Tom Lehrer - The Elements - LIVE FILM From Copenhagen in 1967
The Tom Lehrer Wisdom Channel2 HN recommenders · recommended in 2 months, 2015–2023
music · general · evergreen · 2015–2023 on HN
A 1967 live film of Tom Lehrer performing his patter song "The Elements" in Copenhagen, reciting the chemical elements to a Gilbert and Sullivan tune. It is a short, polished example of his satirical piano-and-voice style.
HN commenters cite it as a favorite Lehrer song and invoke it as a joke whenever elements or science-themed wordplay come up.
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5 comments from Hacker News
"The Elements" is the Tom Lehrer song that made the biggest impression on me. link , ▶ this video There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium, And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium, ...
For those who aren't aware and/or won't look this reference: link As the other comenter noted, Tom Lehrer is indeed a national treasure, and his satire is top shelf. From the light-hearted "The Elements": ▶ this video (watch for the surprise at the end) To the gallows comedy of "We Will All Go Together When We Go": link NB: I appreciate the irony linking to YouTube content in a 'WTF Google/YouTube' thread.
Don’t know much about astatine except it’s the rarest naturally occurring element and Tom Lehrer sang about it. ▶ this video
The first work of Tom Lehrer's that I heard is "The Elements", where he recites chemical element names. link ; ▶ this video
Jonathan Rees's a la carte menu of the elements of "object oriented programming" is a great example of that. link The Elements of Object Oriented Programming: Encapsulation, Protection, Ad Hoc Polymorphism, Parametric Polymorphism, Everything Is An Object, All You Can Do Is Send A Message, Specification Inheritance, Implementation inheritance/Reuse, Sum-Of-Product-Of-Function Pattern. These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard, and there may be many others, but they haven't been discarvered. ;) [Apologies to Tom Lehrer.] ▶ this video