Patricia Jean Donahue (March 29, 1956 – December 9, 1996) was the lead singer of the American new wave group The Waitresses, most active in the 1980s.

[3] As he later explained in the liner notes of The Best of the Waitresses (1990), he met Donahue in a barroom challenge: "One day I write this song, and then it's noon and the liquid lunchers are packed into a...bar.

[6] Although Butler was the leader and songwriter of the Waitresses, fans and music journalists often singled out Donahue as the band's primary asset.

[4] Syndicated music columnist Hugh Wyatt considered her an exceptional artist despite her lack of formal training, calling her "one of only a handful of rock singers who has truly harnessed the attitudinal approach of post-punk".

Cooper exuberantly told an interviewer: "I'd be driving in the car...and every time I'd want to turn up the radio, it was Patty Donahue.

[11] On December 9, 1996, Donahue, who had been a heavy smoker most of her adult life, died of lung cancer in New York at the age of 40.