Sunday morning music

 

Today we're on a brief musical journey, from the most rural and unsophisticated of environments all the way to the chemistry lab.

"The Irish Washerwoman" is a traditional tune, dating back (according to Wikipedia) to at least the late 1700's, if not earlier.  Here's an orchestral adaptation by Leroy Anderson as part of his Irish Suite.

And that's where the fun began.  The tune has been adapted by other performers and composers, with different lyrics.  Perhaps the most amusing was penned in response to a humorous essay by Isaac Asimov.  Wikipedia relates:

Isaac Asimov, in a 1963 humorous essay entitled "You, too, can speak Gaelic", reprinted in the anthology Adding a Dimension among others, traces the etymology of each component of the chemical name "para-di-methyl-amino-benz-alde-hyde" (e.g. the syllable "-benz-" ultimately derives from the Arabic lubān jāwī (لبان جاوي, "frankincense from Java"). Asimov points out that the name can be pronounced to the tune of the familiar jig "The Irish Washerwoman", and relates an anecdote in which a receptionist of Irish descent, hearing him singing the syllables thus, mistook them for the original Gaelic words to the jig. This essay inspired Jack Carroll's 1963 filk song "The Chemist's Drinking Song," (NESFA Hymnal Vol. 2 2nd ed. p. 65) set to the tune of that jig, which begins "Paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde, / Sodium citrate, ammonium cyanide, / ..."

How can I resist?

Peter