A list song, also called a laundry list song or a catalog song, is a song based wholly or in part on a list.[1]: xiii [2][3][4][5][6] Unlike topical songs with a narrative and a cast of characters, list songs typically develop by working through a series of information, often humorous or comically, articulating their images additively, and sometimes use items of escalating absurdity.[7][8]
The form as a defining feature of an oral tradition dates back to early classical antiquity,[9][10] where it played an important part of early hexameter poetry for oral bards like Homer and Hesiod.[11][12]
In classical opera the list song has its own genre, the catalogue aria, that was especially popular in Italian opera buffa and comic opera in the latter half of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Leporello's aria "Madamina, il catalogo è questo" (lit. '"Little lady, this is the catalogue"'), also nicknamed The Catalogue Aria,[13][14] is a prominent example, and often mentioned as a direct antecedent to the 20th-century musical's list song.[15][16][17][18]
The list song is a frequent element of 20th-century popular music and became a Broadway staple.[19] Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Noël Coward, and Stephen Sondheim are composers and lyricists who have used the form.[20][21] The very first commercial recording of a Cole Porter tune was his list song "I've a Shooting Box in Scotland" originally from See America First (1913).[22][23] Berlin followed soon after with the list song "When I Discovered You" from his first complete Broadway score Watch Your Step (1914).[24]
Porter would frequently return to the list song form, notable examples include "You're the Top" from the 1934 musical Anything Goes,[25][26][27] "Friendship", one of Porter's wittiest list songs, from DuBarry Was a Lady,[28]: 483 and "Farming" and "Let's Not Talk About Love" both from Let's Face It! (1942), and both written for Danny Kaye to showcase his ability with tongue-twisting lyrics.[29] In "You're the Top" Porter pays tribute to his colleague Irving Berlin by including the item "You're the top! You're a Berlin ballad."[30][31][32]
Irving Berlin would likewise often write songs in the genre, notable examples include "My Beautiful Rhinestone Girl" from Face the Music (1932), a list song that starts off with a sequence of negative similes,[33] "Outside of That I Love You" from Louisiana Purchase,[34] and "Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)" a challenge-duet, and Berlin's starkest antithesis-driven list song,[35] "You Can't Get a Man with a Gun",[36] and "Doin' What Comes Natur'lly",[37] all three from the 1946 musical Annie Get Your Gun.
Examples of list songs, and their composers/performers, include the following. Songs are in alphabetical order by title (omitting the definite article where not important to the title).
Many patter songs fall into this genre such as: