The story behind Patapan
Patapan is a Burgundian French carol, a noel for dancing rather than for kneeling in silence. Willie is told to take his little drum. Robin is told to take his flute. When those instruments sound, the singer will say Christmas joyfully. The drum's noise is patapan. The flute's noise is turelurelu. The title is the drum itself.
Bernard de La Monnoye published it about 1720 in a collection of noels in the Burgundian dialect, often called Noei borguignon. Guillô is a pet form of Guillaume, so English versions say Willie. Percy Dearmer and other editors later made singing translations. The French original, in its dialect spelling, is the song. The English is an equivalent for people who need one.
History and origins
Bernard de La Monnoye was born in Dijon in 1641 and died in 1728. He was a lawyer, a member of the French Academy, and a poet who took his own region seriously enough to write in its speech. Burgundian French is not a costume. It was the language of Dijon and the countryside around it, different in vowels and words from the Parisian standard that was already claiming authority. Around 1700 he composed a set of Christmas noels in that dialect. They circulated, won a prize competition connected with the literary society in Dijon, and were published in collected form about 1720. Patapan, under its first line Guillô, pran ton tamborin, is the one the world kept.
The 1720 book is why we can name an author, which is rare among noels that sound like folk songs. La Monnoye may have used rhythmic patterns people already danced to. The genius is the imitative chorus. Anyone who has heard a small tabor and a three hole pipe, the medieval and early modern pair of one player or two, recognizes turelurelu and patapatapan. He did not need a large orchestra. Two neighbors are enough to accompany the news that the King of angels has a court of shepherds. Later stanzas in the full noel expand the nativity with the same bouncing refrain. Many concerts sing only the call to the instruments and one narrative verse. That is a fair excerpt if the refrain is intact.
French parish custom took the song up because it is genuinely fun and still orthodox. It asks for joy at the birth, not for a party with the birth left out. The dialect was a barrier and a pleasure. Singers outside Burgundy often use a modernized French spelling, Guillot, prends ton tambourin, toi, prends ta flute, Robin, which smooths the old vowels and keeps the sense. Purists can prefer the 1720 orthography. Both are trying to reach the same noel. English translators, including Percy Dearmer in the orbit of the Oxford Book of Carols, chose Willie and Robin and tried to keep the drum syllables, because without patapan the song has lost its name.
Twentieth century choirs, especially in Britain and America, built arrangements with snare drum and flute obbligato, which is almost too perfect a match and is still the right instinct. The piece entered school Christmas programs beside quieter carols and saved the concert from being only hush. It is not a military march. The drum is small. The original Willie is a boy or a rustic, not a field commander. When a band turns patapan into artillery, it has missed La Monnoye's scale. He wanted a village noise worthy of a child king.
Full lyrics
French
Guillo, pran ton tamborin.
Toi, pran tai flute, Robin.
Au son de ces instruments,
Turelurelu, patapatapan.
Au son de ces instruments
Je dirai Noel gaiement.
English sense
Willie, take your little drum.
You take your flute, Robin.
When we hear these instruments,
Turelurelu, patapatapan.
When we hear these instruments,
I will sing Noel with joy.
The text above follows a standard public domain version. Singers will meet small changes from book to book, especially in folk carols.
Lyrics presented for educational and personal use. Sing along responsibly this holiday season!
Meaning and symbolism
The symbols are the two instruments and the permission to be loud. Patapan is not a word of doctrine. It is the sound of a membrane struck by a hand or a stick, and by being meaningless it is available to every singer. Turelurelu is the pipe's giggle. Together they say that Christmas praise can be rhythmic and bodily. The text around them is clearer than the syllables: to the sound of these instruments I will speak the noel gaily. Joy is a decision the drum supports. The shepherds' court in the fuller text means the poor are the right courtiers for this king.
Willie and Robin are every pair of friends a director can cast. One keeps time, one plays the tune, and the rest of the village sings. That division is the carol's social meaning. Music is not only the expert's offering. A little drum is enough if it is played for the birth. English listeners sometimes file the song with The Little Drummer Boy, a much later American piece with a different plot about a boy who has nothing to give but a drum. The kinship is the drum. The stories are not the same, and the centuries are not the same. Patapan does not apologize for playing. It recruits players.
Fun facts and statistics
- Bernard de La Monnoye published the carol about 1720 in his Burgundian noels.
- The dialect first line is Guillô, pran ton tamborin.
- Guillô is a diminutive of Guillaume, rendered Willie in English.
- Robin is told to play the flute. Patapan imitates the drum. Turelurelu imitates the flute.
- La Monnoye lived from 1641 to 1728 and was a member of the French Academy.
- He wrote a set of Christmas songs in the Burgundian dialect, not in standard Parisian French only.
- Percy Dearmer and others made English singing translations.
- The song is a dance noel. It is not the same story as The Little Drummer Boy.
Top 5 most popular renditions
Bernard de La Monnoye
about 1720
The author's own circle in Dijon is the first rendition. La Monnoye's Burgundian noels, gathered in print about 1720 after earlier circulation, were meant to be sung in the dialect of the region by people who already knew how a Christmas noel should dance. Guillô and Robin are local names, and patapan is a local noise written down by a member of the French Academy. This is composed folk poetry, not an anonymous field recording. Performance would have been robust, probably with the small drum and pipe the refrain describes, in homes and parish festivity rather than in a hushed recital.
Bernard de La Monnoye
French parish noels
18th century
After publication, the song joined the wider French custom of singing many noels at Christmas, in church squares and in homes, often in a modernized French that travelers could follow. Parish renditions kept the refrain physical. A drum on the patapan and a flute on the turelurelu are not modern additions. They are the stage directions inside the text. Regional noels were numerous. This one traveled farther than most because the nonsense chorus needs almost no translation. Eighteenth century singers already treated it as a standard of joyful Christmas rather than as a private Dijon joke.
French parish noels
Percy Dearmer
1928
Percy Dearmer's English, in the world of the Oxford Book of Carols around 1928, gave British choirs Willie, take your little drum, and kept the drum syllables that make the title. His approach, shared with other editors of that book, was to offer a singable equivalent rather than a scholar's crib. The rendition is a translation event. It moved a Burgundian dialect piece into Anglican carol services and school halls. Dearmer should be credited for the English many grandparents know, and La Monnoye should still be credited for the noel. The Oxford pairing of text and tune became the Anglophone default.
Percy Dearmer
School choirs with flute and drum
20th century
Twentieth century school and church choirs built the arrangement that audiences now expect: unison or two part singing, a flute on the trills, a snare or hand drum on the patapan, and a tempo that smiles. Publishers issued dozens of editions, some with too much percussion and some just right. The good ones remember that the drum is little. This rendition carried the carol into December programs that needed one dance among the lullabies. Children who never hear the word Burgundy still learn the recruiting of Willie and Robin, which is the social heart of La Monnoye's joke.
School choirs with flute and drum
French and Canadian noel concerts
present
Present day French choirs and French Canadian Christmas concerts still program Patapan beside Il est né and other dance noels, sometimes in dialect and sometimes in modern French. The pairing with a fife remains the test of whether a director has read the lyric. Audiences clap, and for this song clapping is not a breach. It is a cousin of the drum. These concerts keep the carol from existing only as an English school piece. When the Burgundian vowels appear, even for one refrain, the 1720 book is audible again. Joy, in this rendition, is a communal rhythm.
French and Canadian noel concerts
Sheet music
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Notes for singers
If you place Patapan in a December service, a school program, or a living room sing, teach Guillô, pran ton tamborin before you add harmony. A confident melody lets guests enter on the refrain. Say the names when you introduce it. The words are credited to Bernard de La Monnoye, and the music to Bernard de La Monnoye. The year to remember is about 1720, and the place to name is Burgundy, France.
This sits in the library as a folk carol. Let that tradition set the tempo. A lullaby loses its point if it is hurried. A dance carol loses its point if every syllable is precious. Leave a breath at the end of the verse so the next line feels chosen rather than chased.
Bernard de La Monnoye published the carol about 1720 in his Burgundian noels. Hold that fact in the introduction you speak, not only in a program note. The dialect first line is Guillô, pran ton tamborin. Those two details give a listener a reason to hear the song as a made thing, not as wallpaper.
When the group is small, one voice can carry the verse and everyone can take the refrain. When the group is a choir, decide in advance whether you are telling a story or painting a picture. Story songs want clear words. Picture songs can bloom. Patapan will tell you which it is after a single unaccompanied read through.
Questions readers ask
Bernard de La Monnoye, a Dijon poet and member of the French Academy, wrote it in the Burgundian dialect and published it about 1720 among his noels. The first line is Guillô, pran ton tamborin. English Willie is a translation of that pet name for Guillaume. The song can sound anonymous and folk like, but it has an author and a book.
They are imitative sounds, not doctrinal words. Patapan is the little drum. Turelurelu is the flute or fife. The carol tells Willie to drum and Robin to play, and then promises to speak the Christmas news gaily to that accompaniment. The title is the rhythm itself. Without those syllables the song loses its joke and its name.
No. Both songs use a drum at Christmas, and there the resemblance ends. Patapan is an eighteenth century French dance noel that recruits two players so the whole company can celebrate a birth. The Little Drummer Boy is a twentieth century American song with its own copyright and a different plot. Do not combine the lyrics or the histories.
No. It is a dance carol. A small drum and a flute are the instruments named in the text, and the refrain should bounce. Quiet is the wrong piety for this noel. The drum should stay little, a village tabor rather than a marching battery, so the joy stays human and the story stanza can still be understood.
Why this song endures
The nonsense syllables are unforgettable, which is the practical reason a dialect noel from Dijon survived in countries that do not speak Burgundian. Patapan says itself. Once heard, the title is the rhythm. Composers keep arranging it because the refrain is a built in percussion part and the melody is short. School teachers keep it because the cast is two named friends and a crowd, and the theology is joyful without being vague.
It endures as a correction to the idea that all serious Christmas music whispers. La Monnoye was an academician who still wanted a drum in church. That combination, learned poet and village noise, is the French noel tradition at its best. As long as someone will play quietly enough to stay a little drum and loudly enough to be heard, the 1720 invitation still works. Willie, take it up. Robin, answer. Then say the birth gaily.