Geek Rock

Greetings, Gentle Readers.
At long last, I've decided to offer some more lyrics/poetry to the multiverse via the wonder and power of the interweb.  I wrote two poems almost a year ago now, with the full and express intent of rendering them as song. I've since noodled around with a few guitar chords, asked a few musically-inclined friends if they had any ideas, and thus far, not a note has been set down and no track has been recorded.  It could be because my words are crap, and that I'm a fair wordsmith, but a fundamentally mediocre poet.  The final word can only be issued by you, my long-suffering and eternally patient audience.  But first, the story.
Last year, the brilliant and unjustly maligned Lloyd Barker, taking time out from sweating incessantly over his Forge of Physics, was informed that he had defaulted on his university student loans, and that the collection agency was now after all of his assets in some sort of Rumplestiltskin-esque settling of debts.  Things looked grim, and Lloyd was sizing up his options, of which there were terrifyingly few.  Enter our boss, the Director of Science, who offered to settle Lloyd's debts out of his own pocket.  Oh, all right, out of his own credit card.  Point being, Lloyd was saved, everything was back on an even keel, and the camaraderie amongst our team reached an all-time high.  Lloyd is still dutifully repaying the redoubtable Richard Klinger for his magnanimity, but I personally felt that there ought to be some greater reward — some form of recognition that exceeds mere repayment or acknowledgment.
And so I wrote a bunch of geek-rock lyrics.  Just last week, I was introduced to "Beautiful Small Machines," Bree Sharp's most recent musical project.  A video collection on YouTube can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfx4UH659kQ&a=4oVf-d_DwKCv3jykLQhRb6G5vSn-jFJg&list=ML
and their home page (complete with Facebook/MySpace/iLike/etc. links) is found here:
http://www.beautifulsmallmachines.com/
I'd always rather liked her folk-rock style, but suddenly we find her amidst a bewildering swirl of synthesized electronica, and her lyrics are filled with echoes of the concept of geek-rock that I was trying to tap all those months ago.  I sent a message to her MySpace page, but I haven't heard back.  And so I decided to throw my work open to the four winds.  Whosoever can make these words into something that a radio station will play, or some varsity music store will stock will have my thanks, and may consider themselves free of any obligation to credit me in any way.  I just want the word to get out that Richard Klinger is a true mensch who ought to be celebrated for being an awfully nice and self-sacrificing individual.  Obviously, it would be great if Don DiLego and Bree Sharp sunk their collective metaphorical artistic fangs into it, but if anyone can create a recording with a hint of a melody and a bit of craft, then be my guest.
Here goes:

Richard, Richard

Richard, Richard Klinger
A man of science and distinction
Has more power in his little finger
Than the coefficient of friction
Stay around, let’s tarry and linger
Within the realm of his jurisdiction

CHORUS:
Richard, Richard Klinger saved the day
Dissociation constant — he’s got your pKa
Richard, Richard Klinger is the way
More awesome than thorium’s nuclear decay


Richard, Richard Klinger:
Caustic in any melée—
Refines bauxite
With hydroxide
Rewards you with aluminium pay*

CHORUS

Richard, Richard Klinger
A master of jousts, champion of duels
Kinetic energy of a stinger
That measures several gigajoules
Puts your troubles through the wringer
Lathes your worries with his tools

CHORUS

FADE

— m. cHAN


*In a nod to Bree Sharp, I would add a background vocal track asserting "aluminum!" I had actually considered that before (see next lyric), but she beat me to the punch in the song "Superconducter."

The Director

He’ll analyze yer
     fertilizer
     when the time is ripe

He’s no miser
     has a geyser
     for a phenotype

CHORUS:
The convection with direction
Puts the lady folk in heat
Their collection gets correction
If their apparatus is incomplete

He’s torrential
got potential
has great mgd (VEC-ARROW!)**

His differential
is intentional
and his body diagrams are free.

INSTRUMENTAL

CHORUS

No interference
gets his clearance
got supersonic scrutiny

Planck’s constant
gets despondent
when his wavelength finds your frequency

CHORUS

FADE

— m. cHAN


**Blogger doesn't render MathML very well. Actually, not at all. And the MathType that MS Word uses is even less effective. You may notice that the physics expression for vertical work against gravity requires a vector arrow over the acceleration value of "g," because it represents a vector quantity. The ASCIIMath code entity that expresses this character augmentation is an arrow named "vec."

In any event, it's late, and I've got lots of work to do yet. As always, comments and criticisms are invited. In a new and uninteresting twist, I would welcome a digitized music recording better.

For now, good night England and the colonies.

Cheers,

—mARKUS