The Elements (updated) by Tom Lehrer
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 ก.ย. 2024
- Here's my updated version of Tom Lehrer's classic, 'The Elements'. This version now includes the 16 new elements missing from the original. I've performed it in Tom's style with some updated patter and even threw in a key change. The tune is 'vaguely' based upon the song 'I am the very model of a Modern Major General' from Gilbert and Sullivan's, The Pirates of Penzance.
You'd all be pleased to know that Tom Lehrer is still alive and kicking
Indeed!, I'd love to meet him or chat but that's unlikely.
@@dr.h.musics7870 You must send him a copy of your update. (Send him a memory stick of it or something. Maybe incorporating some of the corrections/suggestions from here.)
The international naming standard for elements should be updated to ensure that future discoveries don't screw up the rhyme structure on this song.
Agreed!
Absolutely, good point!
😁
But English is only a century or two away from breaking up into new languages.
@@KororaPenguin "Leading" scientists (those who were/aspired to be renowned & influential beyond their acquaintances) have always communicated in "the language of science", which has varied over the centuries: Greek, Egyptian, Arabic, a variety of languages of China, Latin, Italian, German, French, English, & Russian, to name a few. Learning varieties of English will be no different. English-fluent scientists of recent generations are the only ones in history who could be monolingual & still stay reasonably current with world-wide developments in their fields....
Thanks for this. I once gave this song to a science teacher colleague who happily used it in class, but had to point out that the last lines were outdated. Not any more, they ain't. Cheers.
Thanks
I used to change it to
"Einsteinium, the newest, is the one-hundred-and-third of them,
and there may be many others but Tom Lehrer's never heard of them."
but that was a fair while ago. This year, rather than attempt Dr Musics' feat, I reverted to Lehrer's rhyme:
"Those were the only ones of which the news had come to Harvard
But there now are many others which had not yet been discarvard."
Dr.h.musics
@@Hugh7777 When I first head the song, decades ago, I came up with:
"These were the only ones known back in 1959
And now there's several others, but I'm sorry they don't rhyme!"
Mr lehrer is still alive! And he's offering all his recordings for free to download. Look him up. What a man.
Agreed - 95 Years and still ticking is pretty amazing.
I'm gratified that another talented musician has taken up the work of Tom Lehrer and kept it alive and well.
It saddens me, however, that so few these days will appreciate the class, the wit, the charm American entertainment once had in the days of my youth 😔
Thanks mate, and I thoroughly agree! They are great songs to entertain with and I hope you had a chance to look at my Unwasted Evening Lehrer Cabaret show highlights package. I'm off to the Edinburgh Fringe in August to present 10 shows so hopefully there are still a few Lehrer fans in the UK. Best wishes Antony
I feel this as well about these kinds of songs, though they predate my birth significantly; pride in my nation is sadly nearly an alien feeling for me.
I’d make a funny chemistry joke, but all the good ones argon.
Gih!
This Joke IS getting annoying
@@strongcatflipaclipandroblo3806All of the funny from this joke argon.
@@slametdinatadinata645 OK but W H O As Ge Ds
I played Tom Lehrer for my chemistry classes for decades...what a talent!
Not "The Elements (updated) by Tom Lehrer" - but "The Elements by Tom Lehrer (updated)". That's _important!_
Well done.
Good Point! I'm pleased you enjoyed it.
Yes, I thought Tom Lehrer was gonna perform at first
I've been a Tom Lehrer fan for almost 60 years. Very nice job! I'm sure Tom would be pleased.
i doubt you've been alive for 60 years
@@UzbekMap Well, you would be wrong about that. Born in 1959.
@@jpsned no, i meant you, not tom
@@UzbekMap Yes, that's what I thought. I was born in 1959. (Tom was born in 1928.)
Underrated for what this is, brilliantly done
It's rather old-school.
@@matthewgrove-jones3001: The original lyrics were written by Tom Lehrer in the 1950s.
Thanks
and Tom is 95 and still with us!
Indeed! I wonder what he'd make of all this?
So we haven't all gone together yet! How very pessimistic we were in the Sixties.
The "Bizzard circumstance" for me was in 8th grade (2010) when I got extra credit in science class for singing this song.
Ahhhh, so much fun! Thanks for the cover+update of this classic!
I wish some rappers who are famous for the speed of their delivery would take a swing at *this* song.... 😁
Yes, lots of fun! Thanks for the encouraging feedback and I look forward to posting some more clips very soon. - Do check out my Christmas Carol which is also updated..
There are some rappers that are mega nerds.... so it is not impossible!
@@robertwilloughby8050 Wouldn't that be great?! Full-out production, lights & dancers.... 😁😄😄
@@dr.h.musics7870 Can you give us a link (to the updated CC)?
Excellent! Thanks for the update! Tom would be proud! 🎹🎶
You're very welcome. I do hope he gets to see this....
The original version did come in very handy many years ago in a science class, where the teacher let us skip a test if we could memorize the song :)
Clever motivation.
My 11 yo grandson has memorised it! @@dr.h.musics7870
Brilliant-um. I enjoyed that....thankyou for posting!
You're welcome, his songs are a lot of fun to perform..
It's been some time since I've listened to the original, but even then I wondered if it would ever be updated, so thanks.
A worthy sequel to Lehrer!
Thanks Carolyn
Fantastic!
Thanks
great job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am a chemistry teacher for almost 40 years and will now show this and the original version in class: THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You are most welcome but do keep referencing the original, He's the Legend that this is based upon.
Clever updating, but Lehrer's ending has the distinction of finding a rhyme with "Hahvard."
Yes, my assonance doesn't quite match the beauty of Tom's but I thought 'charted' suited this version more than Harvard. I'm starting to pronounce it is 'chartard' and 'discovard' which is perhaps a more appropriate vibe..
Witty. Thanks
Incredibly charming.
thanks mate
Love it!
Thanks
He may survive till Lehrerium
Very good!
That would be a great tribute! Hope some chemists (or nuclear physicists or whatever) are reading this.
My favourite won so far. This song.😊
Thanks Sarah
You mean Bohrium, not borium.
Oops...
The same!, my mistake
At 0:30, should be no "and" after Gold (check with Tom). But good all the same to have added the new ones in a compatible manner!
Jim Parsons (as Sheldon Cooper in Big Bang Theory) also did a portion of the Elements Song, in an episode where Sheldon was receiving an award, and where he was just a bit tipsy!
My suggestion for the ending of this fabulous update. "I tried to find some others, really scrounged about in yahoo, but while cleaning my Mendeleev table, swallowed dust--
and Ah -
kerchoo! (real sneeze recommended for reasons of verisimilitude!)
Very clever
Oh well done!
Thank you and it's a pleasure
Great job! You named all 118 elements!
0:53 why did you do long?
Wow. 1:44
You did great! 1 More Elements! 2:12
Also Nihomiun Is Nihonium. You readed wrong.
Also, Bohrium
Three cheers for the island of metastability; may it lead to an archipelago! Amen.
Indeed!
Daniel Radcliffe (yes, THAT Daniel Radcliffe) once sang this song (without the new verse, Good On Ya Dr. Musics) on the Graham Norton show, acapella and maybe (but I'm cynical) unexpectedly.
Yep, it's an interesting plug for Tom Lehrer, ways to relieve boredom while acting dead, But as Mr Wilde said 'there's only one thing worse than being spoken about, and that is not....
A wonderful addition- but I'd recommend even more changing the 2nd verse key to minor, relative or parrallel I'm not sure, but it would structure it as a sonata, nicely. I'm all for rendering the silly sublime, and the sublime silly.
Great idea, I was kind of happy with a key change but I'll do my best in the coming years and see if I can make it all work...
Very Nice so hard to Train yourself Not to Say Modern major General
agreed! Tom also references W.S. Gilbert in other songs such as When You Are Old and Gray
@@dr.h.musics7870 That's interesting: which song would you say WYAO&G references?
I still like the shorter version attributed to Archimedes.
yes, that's a good one!
A suggestion on that last lyric instead, "These are the only ones that every Google search has tabled, and there may be many others but they've not been found nor labeled."
That's very good, much appreciated Paul!
One of my high school science teachers said they would award extra credit to anyone who would do this song in class. I had a friend take them up on the offer and the teacher was kinda miffed apparently. My friend still got the credit though.
I wonder when Stanfordium is going to be discovered by scientists at Stanford University.
Very good question
The periodic table is now saturated with 118 elements. If there are more they will have to have an unprecedented eighth shell, and we'll need to create a new row.
A challenge then for our Graphic Designers....
If Tom was dead, he'd be rolling over in his grave at your strained charted/discovered rhyme. If he dies, I'm blaming it on you.
GREAT PERFORMANCE. I forgot to say something nice.
No worries - I'll keep working on my assonance and consonance and hopefully Tom will forgive me....before it's too late...
(Insert applause)
Liked it better when "discavard" rhymed with "Harvard."
Yeah, a tricky one, but I figured updating the rhyme was in the spirit of this version. But I do admire how Tom connected it to his life...
In the subtitles, shouldn't the last element be spelt Bohrium, since it's named after Niels Bohr?
Indeed, my mistake.
Very good! One nitpick: you misspelled bohrium.
Yes, there are a few spelling errors. Not much I can do now.
I was going to do the original elements by Tom Lehrer for my school talent show, But I am going to also sing this extra verse to! Thanks for making that!
You are welcome, I hope it goes well!
@@dr.h.musics7870 It was today. Everyone enjoyed it! Thanks again for the new verse!
(applauds)
Too bad I can't even keep up with the original.
Yes, it's quick!
I suggest a better last line with a real rhyme (not a scant rhyme): These are the only ones that every Google search has charted... But if yours is still not listed, then please don't be brokenhearted.
Yes, that's a good one but a challenge to get the assonance rhyme
@@dr.h.musics7870 Too drawn out
And there is the missing "I" in American Aluminum
"Aluminum" has three syllables.
"Aluminium" has FIVE
Makes the rhyme a little difficult, yes?
@@mikegrossberg8624 or perhaps four... unless one does 'luminum
Harvey, who first isolated it, called it aluminum. In 1925, so did the American Chemical Society. Only in 1996 did some European group call it that to match things like cadmium, sodium, etc. Very disrespectful, I say.
2:27 typo. Math geeks are not spelling geeks. So sad. But still a good song.
But would knowing this song help you be the very model of a modern Major General?
Well, you ARE supposed to have "information vegetable, mineral, and animal".
And it's ESSENTIAL to being the model of a scientist Salarian. 😁
Wouldn't an ending like "that Google has uncovered, something something yet to be discovered", make the end a lot better? I'm genuinely surprised you missed such a good rhyme.
Yes, an excellent idea. Generally, more brain power does the trick.... I'll fix it in my cabaret show. 'An Unwasted Evening - the Genius of Tom Lehrer'. it will now be - These are the only ones that every Google search Uncovered, and there may come many others but they're yet to be Discovered. Thanks for your inspiration.
In the spirit of the original by Professor Tom Lehrer… I point out to you that the final original verse POKES FUN at words that don’t actually rhyme unless you’re speaking in a regional accent. I believe that Dr. H. follows this spirit. (Now if he would just get his hair a manageable length… )
Well observed - assonance is such a fun way to force a rhyme @@dryjazz
Bravo! Good on ya’ for reviving, and updating, a classic!
@@dr.h.musics7870 Or, as marvellously recounted by Michael Caine as a drunk professor in the film "Educating Rita" (which I thoroughly recommend), "assonance means getting the rhyme wrong".
You forgot Borium
Actually, I believe it's at the end, but thanks for the feedback.
What about Unobtanium??
Or Upsidasium.
You forgot Muonium!
Now explain quantum theory😮😂🤔🤯💥👍👍👍💯💯💯‼️‼️‼️⁉️
That's a 'relatively' different problem...
@@dr.h.musics7870 🤔 Would that be a Cosmological Theory,or Big Banging Question 🤯💥😂🤟😬👍💯💯💯⁉️‼️‼️
1:45
2:12
strange to hear this in Australian
My apologies, but I am who I am...
@@dr.h.musics7870 Ah, the Shirley Bassey song about a giant root vegetable: A yam, what a yam. (Or the Arabic version, Ayyam Wattayam.)
Only hackers can type this ń
01:18
0:37
Sorry, Tom is more cute
not a problem!
Is it tom lehrer???????
No, I'm a poor imitation, but I do enjoy entertaining people with his music
What key did you modulate it?
just up a semitone to Db major
@@dr.h.musics7870 ah
We know Dr H plays in the key of Db but sings in the key of H#
@@billsugden3734 that’s not a key
@Desmond I know. Attempted humour, and about the level of my own singing voice.
Love it!!
Thanks