Monday, 27 January 2014

Thanks to Tom Lehrer#2: THE UNIQUENESS OF 'NUCLEAR'

Presidents Carter and Bush
POST #19
PARODY-LYRICS
ORIGINAL SONG:  "The Elements", Tom Lehrer 
PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, October 2013.

KEYWORDS: goldenoldy, language, medical

You can view these lyrics and commentary (without images or chords)  displayed on a parody-lyrics website at AmIRight.com Post "Of Residents and Presidents"


THE UNIQUENESS of 'NUCLEAR'


(to the tune of "The Elements")

Singable Introduction:

There was a swarm of parodists who pounced straight for the jugular;
They satirized a Pres whose speech was smug yet sometimes struggular;
Disdain for George the Son, less blame for James from Plains in evidence;
They pegged the mis-spoke Nucular the catchword of the Presidents.

I toiled for several decades in the Section known as Nuclear;
Though now fairly famili-ar, I still find it peculi-ar
That highly educated voices, palatal and uvular
Would schedule tests, requests infested with the mis-spoke NUCULAR.



Tom Lehrer, parodist

  




There's popular and insular and regular, oracular
Cuticular, vehicular, vesicular, vernacular
And tabular and tubular and muscular and modular
And cellular and singular and circular and nodular.

There's fibular, follicular, and pustular and jocular 
Vestibular and valvular, auricular and ocular
And vascular, crepuscular and titular, testicular
Peninsular, peduncular, avuncular, particular.


Triangular, corpuscular, spectacular and annular,
Articular and angular, glomerular and granular,
And glandular and scapular and spicular and globular
Molecular, trabecular, lenticular and lobular. 

And endless adjectival terms in Med'cine and Biology
With current usage driven by their Latin deriv-ology,
Like saccular and secular and ovular, fascicular
Reticular, radicular, furuncular, funicular.


So, clearly there's no stimulus for apparatus cochlear,
That simulates the sound unique of proper-spoken Nuclear.






HOTLINKS TO OTHER MEDICAL-THEMED SONG-POSTINGS
The Uniqueness of Nuclear (see below)
...AND A FEW LIMERICK-BASED SONGS
Singable Limerick-Medley #17: Nuclear Cardiology
Singable Limerick-Medley #20: Medical Imaging


UKULELE-FRIENDLY FORMAT
(Click on any chord-chart slide to move to 'song-presentation mode'; then navigate through thumbnails at bottom of page.)

You can play/sing Tom Lehrer's original patter-song, "The Elements",  by checking  ouCorktunes, the songbook of the Corktown Ukulele Jam here.  The chord-charts have the alternate-line superscript format that many ukesters seem to love.
Lehrer had adapted the melody from "The Major General's Song" from Gilbert and Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance". There are 3 somewhat different melodies/chord-sequences used in alteration through the GandS song, and in Lehrer's derived take-off.

My suggestion for the first 3 verses of the patter-list portion of this parody are shown here, but adapt them as you like! Incidentally, the Eb7 chord may look formidable to some - just use the barred version of D7 one fret higher, than slide back for the D7 that follows!


























No comments:

Post a Comment