Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon (aka The Ballet and Make Me Smile Medley), 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. A song cycle is a group of songs designed to be performed in sequence as a single entity. ... Chicago is a rock band that formed in 1967 in Chicago, Illinois. ... 1970 was a common year starting on Thursday. ... Chicago, unofficially titled Chicago II, is the second album by Chicago-based rock band Chicago. ...

It was composed by James Pankow, who got the inspiration to write the "Ballet" from his love of long classical music song cycles. The Buchannon in the title is actually a misspelling of Buckhannon, West Virginia. Buckhannon is a city located in Upshur County, West Virginia. ...

"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. The version on the 2005 "Chicaco/Earth, Wind & Fire Live" is called "Make Me Smile Medley", named after the suite's flagship song. 1999 is a common year starting on Friday of the Common Era, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ...

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"