Tag: science

The Babble

I’d sat down a few days ago to think of a science song for the Geekpop Science competition due tomorrow. I couldn’t come up with anything musical, though I vaguely had the idea of writing something about Gregor Mendel, who pioneered the work in genetics while a monk with loads of time on his hands (Over 25000 pea plants in 6 years!). As I have plenty of other stuff to do with a single just launched and the Bard For Life album launch coming up, as well as recovering from my knee injury, I decided to let it go.

All that changed this evening as I went to get a pint of milk at the Co-op. I started humming a tune in my head and once I’d also come up with the phrase ‘Mendel Arithmetic’ there was no going back. I didn’t have my mobile on me to get the ideas down so I am particularly proud to not loose the tune or the lyrics I was constructing on the way to the shop. Also before getting down to writing the song I had answer a quick phone call from Mrs Karmadillo and hunt around for a number in Germany for her. It was then recorded in one take for the charango, one take for vocals and then sent off as the competition entry!

The Music

The Words

You grew up on the family farm
Moved to a monastery with an experimental gar-den
Six years of wrapping bags around the flowers of plants
Giving us the music for the genetic dance

You must be Mendel Mendel Mendel Mendel yeay oh yeah

You analysed traits of the plants that give us peas
Then controlled how they got to breed
You then analysed the plants that grew from the seeds
Eventually proposing living things had genes

You must be Mendel Mendel Mendel Mendel yeay oh yeah

Its a shame they didn’t believe / in the theory you got from you plants
It was only after you died / that they gave the peas a chance

Growing 29000 plants was not the only trick
You still had to perform some Mendel arithmetic
Probabilities of hybrids, dominant and recessive traits
Giving us genetics and showing us the way

You must be Mendel Mendel Mendel Mendel yeay oh yeah