Sentimental ballad: extremely nice German song in list (6,4)

I believe the answer is:

nellie dean

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'sentimental ballad' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I can't judge whether this works.

'extremely nice german song in list' is the wordplay.
'extremely' means to remove the middle letters (only the extremes of the word are used).
'german song' becomes 'lied' ('song' in German).
'in' indicates putting letters inside.
'list' becomes 'lean' (both can mean to tilt).
'nice' with its centre removed is 'ne'.
'lied' put within 'lean' is 'lliedean'.
'ne'+'lliedean'='NELLIE DEAN'

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(Other definitions for nellie dean that I've seen before include "Girl in the old song" , "There's an old mill by the stream, - -" .)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.

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