t make it great, it was exceptional right from the first time it was performed. It’s well documented from McCartney’s own words that the melody came to him in a dream, and after months of using the comical placeholder lyrics of “Scrambled eggs/Oh my baby how I love your legs/Not as much as I love scrambled eggs” the words were finalized while on a holiday break. Paul has credited John Lennon with coming up with the title of “Yesterday” which helped him finish the song. There is so much written about the uniqueness of the song, the chord progression, lyrics and Paul’s acoustic guitar playing-not to mention George Martin’s brilliant idea to add the orchestra. While it was very briefly debated to release the song as it was, a solo by McCartney, this was vetoed and the the band would not allow it to be released as a single in the UK. Their American label was Capitol Records and the distance (both physical and legal) from EMI’s Parlophone label allowed them to make the decision to release the single on September 13, 1965 but in the US only. It hit #1 after four weeks and reportedly sold a million copies in five weeks, not unheard of however, even for the most popular singles at that time it was still about a year’s worth of sales. And people are still listening to and talking about the song. Currently there are well over 800 documented cover versions with likely a couple thousand others so it is tough to pick just a few. The first cover was from Marianne Faithfull in 1965 (catch the irony!) The Supremes  and John Denver are two of the over 70 versions from just 1966 alone. Frank Sinatra (1969). Himesh Patel from the movie ‘Yesterday’. (2018). Billie Eilish from the 2020 Oscars.