Now if I may digress momentarily
From the mainstream of this
Evening's symposium I'd like to
Sing a song which is completely
Pointless but is something which
I picked up during my career
As a scientist This may prove
Useful to some of you some day
Perhaps in a somewhat bizarre set
Of circumstances It's simply
The names of the chemical elements
Set to a possibly recognizable
Tune
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
And strontium and silicon
And silver and samarium
And bismuth bromine lithium
Beryllium and barium
Isn't that interesting
I knew you would
I hope you're all taking notes
Because there's going
Short quiz next period
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