Regarding the song The Banks of Sweet Dundee, mentioned by Pardon in the magazine article above,


Hillery selects ‘The Banks of Sweet Dundee’ for the Pardon song in the amatory song category (recorded by Mike Yates in 1978). The same song is used for Jack Beeforth (recorded by Hillery himself).   Beeforth sings it in a mixolydian mode, Pardon in the major or ionian mode. He describes Pardon’s voice as having a ‘thin and reedy’ quality, with evident ‘back dentality’ - probably linked to the local accent - and a great degree of nasality. Pardon’s delivery, he notes, has many phonological features of dialect, but not lexical or grammatical features. In this latter respect Pardon’s work differs from that of some of the other work discussed in the piece. He comments on the places where Pardon takes a breath, at suitable pauses. He notes that the pitch of the song changes slightly during the delivery, being about a semitone higher by the end of the song. He notes that the song is sung almost without ornamentation except for a ‘dying fall almost as parlando’ at the end of each verse after the first. He praises the delivery as simple, lucid, clear, without pathos or sentimentality.

Hillier has some interesting comments on first-revival folklorists' attitudes to this song, including that of Kidson. He says it is a song which was either written for or embraced by the broadsheet trade, and that to (some?) modern ears it epitomises Victorian sentimentality (or some such phrase) though be balances this by a quotation from Mike Yates' sleeve notes.