An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer The lyrics of "The Elements" are a recitation of the names of all the chemical elements that were known at the time of writing, up to number 102, nobelium. It can be found on his albums "Songs & More Songs by Tom Lehrer" as well as "An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer". The song is sung to the tune of Sir Arthur Sullivan's "Major General's Song" ("I am the very model of a modern major-general...") from "The Pirates of Penzance". Since that time, 16 more have been discovered. At his concert in Copenhagen (1967), Lehrer admitted, "I like to play
Tom Lehrer two papers: Lehrer was mainly influenced by musical theater. According to Gerald Nachman's book "Seriously Funny", the Broadway musical "Let's Face It!" (by Cole Porter) made an early and lasting impression on him. Lehrer's style consists of parodying various forms of popular song. For example, his appreciation of list songs led him to write "The Elements", which lists the chemical elements to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan's "Major-General's Song". In author Isaac Asimov's second autobiographical volume "In Joy Still Felt", Asimov recounted seeing Lehrer perform in a Boston nightclub on October 9, 1954. Lehrer sang cleverly about Jim getting