More in the light-hearted science vein, there’s this little gem,
sung to the tune of the “Major-General’s Song” from Gilbert
and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance:
“The Elements” – Tom Lehrer
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.
There’s holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium
And phosphorous and francium and fluorine and terbium
And manganese and mercury, molybdenum, magnesium,
Dysprosium and scandium and cerium and caesium
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 sulphur, californium and fermium, berkelium
And also mendelevium, einsteinium and 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.
It went on to inspire Lenny Solomon to write
“The Shabbat Song” – Shlock Rock
There’s plowing, and there’s planting, and there’s harvesting and gathering,
There’s threshing, and there’s winnowing, and then there is selecting,
There is grinding and there’s sifting, and there is also kneading,
There is baking, and there’s shearing, and there is also bleaching.
There is combing and there’s dyeing, and there’s plenty of spinning,
Threading loom and threading harness, and there’s also weaving,
Separating thread, there is tying and untying, (breath)
There’s sewing and there’s tearing, and you know there’s also trapping.
There’s slaughtering, and skinning and there’s tanning and there’s smoothing,
And there’s marking, and there’s cutting, and there’s writing and erasing,
You must remember building, and you can’t forget demolishing,
Or kindling, extinguishing, the final blow or carrying.
There’s choresh, and zoreah, and there’s kotzer and m’amer,
There is dash, and there’s zoreh, and don’t forget borer,
There’s tochain and meraked, and then there’s also lash,
There’s o’feh, and there’s gozez, and then there is melabain.
There’s minapetz and tzoveah, and plenty of toveh,
May-sech, shtay batei nirin, and a little bot of ohreg,
Then there is poetzayah, and there’s koshare and there’s mateer, (breath)
There’s tofer and koreah, and you know there’s also tzad.
There’s shochait, and there’s mafshit, there’s meabaid and memachaik,
There’s meshartait, and mechataich, there is kotaiv and there’s mochaik,
There’s boneh and there’s soter, there is maveer and mechabeh,
Makeh bapatish and finally hotza’ah.
These are the many tasks that were used to build the Mishkan.
They number thirty nine and on the Sabbath are forbidden.