This is one of the old interviews with Walter pardon that we dug up while researching for the talk we gave
Jim Carroll

J C   If you had the choice Walter… if somebody said to you one night they were going to ask you to sing say half-a-dozen or a dozen songs even, of all your songs, what would be the choice, can you think offhand what you would choose to sing?

W P The Pretty Ploughboy would be one, that's one; Rambling Blade would be another one, The Rambling Blade would be two, Van Dieman's Land three, Let The Wind Blow High or Low, that'd be four, Broomfield Hill, that's five, Trees The Do Grow High, six, that'd be six.

J C Do you think that when you started singing in the clubs and festivals, do you think you think you are singing any different than you were singing when you were younger?

W P Dash, yes, I think so.

J C Do you know in what way?

W P Oh, I don't know, put more expression in probably, I think so. Well, but you see, you take these, what we call the old type… the old folk song, they're not like the music hall song, are they, or a stage song, there's a lot of difference in them. I mean a lot of these… some … it all depend what and how you're singing. Some of them go to nice lively, quick tunes, and others are… you don't do Van Dieman's Land… If there's a sad old song you don't go through that very quick. Like Up to the Rigs is the opposite way about.
I mean, we must put expression in, you can't sing them all alike. Well most of the stage songs you could, if you understand what I mean. According to what the song is you put the expression in or that's not worth hearing, well that's what I think anyhow.   And as I never did sing them, you see, there was no expression I could put in.

J C Alright; take another song; take something like Marble Arch and Maid of Australia, both of which are fairly amusing, anyway, would you see any difference in them?

W P Well yes, because there's a difference in the types of the music, that's another point.
You can tell Van Dieman's Land is fairly old by the sound, the music, and Irish Molly and Marble Arch is shortened up, they shortened them in the Victorian times. And so they did more so in the Edwardian times. Some songs then, you'd hardly start before you'd finish, you see, you'd only a four line verse, two verses and a four line chorus and that'd finish. You'd get that done in half a minute, and the music wasn't as good. Yeah, the style has altered. You can nearly tell by the old Broomfield Hill, that's an old tune; The Trees They Do Grow High, you can tell, and Generals All.
Nine times out of ten I can get an old fashioned ten keyed accordion, German tuned, you can nearly tell an old… what is an old song. Of course that doesn't matter what modern songs there is, the bellows always close when that finish, like that. And you go right back to the beginning of the nineteenth and eighteenth they finish this way, pulled out, look. You take notice how Generals All finish, that got an old style of finishing, so have The Trees They Do Grow High, so have The Gallant Sea Fight, in other words, A Ship To Old England Came, that is the title, The Gallant Sea Fight. You can tell they're old, the way they how they… That drawn out note at finish.   You just study and see what they are., how they work., you'll find that's where the difference is.
And as that got further along; that's where I slipped up with Black Eyed Susan; I thought that was probably William the Fourth by the music, but that go back about to 1730, that one do.
Well a lot of them you'll find, what date back years and years, there's a difference in the style of writing the music as that progressed along, that kept altering a lot. Like up into Victorian times, you've got Old Brown's daughter, you see, that come into Victorian times; well that style started altering, they started shortening the songs up, everything shortened up, faster and quicker, and the more new they get, the more faster they get, the styles alter, I think you'll find if you check on that, that's right.