by Ana Carolina Lopes

“With a pinch of rock and a dose of roll” like the Queens of Noise, The Runaways, once said, you can get a lot of answers. But what happens when rock and roll leaves the room and a nice ballad takes place and introduces who you are and what you can do even more to the public? What is the answer to that?

Some rock bands feel that writing or playing a soft kind of music is repulsive. They want hard rock, rushed head bangers. But some simply set their supposed unpleasantness aside, embrace it, make it their own and it occasionally becomes something they are recognized by – and they embrace that too as a positive odd one out.

When this Van Halen, Queen loving influenced group envisioned their career, they probably did not think they would be mostly known for an acoustic love song (since love is the subject of most ballad type songs). You might not know Extreme by name, but you’ve heard “More Than Words”. You probably played it or sang it for your loved one and you most likely know Gary Cherone, Nuno Bettencourt, Pat Badger and Paul Geary (now Kevin Figueiredo) as the “More Than Words band”. Which is a mistake. Just saying. Number 1 in the United States, this 1991 hit from the “Pornograffitti” album is acknowledged, rightly so, as one of the most beautiful songs ever written and one of the reasons for it is because it fits perfectly in our everyday lives. It portraits how you don’t need only words of affection. You need actions, gestures. If you act like it, then I’ll believe you. It’s relatable. And the irony is that writers Nuno and Gary also don’t need much to convey that message. They only need an acoustic guitar and their voices blended in angelic harmony – and two stools for live performances.

Recorded in 1969 at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London, The Hollies version of “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother”, originally by Kelly Gordon that same year, transcends all senses of energy, especially if you are wearing headphones. This post Graham Nash era tune (I wonder if he would have liked to be part of that song), presents us fine and powerful vocals, compelling arrangements and the surprise of one Sir Elton John on piano – who was working as a session musician at the time. “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” teaches us about protection, looking out for someone and the “love for one another”.

They can write solid, strong songs like “Kingdom of Desire”, “Home of the Brave” and “Girl Goodbye”. But with the line “As soon as forever is through, I’ll be over you”, Toto has set the bar high on how to tell your loved one you’ll never forget them and how to set the tone for an outstanding love song with just one phrase. Written by Steve Lukather and his long time collaborator Randy Goodrum, “I’ll Be Over You”, part of the “Fahrenheit” album, is “sort of like a warning to people, like, you never know how good you got it until you don’t have it anymore”, according to Lukather himself. And the track only gets better with Michael McDonald’s deep and incomparable voice in the background.

With a career that lasts over 6 decades, the Rolling Stones can do anything and try anything (and we know they have). So, a ballad wouldn’t hurt them – though it may not have pleased their manager back in 1969. Released two years later, in 1971, “Wild Horses” is open to interpretation. For the audience and for the Stones. For Keith Richards, who initially proposed the song, it talks about a different kind of love. Family love. It was his way to express his feelings about leaving his newborn child, Marlon, and his wife, the muse Anita Pallenberg, behind to go on tour. When given to Mick Jagger, it turned into an anthem about his crumbling relationship with Marianne Faithfull. However, they can agree on one thing: the line “Wild horses couldn’t drag me away” gives them the privilege for it to mean whatever they want.

“It’s pretty good, for a love song. It ain’t rock and roll that makes me move my ass”, said Duane Allman to his younger brother Gregg when he brought home the idea for “Melissa” in 1967, before there even was an Allman Brothers Band. Eventually, he would give in and state that it was one of his personal favorites by Gregg. Unfortunately, Duane passed away in a motorcycle accident with his Harley-Davidson Sportster, in 1971, before the recording sessions, age just 24. Not really about someone actually named Melissa, it was Gregg’s first attempt of writing material of his own, which he struggled. But in the end, “that song about that girl”, as the first Allman brother used to call it, became the starting point of the second Almann brother’s creations and revealed a great writing talent and simply a really good guy.

Before he went full “freak-out prog”, quoting The Darkness’ Justin Hawkins, this one literally has a whole album dedicated to this type of thing, called “Runt. The Ballad of Todd Rundgren”. And it was only his second solo record. But “It Wouldn’t Have Made Any Difference” is part of the singer’s third studio album, “Something/Anything?”. Having impressively recorded all the instruments on the track, Rundgren’s lyrics reflect about loyalty, about one looking for reasons not to be with the other, saying that love wouldn’t change a thing when you set your mind to something, no matter how much you want it to. Over the years, Todd Rundgren became as eclectic as an artist could be. And the world is grateful for that.

So you see, you can be a well-established band in the rock scene or it can be your first time writing. It is possible to come up with a ballad about anything really. Probably 50% of the times it won’t be any good (look how long it took Gregg Allman and how the first draft of “Wild Horses” by Richards did not actually work) and 90% of the times it will be about love. But there are all kinds of love. Complicated love, unrequited love, acoustic love, piano love, ending love, brotherly love, family love, offspring love, even did-not-actually-happen-I-just-wanted-to-write-about-it love. The relevant portion is how you can make it your own, how authentic and truthful it can be. When you showcase all your ability, your gift and your range, and people dig it, no one can say a goddamn thing about it, even if it is all mellow and sweet. And THAT is very rock and roll.