THE VIDEO SHELF · comic songs
Tom Lehrer - The Elements - LIVE FILM From Copenhagen in 1967
A 1967 live film of Tom Lehrer performing his patter song "The Elements" in Copenhagen, reciting the chemical elements to a Gilbert and Sullivan tune. It is a short, polished example of his satirical piano-and-voice style.
Why HN readers recommended it
HN commenters cite it as a favorite Lehrer song and invoke it as a joke whenever elements or science-themed wordplay come up.
This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.
Video & recommendation details
- Creator / channel
- The Tom Lehrer Wisdom Channel
- Topic
- comic songs
- Format
- music
- Level
- general
- HN recommenders in dataset
- 2
- HN mentions in dataset
- 5
- Recommendation years in dataset
- 2015–2023
These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.
From the original HN conversations
Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.
For those who aren't aware and/or won't look this reference: [LINK] As the other comenter noted, Tom Lehrer is indeed a national treasure, and his satire is top shelf. From the light-hearted "The Elements": [VIDEO] (watch for the surprise at the end) To the gallows …
Diederich on Hacker News · 2020-05
In Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube"The Elements" is the Tom Lehrer song that made the biggest impression on me. [LINK] , [VIDEO] There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium, And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium, ...
nayuki on Hacker News · 2022-12
In Tom Lehrer has released all of his songs into the public domain
Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.