Best rock/metal ballads?
 

Hevay Metal and Rock bands prove themselves the most accomplished and proficient often by virtue of the sometimes fantastic ballads they pen. Who can forget Gary Moore's "Empty rooms", Journey's "Who's crying now?" or even Zep's "Going to California", or GnR's "November rain"?
So which are your favourite rock/metal ballads?

ballads are usually so cheesey and over done... i can't stand them

You obviously haven't heard enough, then. Ballads can leave a warm and fuzzy feeling, and aren't necessarily cheesy.

I'm on a Queen binge right now and even their less-liked ballads are ripe with emotion. I still have to say Buckethead is king:

my complaint was aimed more towards metal ballads, i should have been more specific

Rock ballads are the scourge of the scene, yet I have many many soft spots for these type of tracks. Hold onto your hats as the jackhammer shows his sensitive side:



It came out when my parents split up so it holds reverence but it was also a fave with an ex-soppy I know.



I think the lyrics from this song are quite pessimistic and therefore fit in with my criteria lol.



'Outside my window it's lonely and cold, inside my heart there's a fire burning out of control'. Brillant lyric and some brilliant guitar playing too.



Despite my missus's myriad faults she still survived this test. I almost threw this track at her back in our early days. It was more to do with my Ridley Scott (director) fascination than the lyrical content in those days of shallow youth. She passed my questions by proxy.

Somebody LMK when i can inflict more crap onto you all

I think the best rock/metal ballad is Motley Crue's Home Sweet Home.

One of my favourites off a horribly underrated album here;


One off that most excellent of albums No More Shall We Part;


And of course;

Personally, I've always had a soft spot for Poison's "Every rose has its thorn", with its campfire/cowboy-type themes, the great acoustic guitar, Poison trying to be Bon Jovi (!), and to add to all that, Otto stopped making his marriage proposal to declare "Oh man! This is a GNARLY guitar solo!" and turned the volume way up! Now THERE is a true rocker! :)

This is about the only cheesy rock ballad I can bare to listen to these days.