Friday, October 03, 2014

The Elements Song by Tom Lehrer

There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium,
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium,
Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium
And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium
And gold, protactinium and indium and gallium
And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium.

There's yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium
And boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium
And strontium and silicon and silver and samarium,
And bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium and barium.

There's holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium
And phosphorous and francium and fluorine and terbium
And manganese and mercury, molybdenum, magnesium,
Dysprosium and scandium and cerium and caesium

And lead, praseodymium, and platinum, plutonium,
Palladium, promethium, potassium, polonium, and
Tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium,
And cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium.

There's sulphur, californium and fermium, berkelium
And also mendelevium, einsteinium and nobelium
And argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc and rhodium
And chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper,
Tungsten, tin and sodium.

These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard,
And there may be many others, but they haven't been discovered.

Things I only vaguely understand, a song you will never hear

12 comments:

Aaron said...

Well I'm insulted you assume I wouldn't listen to the song. I indeed did listen because just reading the lyrics was about as interesting as reading the ingredients of a twinkee. Holy shit. What a lame song. Although I suppose if you have to memorize a bunch of boring shit that means nothing setting the list to music helps. But jesus h christ. Why not create a song with a catchier melody. That song was fuckin boring. Same fuckin chord throughout the whole song. Me and Dan had to take a class called geomorphology I. High school taught by Mr. Shobe. And he made us memorize the six layers of the earth. So we made a song out of it and sure enough. What once was an impossible list of meaningless words suddenly became easy to remember. But hell man. We remembered it cuz the song was good. Not just one Fucking chord. In fact. I will now prove just how effective putting boring words to music can be. After not singing that song for 24 years I will list the six layers of the earth.

1) surface of the earth
2) zone of soil moisture
3) intermediate zone
4) capillary fringe
5) water table
6) zone of saturation

The very ironic twist to this whole thing is that we made up this song for a test where we had to list the six names. Now we hated this class and did not have the answers to ANY OTHER question except when this question came up I got all excited and happily hummed the little ditty we wrote the night before and write down my answers. Proud as punch. But I wrote each answer on the wrong line. Now anyone with half a brain could see that I clearly knew all the six layers. Because I wrote them down in the right order in relation to each other. But they were all just written in the wrong spot on the test. And that mother fucked Mr. Shobe actually marked it wrong. I was so pissed when I got my test back. I said I CLEARLY KNOW THE LAYERS OF THE EARTH. I JUST WROTE THEM DOWN YOU MORON. I even busted out singing the damn song in front of the whole class. Clearly this dude did learn one thing everyone thought. Yet Mr. Shobe just looked at me with a blank look on his face. He would not mark it right. I remember thinking. This is the most insane mother fucker in the planet. I wanted to smash his fuckin old wrinkly forskin face in with a crowbar. Dan just giggled at me.

Aaron said...

Also, just what the hell are elements anyway??

Anonymous said...

Why would you take a class like that? And in highschool! I did not take chemistry until collage. And in the first lab I almost blew myself up and I went strait to the registrars office and dropped it. I don't remember what I took to fulfill the requirement. I just knew I would not live through that class. As for the elements. I don't know what the definition is. I just know that they are kind of the building blocks for everything. I know lots of them make you die.

Aaron said...

Dude. I wish you had stayed in that class. Because you wouldn't have died. But I am guessing that you would have some serious scaring. Or maybe a missing limb. Or some sort of funny malformation. And dude. Yeah I know they are called the building blocks of life and shit. But that means nothing. WHAT ARE THE BLOCKS? ? And how the hell do they see them? Who invented elements?? Cavemen weren't walking around going. "Hey look there is some carbon and helium" if you can't see it how do you know about it? And why not just invent a whole shit load of "elements"

Anonymous said...

An element is a substance that is made entirely from one type of atom.

Muffin said...

who knows dude it is a mystery. I don't understand how they know any of this stuff since no one has actually seen an atom. But they are real because they have split them and blew up a bunch of people and make a bunch of electricity.

Aaron said...

Okay Ryan. That is such a copout answer. That actually means nothing. That's like if I asked hey what's this bridge made out of and you said "bricks" and I said but what are the bricks made out of and you said "the bricks are made out of bricks" it's like the stupid man's answer

Pirate Aggro said...

I love science. But I have no one to talk to a bout it. I tried once or twice to talk to Ryan about things but I found myself sporting a new butthole for my trouble. I took an anatomy class in collage too and LOVED it. When the test came on the function of the kidney I friggin FAILED! I knew it had something to do with blood pressure and reverse osmosis or someing but that is where it ended. All I know is that when a kidney stone decides to leave the kidney it is worse than ANY pain. Worse than neck surgery. Worse than breaking a leg.

Dan Tschirhart said...

I tip my hat to Tom for actually taking the time to write that song, but it's true, I'd rather watch paint dry then listen to that song again. 'Poisoning Pigeons in the Park' was a much better song of his. At least that's something I can get behind and support.

Social Worker said...

YES!!! a dude at the housing project where they park the government car I drive to do my home visits feed the pigeons and they crap all over the car to the point that I have literally had to scrape the poo off with the ice scraper. I have little love for them.

Aaron said...

Kidney stones are indeed the worst pain. When I had my first one I had no idea what was happening and I could not move. I had to be carried into the hospital by this dude I worked with and it hurt so bad I thought I was dying. In fact I welcomed death. Anything to end the pain. And yet. Dan is right. I would rather have another kidney Stone than listen to that song again. Why did that song get written. And is anyone going to tell me WHAT A FUCKING ELEMENT IS??

Dan Tschirhart said...

Ok, so we have the definition already that was posted earlier ~ An element is a substance that is made entirely from one type of atom.

But what about when you're doing something rather well, or you're right where you belong, and someone tells you that, "you're in your element, dude."

And then we can't forget that Honda makes a vehicle called the Element.

The English language is a salty mistress.