The first part investigates whether the young Shakespeare started his writing career as a ballad writer and explores the notion that he wrote some now-lost Armada ballads. The second part addresses Shakespeare’s reputation, in his time, for being a writer of ballads, and considers his involvement with ‘[Come] Live with Me’ as well as the ballad implications of The Sonnets and ‘A Lover’s Complaint’. The third part looks at plays for which Shakespeare adopts or perhaps writes ballads, Hamlet, Othello, and A Winter’s Tale, asking whether he published or allowed publication of these texts as paper songs. The suggestion made by this chapter is that Shakespeare, who so readily ‘product placed’ ballads in his dramas, was throughout his life a balladmaker (ballad writer) as well as a playmaker.