Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon - Definition and Overview

Ballet For A Girl In Buchanon (aka The Ballet), a nearly 15-minute song cycle/suite from Chicago's 1970 album Chicago II, is the group's first attempt at a long-format multi-part work.

It was composed by James Pankow, who got the inspiration to write the "Ballet" from his love of long classical music song cycles.

"Ballet", which takes up three-quarters of side two of "Chicago II", consists of seven tracks, three of which are instrumentals. The final track, "Now More Than Ever", is a single-verse reprise of the suite's opening song, "Make Me Smile". The vocal songs within the suite can be viewed as telling the story of a man searching for a far away lost love and attempting to rekindle the love they had shared. Single edits of both "Make Me Smile/Now More Than Ever" and "Colour My World" became top-10 hits.

The suite was recorded as a single track, titled "The Ballet", on their live album Chicago XXVI in 1999.

1. "Make Me Smile"
2. "So Much To Say, So Much To Give"
3. "Anxiety's Moment" (instrumental)
4. "West Virginia Fantasies" (instrumental)
5. "Colour My World"
6. "To Be Free" (instrumental)
7. "Now More Than Ever"