Broadside Ballad.•*¨*•.¸¸♬

I know there is a music genre called "ballad", but "broadside ballad" is a new concept for me. At first I thought broadside ballads are those ballads whose lyrics are used to criticize social and political issues. But broadside ballads are much more than what I have thought. The broadside ballad is the combination of traditional folk song melody and lyrics that comment on current social or political issues. The lyrics of broadside ballads were usually more than one verse, and always printed on one side of a piece of paper with illustrations and are sold for about one penny. Because of the traditional folk song melodies, and current local issues in the lyrics, almost everyone in the community could sing the songs, which made broadside ballads spread rapidly in community. Scottish patriot Andrew Fletcher said that "If a man were permitted to write all the ballads, he need not care who made the laws of a nation." Broadside ballads were newspaper at that time, and they raised public consciousness while when everyone was singing them.

An English broadside ballads

A broadside ballad from New England

The first broadside ballad was from the Great Britain, in the 16th century. Before that, there were only broadside sheets with no music. At the beginning of the  16th century, people in Britain started to replaced lyrics of traditional folk songs with stories on broadside sheets. Broadside ballads were popular in the Great Britain until newspapers replaced them after the 19th century. "The Bonny Bunch of Roses" is one of the British broadside ballads. The tune was first found in 1881, and the lyrics is a conversation between the son of Napoleon Bonaparte and his mother Marie Louise. This broadside ballads shows that the Irish people at that time were pro-Napoleon, because they were ruled by the British at that time, and they believed that Napoleon could change that. The lyrics can be found on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bonny_Bunch_of_Roses#Lyrics 

A clip from 1965 of The Bonny Bunch of Roses

English broadside ballads were introduced to Americans in 17th century, and then they started to compose their own broadside ballads. There were broadside ballads about FDR, The Great Depreseion and the New Deal, as well as many social issues at that time. In 1960s, civil rights movement made broadside ballads popular again. One of the ballads is "The Ballad of Old Monroe." Pete Seeger and Malvina Reynolds wrote its lyric in 1962 for the Committee to Aid the Monroe Defendants before the trial of a young African American man Rob Williams, who was facing the charge of kidnapping a white couple in Monroe, North Carolina. The lyrics tell the truth that Rob Williams did not really kidnap the couple but saved them from an angry crowd. The lyrics: http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/MALVINA/mr211.htm 

Broadside ballads raise consciousness in their unique way. Not everyone can read in the past, and messages can get lost if they are only passed orally. But because social and political issues were written as lyrics of familiar songs, people could understand the opinions of writers toward different issues while learning to sing the ballads. The low price made broadside ballads spread widely and rapidly, which also helped raising consciousness widely in the community. However, the lyrics were replaced so rapidly that not every version could remain. I am curious about how many broadside ballads (both from the Great Britain and America) can still be found, and sung today.