American Songwriter has put together a list of six emotional ballads from 1966 that it argues remain deeply familiar to baby boomers today. The selection spans genres and moods, from smooth pop crooning to a patriotic wartime anthem, and highlights how the emotional intensity of these songs has helped them endure in listeners' memories for decades.

The list includes Frank Sinatra's "Strangers in the Night," the Sonny Bono-penned "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" as recorded separately by Cher and Nancy Sinatra, and Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman," which became a much-covered standard. Also featured are Barry Sadler's chart-topping "The Ballad of the Green Berets," which spent five weeks at No. 1 despite rising anti-war sentiment, Johnny Rivers' "Poor Side of Town," and The Righteous Brothers' "(You're My) Soul and Inspiration," which reached No. 1 in the US and No. 15 in the UK.

– List of six 1966 ballads still fondly remembered by baby boomers
– Includes hits from Sinatra, Sledge, Righteous Brothers and others
– Barry Sadler's war-themed song topped the charts for five weeks