Testo The elements Tom Lehrer

The elements

Now, if I may digress momentarily from the main stream of this evenings symposium, Id like to sing a song which is completely pointless but which is something I picked up during my career as a
Tist. this may prove useful to somebody some day perhaps, in a somewhat bizarre set of circumstances. its simply the names of the chemical elements set to a possibly recognizable tune.

Theres 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 and protactinium and indium and gallium,
<gasp>
And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium.

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

Isnt that interesting?
<laughter>
I knew you would.
I hope youre all taking notes, because theres going to be a short quiz next period.

Theres 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,
<gasp>
And cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium.

Theres 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 havard,
And there may be many others, but they havent been discavard.
Now, may I have the next slide please?
Got carried away there.