#like he doesnt even put erbium terbium and ytterbium together :

[periodiccompletionist]

Hey how well does Tom Lehrer's elements song hold up today?

Well, I mean. It was written in 1959 when there were only 102 discovered elements as opposed to today's 118, so it's obviously no longer accurate to the modern periodic table.

But if you're asking about my opinions of it musically, then it's... fine. It's a parody of the Major General's Song. The melody is a bit of an earworm, but after a bit the lyrics just kinda blend into each other. Not much to say about it tbh.

I would say that it probably took him a while to put them in an order that fit the tune, but I feel like a lot of that work would get done simply by the fact that the vast majority of elements end in -ium so you don't have to think too hard to make everything rhyme. I kind of wish that there was a pattern to what he was grouping together, but it doesn't seem like there is one besides the occasional attempt at alliteration? If there is one, feel free to let me know, but I am, ironically enough, not a big science guy, so I wouldn't know.

I feel like at this point it's just a thing that people like to memorize as a party trick (not throwing shade btw I was infamous for memorizing digits of pi when I was in school).