Tom Lehrer songs

These are lyrics to Tom Lehrer songs that I have picked up over the years. Please note several things.

I did not write any of these
I'm not the person who actually met him, so I have no audio recordings
I don't actually go out and poison pigeons in the park
There are several different Tom Lehrer cd's, and while I don't know them off the top of my head, I'll put some information about them up here sometime soon
Enjoy the page!

[note that this ancedote is someone else's; I have no idea whose, if you know, tell me, and I'll attribute it] As a visiting prof in '64, Lehrer presented the final class session in one of the undergrad physics courses.
Anyway, the class met in a physics lecture hall like Varian 100 or 101 in the Tank, with electrically operated blackboards. When this last special session was held, the lecture table had been rolled out, and a grand piano rolled in. The electric blackboards had been painted with colored chalk to look exactly like the proscenium and curtains at the Boston Symphony. The room was packed with everyone in the Department.
Lehrer came in, in tails as I remember, dramatically punched the button that made the "curtains" go up, underneath was written in large letters "The Physical Revue", and he began an hour's worth of just that. Besides the "Derivative Song" (I think), there was certainly the "Periodic Table" song, Lobachevsky, and a round, sung with four associates, which I've never encountered since, which had Lehrer as professor and the others as students singing

  Now then, are there any questions?    (G G G-G-G-G E C)
  Now then, are there any questions?    (ditto)
  If there are none,                    (C C C A)
  Then I am done			(C C C G)
  (And I have nothing more to say-ay)	(E D C B D C A D C)

(Last line not sure about, and also the music may be wrong) First student:

  Man, he asks if there are questions
  Man, I've got a million questions
  I've got a ton,
  And every one,
  Would take a half a day to ans-wer.

There may have been more verses; I don't remember. If someone else knows of this, I'd be delighted to hear of a place to locate it. (It may have been a follow-on to the "Professor's Song"?)

And now for some songs:

Author: Tom Lehrer
Album title: An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer

Poisoning Pigeons In The Park

Spring is here, a-suh-puh-ring is here.
Life is skittles and life is beer.
I think the loveliest time of the year is the spring.
I do, don't you? Course you do.
But there's one thing that makes spring complete for me,
And makes ev'ry Sunday a treat for me.

All the world seems in tune
On a spring afternoon,
When we're poisoning pigeons in the park.
Ev'ry Sunday you'll see
My sweetheart and me,
As we poison the pigeons in the park.

When they see us coming, the birdies all try an' hide,
But they still go for peanuts when coated with cyanide.
The sun's shining bright,
Ev'rything seems all right,
When we're poisoning pigeons in the park.

We've gained notoriety,
And caused much anxiety
In the Audubon Society
With our games.
They call it impiety,
And lack of propriety,
And quite a variety
Of unpleasant names.
But it's not against any religion
To want to dispose of a pigeon.

So if Sunday you're free,
Why don't you come with me,
And we'll poison the pigeons in the park.
And maybe we'll do
In a squirrel or two,
While we're poisoning pigeons in the park.

We'll murder them all amid laughter and merriment.
Except for the few we take home to experiment.
My pulse will be quickenin'
With each drop of strych'nine
We feed to a pigeon.
(It just takes a smidgin!)
To poison a pigeon in the park.

Bright College Days

Bright college days, oh, carefree days that fly,
To thee we sing with our glasses raised on high.
Let's drink a toast as each of us recalls
Ivy-covered professors in ivy-covered halls.

Turn on the spigot,
Pour the beer and swig it,
And gaudeamus igit-ur.

Here's to parties we tossed,
To the games that we lost,
We shall claim that we won them some day.

To the girls young and sweet,
To the spacious back seat
Of our roommate's beat up Chevrolet.

To the beer and benzedrine,
To the way that the dean
Tried so hard to be pals with us all.

To excuses we fibbed,
To the papers we cribbed
From the genius who lived down the hall.

To the tables down at Morey's (wherever that may be)
Let us drink a toast to all we love the best.
We will sleep through all the lectures,
And cheat on the exams,
And we'll pass, and be forgotten with the rest.

Soon we'll be out amid the cold world's strife.
Soon we'll be sliding down the razor blade of life.
But as we go our sordid sep'rate ways,
We shall ne'er forget thee, thou golden college days.

Hearts full of youth,
Hearts full of truth,
Six parts gin to one part vermouth.

A Christmas Carol

Christmas time is here, by golly,
Disapproval would be folly,
Deck the halls with hunks of holly,
Fill the cup and don't say "when".
Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens,
Mix the punch, drag out the Dickens,
Even though the prospect sickens,
Brother, here we go again.

On Christmas Day you can't get sore,
Your fellow man you must adore,
There's time to rob him all the more
The other three hundred and sixty-four.

Relations, sparing no expense'll
Send some useless old utensil,
Or a matching pen and pencil.
"Just the thing I need! How nice!"
It doesn't matter how sincere it
Is, nor how heartfelt the spirit,
Sentiment will not endear it,
What's important is the price.

Hark the Herald Tribune sings,
Advertising wondrous things.
God rest you merry, merchants,
May you make the Yuletide pay.
Angels we have heard on high
Tell us to go out and buy!

So let the raucous sleighbells jingle,
Hail our dear old friend Kris Kringle,
Driving his reindeer across the sky.
Don't stand underneath when they fly by.

Elements

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 and 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 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 Ha'vard,
And there may be many others, but they haven't been discavard.

Oedipus Rex

From the Bible to the popular song,
There's one theme that we find right along.
Of all ideals they hail as good,
The most sublime is Motherhood.

There was a man, oh, who it seems,
Once carried this ideal to extremes.
He loved his mother and she loved him,
And yet his story is rather grim.

There once lived a man named Oedipus Rex.
You may have heard about his odd complex.
His name appears in Freud's index
'Cause he loved his mother.

His rivals used to say quite a bit,
But as a monarch he was most unfit.
But still in all they had to admit
That he loved his mother.

Yes he loved his mother like no other.
His daughter was his sister and his son was his brother.
One thing on which you can depend is,
He sure knew who a boy's best friend is!

When he found out what he had done,
He tore his eyes out one by one.
A tragic end to a loyal son
Who loved his mother.

So be sweet and kind to Mother,
Now and then have a chat.
Buy her panty hose and flowers, or a brand new hat.
But maybe you had better let it go at that!

Or you may find yourself with a quite complex complex,
And you may end up like Oedipus.
I'd rather marry a duck-billed platypus,
Than end up like old Oedipus Rex.

In Old Mexico

When it's fiesta time in Guadalajara,
Then I long to be back once again
In Old Mexico.
Where we lived for today,
Never giving a thought to tomara.
To the strumming of guitars,
In a hundred grubby bars
I would whisper "Te amo."

The mariachis would serenade,
And they would not shut up till they were paid.
We ate, we drank, and we were merry,
And we got typhoid and dysentery.

But best of all, we went to the Plaza de Toros.
Now whenever I start feeling morose,
I revive by recalling that scene.
And names like Belmonte, Dominguin, and Manolete,
If I live to a hundred and eighty,
I shall never forget what they mean.

(For there is surely nothing more beautiful in this
world than the sight of a lone man facing singlehandedly
a half a ton of angry pot roast!)

Out came the matador,
Who must have been potted or
Slightly insane, but who looked rather bored.
Then the picadors of course,
Each one on his horse,
I shouted "Ole!" ev'ry time one was gored.

I cheered at the bandilleros' display,
As they stuck the bull in their own clever way,
For I hadn't had so much fun since the day
My brother's dog Rover
Got run over.

(Rover was killed by a Pontiac. And it was done with
such grace and artistry that the witnesses awarded the
driver both ears and the tail--but I digress.)

The moment had come,
I swallowed my gum,
We knew there'd be blood on the sand pretty soon.
The crowd held its breath,
HOping that death
Would brighten an otherwise dull afternoon.

At last, the matador did what we wanted him to.
He raised his sword and his aim was true.
In that moment of truth I suddenly knew
That someone had stolen my wallet.

Now it's fiesta time in Akron, Ohio,
But it's back to old Guadalajara I'm longing to go.
Far away from the strikes of the A.F. of L. and C.I.O.
How I wish I could get back
To the land of the wetback,
And forget the Alamo,
In Old Mexico. Ole!

It Makes A Fellow Proud To Be A Soldier

The heart of every man in our platoon must swell with pride,
For the nation's youth, the cream of which is marching at his side.
For the fascinating rules and regulations that we share,
And the quaint and curious costumes that we're called upon to wear.

Now Al joined up to do his part defending you and me.
He wants to fight and bleed and kill and die for liberty.
With the hell of war he's come to grips,
Policing up the filter tips,
It makes a fella proud to be a soldier!

When Pete was only in the seventh grade, he stabbed a cop.
He's real R.A. material and he was glad to swap
His switchblade and his old zip gun
For a bayonet and a new M-1.
It makes a fella proud to be a soldier!

After Johnny got through basic training, he
Was a soldier through and through when he was done.
It's effects were so well rooted,
That the next day he saluted
A Good Humor man, an usher, and a nun.

Now Fred's an intellectual, brings a book to every meal.
He likes the deep philosophers, like Norman Vincent Peale.
He thinks the army's just the thing,
Because he finds it broadening.
It makes a fella proud to be a soldier!

Now Ed flunked out of second grade, and never finished school.
He doesn't know a shelter half from an entrenching tool.
But he's going to be a big success.
He heads his class at OCS.
It makes a fella proud to be a soldier!

Our old mess sergeant's taste buds had been shot off in the war.
But his savory collations add to our esprit de corps.
To think of all the marvelous ways
They're using plastics nowadays.
It makes a fella proud to be a soldier!

Our lieutenant is the up-and-coming type.
Played with soldiers as a boy you just can bet.
It is written in the stars
He will get his captain's bars,
But he hasn't got enough box tops yet.

Our captain has a handicap to cope with, sad to tell.
He's from Georgia, and he doesn't speak the language very well.
He used to be, so rumor has, the Dean of Men at Alcatraz.
It makes a fella proud to be,
When as a kid I vowed to be,
One ought to be allowed to be
A soldier. (At ease!)

She's My Girl

Sharks gotta swim, and bats gotta fly,
I gotta love one woman till I die.
To Ed or Dick or Bob
She may be just a slob,
But to me, well,
She's my girl.

In winter the bedroom is one large ice cube,
And she squeezes the toothpaste from the middle of the tube.
Her hairs in the sink
Have driven me to drink,
But she's my girl, she's my girl, she's my girl,
And I love her.

The girl that I lament for,
The girl my money's spent for,
The girl my back is bent for,
The girl I owe the rent for,
The girl I gave up Lent for
Is the girl that heaven meant for me.

So though for breakfast she makes coffes that tastes like shampoo,
I come home for dinner and get peanut butter stew,
Or if I'm in luck,
It's broiled hockey puck,
But, oh well, what the hell,
She's my girl,
And I love her.

The Masochism Tango

I ache for the touch of your lips, Dear,
But much more for the touch of your whips, Dear.
You can raise welts
Like nobody else,
As we dance to the Masochism Tango.

Let our love be a flame, not an ember,
Say it's me that you want to dismember.
Blacken my eye,
Set fire to my tie,
As we dance to the Masochism Tango.

At your command
Before you here I stand,
My heart is in my hand. Ecch!
It's here that I must be.
My heart entreats,
Just hear those savage beats,
And go put on your cleats
And come and trample me.
Your heart is hard as stone or mahogany,
That's why I'm in such exquisite agony.

My soul is on fire,
It's aflame with desire,
Which is why I perspire
When we tango.

You caught my nose
In your left castanet, Love,
I can feel the pain yet, Love,
Ev'ry time I hear drums.
And I envy the rose
That you held in your teeth, Love,
With the thorns underneath, Love,
Sticking into your gums.

Your eyes cast a spell that bewitches.
The last time I needed twenty stitches
To sew up the gash
That you made with your lash,
As we danced to the Masochism Tango.

Bash in my brain,
And make me scream with pain,
Then kick me once again,
And say we'll never part.
I know too well
I'm underneath your spell,
So, Darling, if you smell
Something burning, it's my heart.
Excuse me!

Take your cigarette from its holder,
And burn your initials in my shoulder.
Fracture my spine,
And swear that you're mine,
As we dance to the Masochism Tango.

We Will All Go Together When We Go

When you attend a funeral,
It is sad to think that sooner or later
Those you love will do the same for you.
And you may have thought it tragic,
Not to mention other adjec- tives,
To think of all the weeping they will do.
But don't you worry.
No more ashes, no more sackcloth.
And an armband made of black cloth
Will some day nevermore adorn a sleeve.
For if the bomb that drops on you
Gets your friends and neighbors too,
There'll be nobody left behind to grieve.

And we will all go together when we go.
What a comforting thought that is to know.
Universal bereavement,
An inspiring achievement,
Yes, we will all go together when we go.

We will all go together when we go.
All suffuse with an incandescent glow.
No one will have the endurance
To collect on his insurance,
Lloyd's of London will be loaded when they go.

Oh we will all fry together when we fry.
We'll be french fried potatoes by and by.
There will be no more misery
When the world is our rotisserie,
Yes, we will all fry together when we fry.

Down by the old maelstrom,
There'll be a storm before the calm.

And we will all bake together when we bake.
There'll be nobody present at the wake.
With complete participation
In that grand incineration,
Nearly three billion hunks of well-done steak.

Oh we will all char together when we char.
And let there be no moaning of the bar.
Just sing out a Te Deum
When you see that I.C.B.M.,
And the party will be "come as you are."

Oh we will all burn together when we burn.
There'll be no need to stand and wait your turn.
When it's time for the fallout
And Saint Peter calls us all out,
We'll just drop our agenda and adjourn.

You will all go directly to your respective Valhallas.
Go directly, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dolla's.

And we will all go together when we go.
Ev'ry Hottenhot and ev'ry Eskimo.
When the air becomes uranious,
We will all go simultaneous.
Yes we all will go together
When we all go together,

About a year ago, I talked with a friend up at MIT, and he had on reel-to-reel an interview with Tom Lehrer. Two songs that did not appear on any of his albums included a cover of The 50 Russian Composers (similar in idea to The Elements) and this interesting song about Boston (my home) both which he plays live on the tape that I have.

H is for my alma mater Hah-vahd,
C it stands for Central, next stop on the line,
K is for the cozy Kendall station
C is Charles that overlooks the brine...
P is Park (clears throat) Pahk Street, busy Boston station,
W is Washington you see...
Put them all together they spell...
(HCCKKCC... PW... (sounds like somebody spitting))
Which is just about what Boston means to me! -Tom Lehrer

Here's a sample of his work - he rewrote part of "Clementine" in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan. It works best if you read it out loud quickly:

That I missed her depressed her
Young sister named Esther
This mister to pester she tried,
Now a pestering sister's
A festering blister,
You'd best to resist her say I.

The mister resisted,
The sister persisted,
I kissed her - all loyalty slipped.
When she said I could have her
Her sister's cadaver
Must surely have turned in its crypt!

Yes yes yes yeeeeees....

But I love she
And she loves me
Enraptured are the both of we,
Yes I love she
And she loves I....
And will through all Eterni-tye!

Tom Lehrer, "That was the Year that Was"

AMM, 81 (1974) 612:
THERE'S A DELTA FOR EVERY EPSILON (Calypso)
Words and Music by Tom Lehrer

There's a delta for every epsilon,
It's a fact that you can always count upon.
There's a delta for every epsilon
And now and again,
There's also an N.

But one condition I must give:
The epsilon must be positive
A lonely life all the others live,
In no theorem
A delta for them.

How sad, how cruel, how tragic,
How pitiful, and other adjec-
Tives that I might mention.
The matter merits our attention.
If an epsilon is a hero,
Just because it is greater than zero,
It must be mighty discouragin'
To lie to the left of the origin.

This rank discrimination is not for us,
We must fight for an enlightened calculus,
Where epsilons all, both minus and plus,
Have deltas
To call their own.

AMM, 81 (1974) 490:
THE DERIVATIVE SONG
Words by Tom Lehrer -- Tune: "There'll be Some Changes Made"

You take a function of x and you call it y,
Take any x-nought that you care to try,
You make a little change and call it delta x,
The corresponding change in y is what you find nex',
And then you take the quotient and now carefully
Send delta x to zero, and I think you'll see
That what the limit gives us, if our work all checks,
Is what we call dy/dx,
It's just dy/dx.

AMM, 81 (1974) 745:
THE PROFESSOR'S SONG
Words by Tom Lehrer -- Tune: "If You Give Me Your Attention" from _Princess_Ida_ (Gilbert and Sullivan)

If you give me your attention, I will tell you what I am.
I'm a brilliant math'matician -- also something of a ham.
I have tried for numerous degrees, in fact I've one of each;
Of course that makes me eminently qualified to teach.
I understand the subject matter thoroughly, it's true,
And I can't see why it isn't all as obvious to _you_.
Each lecture is a masterpiece, meticulously planned,
Yet everybody tells me that I'm hard to understand,
And I can't think why.

My diagrams are models of true art, you must agree,
And my handwriting is famous for its legibility.
Take a word like "minimum" (to choose a random word),

   	{This was performed at a blackboard, and the professor wrote:
	/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/}

For anyone to say he cannot read that, is absurd.
The anecdotes I tell get more amusing every year,
Though frankly, what they go to prove is sometimes less than clear,
And all my explanations are quite lucid, I am sure,
Yet everybody tells me that my lectures are obscure,
And I can't think why.

Consider, for example, just the force of gravity:
It's inversely proportional to something -- let me see --
It's r^3 -- no, r^2 -- no, it's just r, I'll bet --
The sign in front is plus -- or is it minus, I forget --
Well, anyway, there _is_ a force, of that there is no doubt.
All these formulas are trivial if you only think them out.
Yet students tell me, "I have memorized the whole year through
Ev'rything you've told us, but the problems I can't do."
And I can't think why!

Rickety Tickety Tin

(start A) Dm C Dm
About a maid I'll sing a song
Sing rickety tickety tin
About a maid I'll sing a song
Who didn't have her family long
Not only did she do them wrong
She did every one of them in, them in
She did every one of them in.

One morning in a fit of pique
Sing rickety tickety tin
One morning in a fit of pique
She drowned her father in the creek
The water tasted bad for a week
And we had to make do with gin, with gin
We had to make do with gin

Her mother she could never stand
Sing rickety tickety tin
Her mother she could never stand
And so a cyanide soup she planned
The mother died with the spoon in her hand
And her face in a hideous grin, a grin
He face in a hideous grin.

She weighted her brother down with stones
Sing rickety tickety tin
She weighted her brother down with stones
And sent him off to Davey Jones
All they ever found were some bones
And occasional pieces of skin, of skin
Occasional pieces of skin.

She set her sister's hair on fire
Sing rickety tickety tin
She set her sister's hair on fire
And as the smoke and flame rose higher
Danced around the funeral pyre
Playing a violin, olin
Playing a violin.

One day she had nothing to do
Sing rickety tickety tin
One day she had nothing to do
She cut her baby brother in two
And served him up as an Irish stew
And invited the neighbors in, bors in
Invited the neighbors in.

And when at last the police came by
Sing rickety tickety tin
And when at last the police came by
Her little pranks she did not deny
To do so she would have had to lie
And lying she knew was a sin, a sin
And lying she knew was a sin.

And just one thing before I go
Sing rickety tickety tin
And just one thing before I go
There's something I think that you ought to know
They had no proof, so they let her go
And they say that she's tall and thin, and thin
They say that she's tall and thin.

My tragic tale I won't prolong
Sing rickety tickety tin
My tragic tale I won't prolong
You've yourself to blame if it's too long
You should never have let me begin, begin
You should never have let me begin.

Author: Tom Lehrer Album title: Songs By Tom Lehrer

I Wanna Go Back To Dixie

I wanna go back to Dixie,
Take me back to dear ol' DIxie,
That's the only li'l ol' place for li'l ol' me.
Ol' times there are not forgotten,
Whuppin' slaves and sellin' cotton,
And waitin' for the Robert E. Lee.
(It was never there on time.)
I'll go back to the Swanee,
Where pellagra makes you scrawny,
And the jasmine and the tear gas smell just fine.
I really am a-fixin'
To go back where there's no mixin'
Down below that Mason-Dixon line.

Oh, poll tax, how I love ya, how I love ya,
My dear old poll tax.

Won'tcha come with me to Alabammy,
Back to the arms of my dear ol' Mammy,
Her cookin's lousy and her hands are clammy,
But what the hell, it's home.
Yes, for paradise the Southland is my nominee.
Jes' give me a ham hock and a grit of hominy.

I wanna start relaxin'
Down in Birmingham or Jackson
When we're havin' fun, why no one interferes.
I wanna talk with Southern gentlemen
And put my white sheet on again,
I ain't seen one good lynchin' in years.
The land of the boll weevil,
Where the laws are medieval,
Is callin' me to come and nevermore roam.
I wanna go back to the Southland,
That "y'all" and "shet-ma-mouth" land,
Be it ever so decadent,
There's no place like home.

The Old Dope Peddler

When the shades of night are falling,
Comes a fellow ev'ryone knows,
It's the old dope peddler,
Spreading joy wherever he goes.
Ev'ry evening you will find him,
Around our neighborhood.
It's the old dope peddler
Doing well by doing good.

He gives the kids free samples,
Because he knows full well
That today's young innocent faces
Will be tomorrow's clientele.
Here's a cure for all your troubles,
Here's an end to all distress.
It's the old dope peddler
With his powdered ha-ha-happiness.

When You Are Old And Gray

Since I still appreciate you,
Let's find love while we may.
Because I know I'll hate you
When you are old and gray.

So say you love me here and now,
I'll make the most of that.
Say you love and trust me,
For I know you'll disgust me
When you're old and getting fat.

An awful debility,
A lessened utility,
A loss of mobility
Is a strong possibility.
In all probability
I'll lose my virility
And you your fertility
And desirability,
And this liability
Of total sterility
Will lead to hostility
And a sense of futility,
So let's act with agility
While we still have facility,
For we'll soon reach senility
And lose the ability.

Your teeth will start to go, dear,
Your waist will start to spread.
In twenty years or so, dear,
I'll wish that you were dead.

I'll never love you then at all
The way I do today.
So please remember,
When I leave in December,
I told you so in May.

The Wild West Is Where I Want To Be

Along the trail you'll find me lopin'
Where the spaces are wide open,
In the land of the old A.E.C. (yahoo!)
Where the scenery's attractive,
And the air is radioactive,
Oh, the wild west is whar I wanna be.

Mid the sagebrush and the cactus,
I'll watch the fellas practice
Droppin' bombs through the clean desert breeze.
I'll have on my sombrero,
And of course I'll wear a pair o'
Levis over my lead B.V.D.'s.

Ah will leave the city's rush,
Leave the fancy and the plush,
Leave the snow and leave the slush
And the crowds.
Ah will seek the desert's hush,
Whar the scenery is lush,
How I long to see the mush-
room clouds.

'Mid the yuccas and the thistles
I'll watch the guided missiles,
While the old F.B.I. watches me. (yahoo!)
Yes, I'll soon make my appearance
(Soon as I can get my clearance),
'Cause the wild west is whar I wanna be.

Fight Fiercely, Harvard!

Fight fiercely, Harvard,
fight, fight, fight!
Demonstrate to them our skill.
Albeit they possess the might,
Nenetheless we have the will.
How we shall celebrate our victory,
We shall invite the whole team up for tea
(How jolly!)
Hurl that spheroid down the field, and
Fight, fight, fight!

Fight fiercely, Harvard,
fight, fight, fight!
Impress them with our prowess, do!
Oh, fellows, do not let the crimson down,
Be of stout heart and thru.
Come on, chaps, fight for Harvard's glorious name,
Won't it be peachy if we win the game?
(Oh, goody!)
Let's try not to injure them, but
Fight, fight, fight!
And do fight fiercely!
Fight, fight, fight!

Lobachevsky

Who made me the genius I am today,
The mathematician that others all quote,
Who's the professor that made me that way?
The greatest that ever got chalk on his coat.

One man deserves the credit,
One man deserves the blame,
And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Hi!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobach-

I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lochevsky.
In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics:
Plagiarize!

Plagiarize,
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize -
Only be sure always to call it please 'research'.

And ever since I meet this man
My life is not the same,
And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Hi!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobach-

I am never forget the day I am given first original paper
to write. It was on analytic and algebraic topology of
locally Euclidean metrization of infinitely differentiable
Riemannian manifold.
Bozhe moi!
This I know from nothing.
But I think of great Lobachevsky and get idea - ahah!

I have a friend in Minsk,
Who has a friend in Pinsk,
Whose friend in Omsk
Has friend in Tomsk
With friend in Akmolinsk.
His friend in Alexandrovsk
Has friend in Petropavlovsk,
Whose friend somehow
Is solving now
The problem in Dnepropetrovsk.

And when his work is done -
Haha! - begins the fun.
From Dnepropetrovsk
To Petropavlovsk,
By way of Iliysk,
And Novorossiysk,
To Alexandrovsk to Akmolinsk
To Tomsk to Omsk
To Pinsk to Minsk
To me the news will run,
Yes, to me the news will run!

And then I write
By morning, night,
And afternoon,
And pretty soon
My name in Dnepropetrovsk is cursed,
When he finds out I publish first!

And who made me a big success
And brought me wealth and fame?
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Hi!
Nicolai Ivanovish Lobach -

I am never forget the day my first book is published.
Every chapter I stole from somewhere else.
Index I copy from old Vladivostok telephone directory.
This book was sensational!
Pravda - well, Pravda - Pravda said: (Russian double-talk)
It stinks.
But Izvestia! Izvestia said: (Russian double-talk)
It stinks.
Metro-Goldwyn-Moskva buys movie rights for six million rubles,
Changing title to 'The Eternal Triangle',
With Ingrid Bergman playing part of hypotenuse.

And who deserves the credit?
And who deserves the blame?
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Hi!

The Irish Ballad

About a maid I'll sing a song,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
About a maid I'll sing a song
Who didn't have her family long.
Not only did she do them wrong,
She did ev'ryone of them in, them in,
She did ev'ryone of them in.

One morning in a fit of pique,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
One morning in a fit of pique,
She drowned her father in the creek.
The water tasted bad for a week,
And we had to make do with gin, with gin,
We had to make do with gin.

Her mother she could never stand,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
Her mother she cold never stand,
And so a cyanide soup she planned.
The mother died with a spoon in her hand,
And her face in a hideous grin, a grin,
Her face in a hideous grin.

She set her sister's hair on fire,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
She set her sister's hair on fire,
And as the smoke and flame rose high'r,
Danced around the funeral pyre,
Playin' a violin, -olin,
Playin' a violin.

She weighted her brother down with stones,
Rickety-tickety-tin,
She weighted her brother down with stones,
And sent him off to Davy Jones.
All they ever found were some bones,
And occasional pieces of skin, of skin,
Occasional pieces of skin.

One day when she had nothing to do,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
One day when she had nothing to do,
She cut her baby brother in two,
And served him up as an Irish stew,
And invited the neighbors in, -bors in,
Invited the neighbors in.

And when at last the police came by,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin,
And when at last the police came by,
Her little pranks she did not deny,
To do so she would have had to lie,
And lying, she knew, was a sin, a sin,
Lying, she knew, was a sin.

My tragic tale, I won't prolong,
Rickety-tickety-tin,
My tragic tale I won't prolong,
And if you do not enjoy the song,
You've yourselves to blame if it's too long,
You should never have let me begin, begin,
You should never have let me begin.

The Hunting Song

I always will remember,
'Twas a year ago November,
I went out to hunt some deer
On a mornin' bright and clear.
I went and shot the maximum the game laws would allow,
Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a cow.

I was in no mood to trifle,
I took down my trusty rifle
And went out to stalk my prey.
What a haul I made that day.
I tied them to my fender, and I drove them home somehow,
Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a cow.

The law was very firm, it
Took away my permit,
The worst punishment I ever endured.
It turned out there was a reason,
Cows were out of season,
And one of the hunters wasn't insured.

People ask me how I do it,
And I say, "There's nothin' to it,
You just stand there lookin' cute,
And when something moves, you shoot!"
And there's ten stuffed heads in my trophy room right now,
Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a pure-bred Guernsey cow.

My Home Town

I really have a yen
To go back once again,
Back to the place where no one wears a frown,
To see once more those super-special just plain folks
In my home town.

No fellow could ignore
The little girl next door,
She sure looked sweet in her first evening gown.
Now there's a charge for what she used to give for free
In my home town.

I remember Dan, the druggist on the corner, 'e
Was never mean or ornery,
He was swell.
He killed his mother-in-law and ground her up real well,
And sprinkled just a bit
Over each banana split.

The guy that taught us math,
Who never took a bath,
Acquired a certain measure of renown,
And after school he sold the most amazing pictures
In my home town.

That fellow was no fool
Who taught our Sunday School,
And neither was our kindly Parson Brown.
(Hum)
In my home town.

I remember Sam, he was the village idiot.
And though it seems a pity, it
Was so.
He loved to burn down houses just to watch the glow,
And nothing could be done,
Because he was the mayor's son.

The guy that took a knife
And monogrammed his wife,
Then dropped her in the pond and watched her drown.
Oh, yes indeed, the people there are just plain folks
In my home town.

The Wiener Schnitzel Waltz

Do you remember the night I held you so tight,
As we danced to the Wiener Schnitzel Waltz?
The music was gay, and the setting was Viennese,
Your hair wore some roses (or perhaps they were peonies),
I was blind to your obvious faults,
As we danced 'cross the scene
To the strains of the Wiener Schnitzel Waltz.

Oh, I drank some champagne from your shoe.
I was drunk by the time I got through.
I didn't know as I raised that cup,
It had taken two bottles to fill the thing up.

It was I who stepped on your dress.
The skirts all came off, I confess.
Revealing for all of the others to see
Just what it was that endeared you to me.

I remember the night I held you so tight,
As we danced to the Wiener Schnitzel Waltz.
Your lips were like wine (if you'll pardon the simile),
The music was lovely and quite Rudolf Frimly.
I drank wine, you drank chocolate malts,
And we both turned quite green
To the strains of the Wiener Schnitzel Waltz.

I Hold Your Hand In Mine

I hold your hand in mine, dear,
I press it to my lips.
I take a healthy bite
From your dainty fingertips.

My joy would be complete, dear,
If you were only here,
But still I keep your hand
As a precious souvenir.

The night you died I cut it off.
I really don't know why.
For now each time I kiss it
I get bloodstains on my tie.

I'm sorry now I killed you,
For our love was something fine,
And till they come to get me
I shall hold your hand in mine.

Be Prepared

Be prepared! That's the Boy Scout's marching song,
Be prepared! As through life you march along.
Be prepared to hold your liquor pretty well,
Don't write naughty words on walls if you can't spell.

Be prepared! To hide that pack of cigarettes,
Don't make book if you cannot cover bets.
Keep that pot hidden where you're sure
that it will not be found,
And be careful not to turn on
when the scoutmaster's around,
For he only will insist that it be shared.
Be prepared!

Be prepared! That's the Boy Scouts' solemn creed,
Be prepared! And be clean in word and deed.
Don't solicit for your sister, that's not nice,
Unless you get a good percentage of her price.

Be prepared! And be careful not to do
Your good deeds when there's no one watching you.
If you're looking for adventure of a
new and different kind,
And you come across a Girl Scout who is
similarly inclined,
Don't be nervous, don't be flustered, don't be scared. Be prepared!

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rap@cs.washington.edu