Talk:Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon

Spelling of the song title

The title noted here, is the correct spelling from the record, as shown on the actual album cover for Chicago II. However, the word "Buchannon" is a misspelling of the town of Buckhannon WV, with the "k" missing. Although they don't refer to Buchannon WV in the title nor anywhere in the suite's lyrics, one segment of the suite is titled "West Virginia Fantasies", and the suite was at least partly written by James Pankow about his ex-fiance who was attending school in Buchhannon WV.

While writing this, I found the following interview with James Pankow from 2017: https://www.songwriteruniverse.com/james-pankow-chicago-2017.htm In this article, he said that it was supposed to be "Buckhannon" but that it was Columbia Records who misspelled it. Although that's directly from the songwriter, it does seem odd that the band would not have urged the record company to correct the mistake at some point, or even on later releases of the album such as on CD.

Concerning the pronunciation of the title, with the "k" missing, one might be inclined to mispronounce "Buchannon" the same or similarly to the name of the 15th president, James Buchanan. However, on the live recording of their Carnegie Hall performances, the suite is introduced by Terry Kath with the name of the town being properly pronounced as "Buck-hannon". In fact, the syllable "Buck" was not only emphasized, but it was extremely exaggerated by Kath, almost as if he were acknowledging the misspelling. In light of the recent Pankow interview where he stated that it was not their mistake, the Carnegie Hall song intro might have been a subtle dig at the record company.

Fgoron2000 (talk) 17:59, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Album cited in paragraph 2.

The album cited in paragraph two should be Chicago II, not simply Chicago.

— Ron Goulet, Flagstaff, Arizona 47.215.145.57 (talk) 02:36, 24 November 2021 (UTC)