The Ballad as Song is a collection of essays tracing the author's decades-long exploration of the intersection between traditional ballads and their accompanying tunes. Initially approached as a casual hobby, the project grew into a comprehensive inquiry into the melodies of Child ballads and their historical and cultural significance. The essays aim to bring together folk song and balladry, offering a perspective on how these elements interact and evolve through traditional transmission. The author reflects on challenges in classifying melodies, understanding modal shifts, and analyzing the interplay of text and tune, areas that remain underexplored in the field of folk music studies.

While the essays adhere to a consistent viewpoint, they also provide insights into enduring problems in ballad research, such as melodic identity, variation, and the transmission of tradition. Though not aligned with contemporary trends in social theory, the collection emphasizes the value of historical perspective, underscoring the importance of roots in understanding folk music. Through these essays, the author seeks to engage with current assumptions and open up new directions for comparative and analytical approaches to traditional balladry and its music.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1969.