List of patter songs

This is a list of some of the best known patter songs.

Pre-Gilbert and Sullivan

• Auber: Le domino noir – "Je suis sauvée enfin"
• Cornelius: The Barber of Baghdad – "Bin Akademiker, Doktor und Chemiker"
• Donizetti: L'elisir d'amore – "Udite, Udite, o rustici", middle section (Dulcamara)
• Donizetti: Don Pasquale – "Cheti, cheti, immantinente", final section (duet for Don Pasquale and Doctor Malatesta)
• Glinka: Ruslan and Lyudmila – Farlaf's Rondo «Близок уж час торжества моего» (Farlaf)
• Mozart: Marriage of Figaro – "La vendetta, oh, la vendetta", final section (Bartolo)
• Mozart: "Don Giovanni" – "Fin ch'han dal vino" (Don Giovanni)
• Mozart: "Clarice Cara Mia Sposa", aria for Tenor, K. 256
• Rossini: Il Barbiere di Siviglia – "Largo al factotum", final section (Figaro); "A un dottor de la mia sorte" (Bartolo)
• Rossini: La Cenerentola – "Sia qualunque delle figlie", final section (Don Magnifico)
• Rossini: "La Danza"
• Schubert: From Winterreise, "Rückblick"

Gilbert and Sullivan

• Sullivan: The Gondoliers – "In enterprise of martial kind" (Duke of Plaza-Toro)
• Sullivan: The Gondoliers – "Rising early in the morning" (Giuseppe)
• Sullivan: H.M.S. Pinafore – "When I Was a Lad" (Sir Joseph)
• Sullivan: Iolanthe – "When you're lying awake" (Lord Chancellor)(the "Nightmare song") (also covered by Todd Rundgren on his 1973 album, "Todd".)
• Sullivan: The Mikado – "As Someday it May Happen" (Ko-Ko)
• Sullivan: Patience – "If you want a receipt for that popular mystery" (Colonel Calverley)
• Sullivan: Patience – "So go to him and say to him" (Bunthorne and Lady Jane)
• Sullivan: Patience – "When I go out of door" (Bunthorne and Grosvenor)
• Sullivan: The Pirates of Penzance – "I am the very model of a modern Major-General" (Major-General Stanley)
• Sullivan: Princess Ida – "If you give me your attention, I will tell you what I am" (King Gama)
• Sullivan: Ruddigore – "My boy, you may take it from me" (Robin)
• Sullivan: Ruddigore – "Henceforth all the crimes that I find in the Times" (Robin)
• Sullivan: Ruddigore – "My eyes are fully open to my awful situation" (Robin, Despard, and Margaret)(the "matter patter song"). This song was adapted for use in the Broadway revivals of The Pirates of Penzance (Papp production, 1980) and Thoroughly Modern Millie as "The Speed Test".
• Sullivan: The Sorcerer – "My name is John Wellington Wells" (J. W. Wells)
• Sullivan: Trial by Jury – "When I, good friends, was called to the bar" (the Learned Judge)
• Sullivan: Utopia, Limited – "Henceforward of a verity" (King Paramount, Scaphio, Phantis and chorus)
• Sullivan: Utopia, Limited – "It's understood, I think, all round" (Scaphio, Phantis, Zara and Fitzbattleaxe)
• Sullivan: The Yeomen of the Guard – "I've Jibe and Joke... I've wisdom from the East and from the West" (Jack Point)
• Sullivan: The Yeomen of the Guard – "Oh! A private buffoon is a light-hearted loon" (Jack Point)

After G&S: Selected popular and classical music and showtunes

• Animaniacs: "Yakko's World"
• Ashman & Menken: "Now (It's Just The Gas)" from Little Shop of Horrors
• Bare Naked Ladies: "One Week" (1998 pop-rock song)
• Bare Naked Ladies: "Pinch Me" (2000 pop-rock song)
• Lionel Bart: "Reviewing the situation" from Oliver! (Fagin)
• Jason Robert Brown: "That's What He Said" from Parade
• Hoagy Carmichael: "I'm A Cranky Old Yank in a Clanky Old Tank on the Streets of Yokohama with My Honolulu Mama doing Those Beat-O, Beat-O, Flat-On-My-Seat-O, Hirohito Blues" (Sung by Bing Crosby during World War II; Longest song title in Guinness Book of World Records.)
• Cy Coleman: "Museum Song" from Barnum
• Noel Coward: "Mad Dogs and Englishmen"
• Bob Dylan: "Subterranean Homesick Blues" (1965 folk song)
• Shirley Ellis: "The Name Game" (1961 pop-rock song)
• Gabriel Fauré: "Fêtes galantes" in his composition Masques et Bergamasques (1919)
• Flanders and Swann: "Ill Wind" (set to the tune of Mozart's Horn Concerto No. 4)
• Rupert Holmes: "Both Sides of the Coin" – duet from The Mystery of Edwin Drood
• INXS: "Mediate" (1987 rock song)
• Billy Joel: "We Didn't Start the Fire" from the Storm Front album.
• Kander & Ebb: "The Money Song" from Cabaret
• Kander & Ebb: "We Both Reached for the Gun" from Chicago
• Danny Kaye: "The Maladjusted Jester" from The Court Jester
• Larson: "Therapy" from Tick, Tick... Boom!
• Lehrer: "The Elements" (set to the tune of the Major-General's Song)
• Lerner & Loewe: "My Mother’s Wedding Day" from Brigadoon
• Geoff Mack: "I've Been Everywhere" (also covered by others)
• Carl Orff: "In taberna quando sumus" from Carmina Burana.
• Cole Porter: "Let’s Not Talk About Love" from Let's Face It!
• Plastic Bertrand: "Ça Plane Pour Moi" (1977 pop song with nonsensical patter in French)
• Red Hot Chili Peppers: "Magic Johnson" (1989 alternative rock song)
• R.E.M.: "It's the End of the World As We Know it" (1987 pop-rock song)
• Reunion: "Life Is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me)" (1974 pop song)
• Scrubs: "The Rant Song"
• Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman: "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" (from Walt Disney's "Mary Poppins" movie, 1964)
• Savage Garden: "I Want You" (1996 pop-rock song)
• Snow: "Informer" 1993. Also parodied by Jim Carrey as "Imposter".
• Stephen Sondheim: "Getting Married Today" from Company (Amy)
• Kurt Weill: "Tchaikovsky (and Other Russians)" from Lady in the Dark
• Meredith Willson: "Rock Island (opening sequence)" from The Music Man
• Meredith Willson: "Ya Got Trouble" – "Piano Lesson (If You Don't Mind My Saying So)" from The Music Man
• "Weird Al" Yankovic: "Bob", done entirely in palindromes, from the Poodle Hat album
• Maury Yeston: "Folies Bergere" (the contrapuntal melody that begins with "The trouble with Contini...") from Nine

External links

• Jason Fortner's description of a number of patter songs
• Peter Schickele on the history of the patter song
• Description of Nelson Eddy recording of patter songs, listing them
• Description of Martyn Green recording of patter songs, listing them
• List of some classical patter songs