Nightmare Song from Gilbert & Sullivan's Iolanthe ǀ English National Opera 

When you're lying awake with a dismal headache, and repose is taboo'd by anxiety, I conceive you may use any language you choose to indulge in, without impropriety; For your brain is on fire and the bedclothes conspire of your usual slumber to plunder you: First your counterpane goes, and uncovers your toes, and your sheet slips demurely from under you; Then the blanketing tickles, you feel like mixed pickles so terribly sharp is the pricking, And you're hot, and you're cross, and you tumble and toss till there's nothing 'twixt you and the ticking. Then the bedclothes all creep to the ground in a heap, and you pick 'em all up in a tangle; Next your pillow resigns and politely declines to remain at its usual angle! Well, you get some repose in the form of a doze, with hot eyeballs and head ever aching. But your slumbering teems with such horrible dreams that you’d very much better be waking; For you dream you are crossing the Channel, and tossing about in a steamer from Harwich, Which is something between a large bathing machine and a very small second-class carriage; And you're giving a treat (penny ice and cold meat) to a party of friends and relations, They're a ravenous horde, and they all came on board at Sloane Square and South Kensington Stations. And bound on that journey you find your attorney (who started that morning from Devon); He's a bit undersized, and you don't feel surprised when he tells you he's only eleven. Well, you're driving like mad with this singular lad (by the by, the ship's now a four-wheeler), And you're playing round games, and he calls you bad names when you tell him that "ties pay the dealer"; But this you can't stand, so you throw up your hand, and you find you're as cold as an icicle, In your shirt and your socks (the black silk with gold clocks), crossing Salisbury Plain on a bicycle: And he and the crew are on bicycles too, which they've somehow or other invested in, And he's telling the tars all the particulars of a company he's interested in, It's a scheme of devices, to get at low prices all goods from cough mixtures to cables (Which tickled the sailors), by treating retailers as though they were all vegetables: You get a good spadesman to plant a small tradesman (first take off his boots with a boot-tree), And his legs will take root, and his fingers will shoot, and they'll blossom and bud like a fruit-tree, From the greengrocer tree you get grapes and green pea, cauliflower, pineapple, and cranberries, While the pastrycook plant cherry brandy will grant, apple puffs, and three corners, and Banburys, The shares are a penny, and ever so many are taken by Rothschild and Baring, And just as a few are allotted to you, you awake with a shudder despairing... You're a regular wreck, with a crick in your neck, and no wonder you snore, for your head's on the floor, and you've needles and pins from your soles to your shins, and your flesh is a-creep, for your left leg's asleep, and you've cramp in your toes, and a fly on your nose, and some fluff in your lung, and a feverish tongue, and a thirst that's intense, and a general sense that you haven't been sleeping in clover; But the darkness has passed, and it's daylight at last, and the night has been long ditto my song and thank goodness they're both of them over!

Splendid rendition . . . AB-SO-LUTE-LY SPLENDID!

Todd Rundgren comes to mind when listening to this...

I love the reference to multi-level marketing schemes. They aren't new!

My Dad had the Doyly Carte records of all the G&S operas on 78s back in the day. I learned to sing this one correctly by memory by the time I was in first grade, which failed to impress my teachers. I had no idea what it all meant, being five years old, but who else can honestly claim to have memorized it at any age?

Gilbert's librettos are the only ones in the whole of opera that make me glad I understand the language they're written and sung in - a rare fine and respectful performance.

I like the minimalist staging for this. I wondered if they'd go all dream-sequence but no, pure focus on the patter singer.

Very impressive that Andrew Shore can switch from roles like Wozzeck to this. A true artist!

WoW!! Well done fine sir!

Great performance! Saw this at ENO last week.

I loved this production,it's a shame it wasn't put on DVD

Wish they would show the full opera in the cinema . It was very enjoyable and I would like to see it again

One of G&S's trickiest patter songs.

19th century rap. Sick

And we thought that Cole Porter wrote tricky lyrics!!!

Victorian rapper!

See this is why I think sleep is a curse from God. You get nights like these sometimes and especially because you slept so well every other night you're now screaming to Heaven "No more! I cannot bear it!"

Love the scenery and the way the 'Wool Sack' rises onto the stage. But... Did anyone else notice that his voice strayed 'off key' a couple of times? As a trained singer - and coming from a long line of a musical family - it was a bit 'irksome'. But all-in-all a good performance.

AN STANDING OVATION! I first heard this song in a 'Clockwork Orange Style’ Todd Rungren’s version. It was love at first listenning - The rhythm of the lyrics and the description of the nightmare, simultaneously dramatic - after all it’s a nightmare - but at the same time comical, with all the sound effects on background. At the time, I didn't consider anything about the authorship of the song. I thought it was him’s, because of all his ‘madness’, in a good way, he is my favorite artist, after all. I thought, ‘Ok, another experience’. Only recently I realized that in truth it is part of a Victorian era Opera, ‘Iolante’ written by the Gilbert and Sullivan association, not to be confused with the also notable Gilbert o Sullivan singer. I read some comments about whether interpreter Andrew Shore might have occasionally gone out of tune. No sir, he did it on purpose, because you see, it’s not easy to describe a nightmare in a perfect metric 600 words speach in only few 3 minutes with the eloquence with which he did it. It is remarkable how it was possible not to be mistaken. There are a few more versions of this song on this site, some more in tune, maybe, but much more boring and none of them even closer to the energy, the giving, the fun, displayed on this version. He's funny from the moment he jumps off his 'bed' until the moment he throws himself back to it in the end, going through the gestures, the mimic, the eyes expression, the various exaltations arising from its interpretation. He is not just reading a text or singing a song. He is passing on to the viewer with the vehemence of his interpretation the whole picture of his nightmare. Anyway, as the Beatles would say in their ‘Only a Northern Song’: 'When you're listening late at night You may think the band are not quite right But they are They just play it like that!...’ BRAVISSIMO! MAGNIFICENT! AN STANDING OVATION! Greetings. I’m writing from Portugal.

Who is after Neil Gayman?

Am I crazy or is he straight up singing wrong notes at the end?

[Obligatory meme post] wow lmao whyd you have to rip off todd rundgren like that :laughing_crying_emoji:

Gosh, but it's slowwwwwww.............

Perhaps someone in the cybersphere could come up with a parody of this patter- with a sleep less Trumpius, perpetually awake and angry and all atweet at all hrs.of the night...and thank goodness this nightmare shall be ooooover...

The problem with G&S is that you don't want to hear it twice. Like a joke.

to be onest this is super cringe