Elemental

***

Monday morning, Tom Lehrer gets down to basics. Just in case you’ve forgotten a few of them while singing along, here they are:

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, There’s strontium and silicon and silver and samarium, And bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium, and barium. There’s holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium, And phosphorus and francium and fluorine and terbium, And manganese and mercury, molybdenum, magnesium, Dysprosium and scandium and cerium and cesium. 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 sulfur, californium and fermium, berkelium, And also mendelevium, einsteinium, 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.

Thanks to YouTuber The Tom Lehrer Wisdom Channel

3 thoughts on “Elemental

  1. Bumba – Los Angeles – Shown on a recent visit to the Big Apple, Bumba has written two literary novels and has recorded two CD soundtrack albums to accompany them. Check it out on Bumba Books.
    Bumba on said:

    Hurray for Tom Lehrer. And hurray for you for writing down all those elements!

    • Thanks. Wish I could take critic for such diligence, but I did a web search for the lyrics.
      I have to say, I’m not only impressed by Lehrer’s ability to remember the lyrics, but his diction is impeccable. Even singing along with the lyrics in hand is a feat.

      • Bumba – Los Angeles – Shown on a recent visit to the Big Apple, Bumba has written two literary novels and has recorded two CD soundtrack albums to accompany them. Check it out on Bumba Books.
        Bumba on said:

        Lehrer was the Chuck Berry of math professors.

Leave a ReplyCancel reply