The Elements (song)

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"The Elements" (1959) is a song by Tom Lehrer which recites the names of all the chemical elements that were known at the time of writing, up to number 102, nobelium. It can be found on his albums More Songs by Tom Lehrer and the live album An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer. The song is sung to the rhythm and tune of Gilbert and Sullivan's Major General's Song ("I am the very model of a modern major-general...") from The Pirates of Penzance.

Here are the opening and closing lines:

There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,

And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium,

....

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.

Since that time, 14 more have been discovered (synthesized, technically), and 9 of those have been named. Those 9 are lawrencium, rutherfordium, dubnium, seaborgium, bohrium, hassium, meitnerium, darmstadtium, and roentgenium.

Lehrer being a Harvard math professor, the final rhyme of "Harvard" (HAHV-udd) and "discovered" (dis-CAHV-udd) is delivered in a parody of a Boston accent. Lehrer himself, a native of New York, does not normally speak with any notable city-accent.

The song differs from The Major-General's Song in that:

• Lehrer's usual performance of the song is more monotoned than its source tune, although the sheet music in the 1981 book contains Sullivan's normal score.
• It is only accompanied on piano (as opposed to full orchestral accompaniment).
• Lehrer pauses in the middle for a spoken interlude, in which he talks to the audience ("I hope you're all taking notes, because there's going to be a short quiz next period!") while repeating a rhythmic chord on the piano.
• The verse structure is altered, omitting the third verse of the original as well as all of the "responses" from the play's chorus, and adding an extra two lines at the end of the last verse.

Periodic Table according to Lehrer

This table, which shows the order of elements as Lehrer sings them, might help you to learn the song but probably won't help with memorising the elements in the real periodic table. Nitrogen is the only element whose "Lehrer atomic number" is identical to its actual atomic number.

Group →	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18
Period ↓
1	5 H																	51 He
2	47 Li	48 Be											37 B	97 C	*7* N	6 O	56 F	91 Ne
3	102 Na	61 Mg											3 Al	42 Si	54 P	82 S	96 Cl	89 Ar
4	72 K	79 Ca	63 Sc	76 Ti	20 V	80 Cr	58 Mn	13 Fe	98 Co	9 Ni	99 Cu	94 Zn	28 Ga	12 Ge	2 As	4 Se	46 Br	90 Kr
5	36 Rb	41 Sr	33 Y	18 Zr	39 Nb	60 Mo	75 Tc	15 Ru	95 Rh	70 Pd	43 Ag	78 Cd	27 In	101 Sn	1 Sb	77 Te	29 I	93 Xe
6	65 Cs	49 Ba	*	52 Hf	74 Ta	100 W	8 Re	22 Os	40 Ir	68 Pt	25 Au	59 Hg	32 Tl	66 Pb	45 Bi	73 Po	23 At	92 Rn
7	55  Fr	24 Ra	**	?? Rf	?? Db	?? Sg	?? Bh	?? Hs	?? Mt	?? Ds	?? Rg	?? Uub	?? Uut	?? Uuq	?? Uup	?? Uuh	?? Uus	?? Uuo
* Lanthanides				21 La	64 Ce	67 Pr	10 Nd	71 Pm	44 Sm	17 Eu	38 Gd	57 Tb	62 Dy	50 Ho	53 Er	31 Tm	34 Yb	19 Lu
** Actinides				35 Ac	30 Th	26 Pa	16 U	11 Np	69 Pu	14 Am	81 Cm	85 Bk	83 Cf	87 Es	84 Fm	86 Md	88 No	?? Lr

Chemical Series of the Periodic Table

Alkali metals	Alkaline earth metals	Lanthanides	Actinides	Transition metals
Poor metals	Metalloids	Nonmetals	Halogens	Noble gases

Trivia

• The Elements Song has itself been parodied, by the group Amateur Transplants (of London Underground fame) as The Drugs Song.
• Lehrer drew the inspiration for the song 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.

Footnotes

Further reading

Too Many Songs by Tom Lehrer, 1981, has sheet music for many of Lehrer's songs, including The Elements.

External links

• [Guitar chords from alt.guitar.tab newsgroup]
• [Flash animation of song]
• Lyrics to ["The Elements"], by Tom Lehrer

 

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