Conclusion

Between 1902 and 1913, through collective innovation, thousands of crafters, operating across the nation, forged a mature American love ballad style—jazzy, personal, introspective, intimate—exemplified by this study’s ten focus songs. These songs were revived and spread internationally through new technologies: electronic microphone; radio; and movies with sound. The songs became permanently yoked to the microphone—so that they seem to have predicted its advent—as the modalities crystallized of torch song and crooning (with its link to the lullaby). This concluding chapter recruits the genre theories of Rick Altman to contextualize the discussions of torch singers by John Moore and Stacy Holman Jones. By contrast, it focuses on the many narrative contexts for torch songs themselves, suggesting a redefinition: a love ballad that makes the listener aware of the flame of love within their heart—an effect also dependent on the listener, performers, and context.