Periodic Table of Songs

[millineutron]

OK, I admit it, I'm a geek! 🤓 So this topic includes any song that has an element name in the title or anywhere in its lyrics. 

I'm pretty sure there aren't any songs about Ytterbium, for example, so we're not aiming to cover the whole Periodic Table, but there are LOTS of songs with more common elements mentioned, such as:

Neon Rainbow by The Box Tops

BTW, no worries if you repeat a song that's already been mentioned (nobody has time to scroll through multiple pages of previous posts) ... and repeating the same element in multiple songs is highly encouraged!

With ❤ from Chemlandia,

Millineutron

[berglur]

The Elements - Tom Lehrer

It has them all - including Ytterbium & Yttrium

[rozpotter]

It has the eements known lat the time.  Since then, new elements have been discovered.  "These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard, and there may be many others, but they haven't been discovered"  Indeed...

[rozpotter]

Correction: It has the elements known at the time. Since then, new elements have been discovered. "These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard, and there may be many others, but they haven't been discovered" Indeed...

[millineutron]

Wow! You guys have done an amazing job hunting down so many element song references! I wish I knew how to code, so I could make an interactive periodic table where you could click on each element and listen to songs mentioning that element. But here's the data so far:

References to 23 different (individual) elements in song titles, lyrics, or band names: Silver (Ag) had 21 references (not including repeated songs). Gold (Au) came in 2nd with 18. Neon (Ne) was in 3rd place with 7 references. Iron (Fe) & Tin (Sn) tied for 4th with 4 references each. 5th place went to Oxygen (O), Nickel (Ni), & Mercury (Hg) with 3 each. Lithium (Li), Sulfur (S), Titanium (Ti), Copper (Cu), & Lead (Pb) tied for 6th with 2 apiece. Hydrogen (H), Helium (He), Carbon (C), Magnesium (Mg), Aluminum (Al), Chlorine (Cl), Krypton (Kr), Iodine (I), Platinum (Pt), & Plutonium (Pu) each had one. The Noble Gases as a group were also referenced.

America, Donovan, Elvis Costello, Fleetwood Mac, Grateful Dead, Miranda Lambert, Sting, & Neil Young all had at least 2 songs mentioning elements. Who knew? There were at least 9 posts mentioning Tom Lehrer's Element Song listing all the elements then known (through nobelium, atomic number 102) when he wrote the lyrics in 1959.

There were also posts referring to compounds (salt), alloys (steel), and also to coal. We could for sure expand to include not just elements but also chemistry-related terms, such as ion names as in: 

Telluride -- Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

Let's keep going, if we're still having fun! 🤓

[MaVolta]

There's the U2 album - How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

Special editions included a song called Fast Cars which includes the following line -

They're in the desert to dismantle an atomic bomb  (the context of the song is drugs and detox)

[millineutron]

@MaVolta

@ReTiReD51

Good ones!! I forgot about the neon line in The Sound of Silence. 

Good call with How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. 

Another one:

Miss Atomic Bomb -- The Killers

[millineutron]

From Jimmy Olsen's Blues by Spin Doctors:

"I got a pocket full of kryptonite ..."

[millineutron]

"Mr. Grinch!
You're a three-decker sauerkraut
And toadstool sandwich
With arsenic sauce!"

You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch by Albert Hague / Theodor S. Geisel, sung by  Thurl Ravenscroft, in How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

[millineutron]

Hmmm I accidentally posted the same thing twice & now I can't figure out how to delete it so I'm just writing this instead! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[ciptra38]

Goldfinger, Neon Lights

[rozpotter]

Try Tom Lehrer's "The Elements Song", all the then known elements of the periodic table, set to a Gilbert and Sullivan melody. Wonderful...

Regards,

RCP

[rocky542]

Bridge over Troubled Waters- Simon & Garfunkel

"Sail on, SILVER girl"

[millineutron]

Petrol & Chlorine -- Silverchair

[COskibum]

Stairway to Heaven- Led Zeppelin “there’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold and she’s buying a Stairway to Heaven....”

[Somersby]

Silver Bells

[1900yesterday]

The Elements by Tom Lehrer

[klsmith1959]

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, protactinium and indium and gallium,
And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium.

There's yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium,
And boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium,
There's 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…

[ip3285]

@klsmith1959 Your entry was GREAT! I'd love to hear you sing it!!

[bigblue99]

Goldfinger - Shirley Bassey

[bigblue99]

Tin Man - America

[mp8908]

   Silver Threads & Golden Needles            The Springfields

[dl73698250]

Brooks & Dunn; Neon Moon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nopBvlKfYgY

[BOBinBR]

Black Clouds and Silver Linings by Dream Theater

[BOBinBR]

Love is like oxygen by Sweet

[sswill53]

 NEON by Chris Young

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il3a7iM8NHM

[dl73698250]

Tyrannosaurus Rex; Solid Gold Easy Action

[ip3285]

"Music, music, music":  "Put another nickel in, in the nickelodeon....."  Theresa Brewer

[ip3285]

Silver threads among the gold

[ip3285]

When my blue moon turns to gold again - Elvis Presley

[COskibum]

Blinded by the Light - Manfred Mann - "some SILICONE sister with a manager mister...."

Light of the Silvery Moon - Doris Day & Gordon Macrae