Modern Ballads 1

MODERN BALLADS

SONGS OF PROTEST AND PEACE

WHAT IS A BALLAD?

01

THE MEDIEVAL BALLAD

• The name comes from Old French balade (dancing song).
• Its musical origin can be traced back to the same tradition as the folk-song.
• It is a form of popular narrative verse.
• It employs a direct and simple language.
• It is transmitted orally.
• It has no moral aim.
• It is characterised by a refrain and the use of repetitions.

BALLADS THROUGH THE CENTURIES

02

PROTEST BALLADS

03

A HARD RAIN'S A-GONNA FALL BY BOB DYLAN

This song uses metaphors to describe the whole world's concern of a nuclear holocaust. However, this 'hard rain' is not atomic rain, but just a hard rain. It is not the fallout rain, but some sort of end that is about to happen, since there are many issues that our world is facing, including nuclear war.

PEACE BALLADS

04

The band wrote this song during a visit to Moscow in 1989. The previous year, they became the first hard-rock band to play in Russia, and they returned to play at the Moscow Music Peace Festival. At this show, they were inspired by the sight of thousands of Russians cheering them on even though they were a German band. The "Wind of Change" that was blowing was the fall of the Soviet Union, which is what the song is about, but when the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989, the song became the unofficial anthem for the German Reunification, an event that politically lasted from the fall Wall to the official reunification on October 3, 1990 (The Scorpions are a German band). The music video plays to this interpretation, with footage of the Berlin Wall being dismantled. The Berlin Wall didn't come down until a few months after the song was written, though, and the inspiration came in Russia, not in Germany.

wind of changeBY scorpions