| The Elements (song) |
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"The Elements" ( 1959 ) is a song by musical humorist Tom Lehrer which recites the names of all the Chemical Element s known at the time of writing, up to number 102, Nobelium . It can be found on his albums '' More Songs By Tom Lehrer '' and '' An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer ''. The song is sung to the tune of the Major General's Song from '' The Pirates Of Penzance '' by Gilbert And Sullivan .http://www.cris.com/~oakapple/gasdisc/mdlehrer.htm Review and analysis of Lehrer's G&S parodies] DESCRIPTION OF THE SONG The ordering of elements in the lyrics fits the Meter of the song, and includes much Alliteration , and thus has little or no relation to the ordering in the Periodic Table . This can be seen for example in the opening and closing lines: .... These are the only ones of which the news has come to Ha'vard , And there may be many others but they haven't been discovered. Since that time, 15 more elements have been Discovered (''synthesized'', technically), and 9 of those have been named. Those 9 are Lawrencium , . Lehrer was a Harvard math lecturer (coincidentally, 'Lehrer' is German for 'male teacher'), and the final rhyme of "Harvard" and "discovered" is delivered in a parody of a Boston Accent , i.e., in a Non-rhotic manner, so that the two words rhyme. Lehrer, a native of New York, does not normally speak with that accent. BACKGROUND Lehrer drew the inspiration for ''The Elements'' from the song '' Tchaikovsky And Other Russians '', written by Ira Gershwin , which listed fifty Russian composers in a similar manner "A Conversation With Tom Lehrer", BBC Interview, 1999. ''The Elements'' differs from ''The Major-General's Song'' in that:
"The Elements" has itself been parodied by the group Amateur Transplants (of ''London Underground'' fame) as ''The Drugs Song''. The Jewish parody group Schlock Rock acknowledges Lehrer and "The Elements" as inspiration for the "The Shabbat Song" {Link without Title} in the liner notes for their CD, "Woodschlock." FOOTNOTES FURTHER READING
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