Visited my little sister in college when she was working on her PhD in theoretical math. She was quite impressed that I knew who Lobachevsky was. Didn't have the heart to tell her that the only reason I knew the name was because of this song.
As a native Russian speaker, I must say that he nailed those bits in Russian. Surprisingly well-pronounced considering that he does not speak the language.
Don't be so sure about that not speaking Russian! In the 50s and 60s, a reading knowledge of Russian was as important as knowledge of German for math grad students, depending on the focus of their research. Although Lehrer was a statistician so maybe not. OTH this is as good as a Danny Kaye romp. Tx!
Math students in Cold War Amerika were required to competa a large number of semester-hours in Russian. It is a horrifying demand to learn of alluva sudden. I believe cryptography had sth to do with it. In the 1970s logic students in Texas were issued British textbooks full of stuff people like Alan Turing thought relevant and delightful. That too was a shock!
My Russian teacher told us that they had two newspapers, Pravda ("Truth") and Izvestia ("News"), so there was a joke in Russia where they would say, "We get a lot of Izvestia but not much Pravda".
I majored in Russian & Eastern European Studies in college and my Russian 2 TA told us if we could do the entire “I have a friend in Minsk” in Russian with the correct grammar and endings, at the proper tempo, we would get extra credit on the final. I can’t hear this song without immediately going “У меня друг в Минске”😂
😻 Does it really? I don't have a well enough trained musical ear to notice for myself, but if that's what it's doing he's all the more genius! Each chapter he took from somewhere else!
gluegunassault2010 People have always been people and people will always find ways to hurt one another. Time just mixes things up in the hurt department
@@stardust86x So you didn't have the world's information at your fingertips, but at the same time, universities didn't have algorithms to scan your paper!
Жил был король когда-то при, нём блоха жила. - "Once upon a time, there was a king, with a flea living on him." Я иду куда сам царь идёт пешком! - "I'm going where (even) the king himself goes by foot!" (I'm going to the toilet.)
@@shorelockhomes943 Honestly college is a joke. lets make these young adults who couldn't give less of a fuck on most of the subjects learn all this useless knowledge that will never be used ever in life. I hate that I had to pay for Linear algebra, Multivariable calculus, gender studies and so on; I feel cheated and like my time has been completely wasted.
@@SpaceRaptor510 I went to a city university in my mid-20's and at the time, I enjoyed a lot of it. Well, the textbooks were a waste of trees, but I liked a lot of the lecture/discussion parts. (Especially compared to the BS & drama of HS.) But in the 20 years since, learning more & more how much BS is in society - learning how much crookery is in the "Education Industrial Complex" - how much of the data I paid to obtain was propaganda... I now feel the same about being cheated and my time wasted. My most hated was 1800's literature - Why did a science degree require me to pay any attention (+time/money) to some made up stories pompously written by some narcissists of an era gladly gone? Blarg.
@@netname1074 Jane Eyre is one of the most insufferable people I have ever read about, I dislike pretty much all of the Bronte sisters books. Took me three days to read only 150 pages, and it was all wasted. I'm sure it has its merits but I couldn't seem to like the story, feel sympathy, connect to the characters or the situation, etc. IDK if it comes down to me liking books where there's action, like Monte Cristo or what. I guess their books are more for people who don't like too much plot or anything. I personally care a lot about interesting plots and intriguing characters so that's why Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre sucked for me since they lacked that.
Grubert Chubbiecawké I want no forgiveness from this wretchedness that is America. And lol I may be a good ol' fashioned dirty commie, but at least I'm not so sociopathic that I would actively *allow* poverty to exist. Capitalism is 100% pure sociopathy, and anyone that supports that ridiculousness is a sociopath.
Except you assume that I'm a Soviet, when I'm not. Also you clearly don't understand the definition of sociopathy, which is "one who exploits another without any remorse or care of another's well-being" which is *exactly* what capitalism does. If you think what we have in America is freedom, you seriously need a strong dose of disillusionment.
Grubert Chubbiecawké You're not free unless communism is implemented. Please tell me what socialist literature you have read to hold your position. Else you're just parroting the bullshit you've learned in school.
International Space Station Oh, socialism is great. I just don't think the higher-ups should be taxed quite as much as people propose. They worked hard for that money.
Grubert Chubbiecawké You do realize under true socialism, there would be no taxes, right? It's just this goddamn disgusting wage gap we want to eliminate...
For some reason I always end up listening to this song when I am doing an assignment. I don't plagiarize but it always makes me think of this song lmao.
It would have been nice if he'd pointed out that Lobachevsky was never accused to plagiarism. Lehrer said he only chose the name because it was Russian and it fit the meter.
no, it's just another fact of Russophobia. and the desire to discredit the Russians during the Cold War. William Clifford called him the "Copernicus of Geometry", Lobachevsky was one of the creators of non-Euclidean geometry
@@ClarkinFlame49810stop being silly. People either don't care or look it up where it's very clear no plagiarism occured just three people capturing the zietgiest.
yeah, sure. at 2:31 it says: Pravda (a Soviet newspaper, literally - "The Truth"), heh, well, Pravda said: a king lived once upon a time, a flea lived with him" at 2:36 it says:but Izvestiya (also a newspaper - "News"/"Reports")! Izvestiya said: I'm going where even king has to go on foot!" the first one is from Goethe's Faust and also there was a song by great russian singer Fyodor Shalyapin. the second is an euphimism for going into the bathroom - even king doesnt't go on a horse there! ;D
It's noted in a collection of his sheet music that his choices for Russian phrases varied, ranging from "merely inappropriate" to "distinctly obscene."
Thanks for the context and translations. My favorite Soviet era truism is "There is no Truth (Pravda) in News (Isvstya), and no News in Truth." I consider that wisdom to apply everywhere today.
There is an old joke from Soviet Russia that goes like this: «Pravda is not Izvestia and Izvestia is not Pravda.» "The Truth is not the News and the News is not the Truth."
I wish he could do the whole "Hungarian Rhaspody" tune, just piano. Without the lyrics about Lobachevsky. His piano playing is like nothing I've ever heard!!!!!
He says so in the intro in the live version. "Mr Danny Kaye, who's been my particular idol since childbirth, has been doing a routine about the great Russian director Stanislavsky and the secret of success in the acting profession. And I thought it would be interesting to st-- to adapt this idea to the field of mathematics!"
OWW!! Someone with an even worse jaw-cracking"nick" than mine!!! (But I DO know how to pronounce Polish, so let's see .... G-zheg-ozh B-zhench-sh-chicky-evich .... now say it all at once ... Aw, I give up. Too many sh's and ch's!!.)
This takes me back 60 years when my parents introduced me to the record player and records and I wore this and other ones ("Have Some Madeira M'Dear") out (between collecting stamps and playing freely in the woods all summer and all day and doing LEGO building with generic blocks). A wonderful and rich childhood in postwar Germany as an Air Force brat (a childhood which is now incomparable and impossible), alas. Where has the time gone? What has happened to the world? My wife of 40 years and I discussed all things life recently (dangerous undertaking with your spouse) and realized the obvious...that life roughly mimics what you see on an oscilloscope readout...the ups and downs varying is frequency and so on that make for an interesting and, alternatingly, unpleasant existence that hopefully averages out to something worthwhile. And that cannot be said by everyone as they go through life because there is an underestimated external uncontrollable force whose strength varies greatly amongst the populace and that is LUCK.
Pravda and Izvestia were Russian newspapers, fyi, and are both still in print. I have heard this song many times but never saw the lyrics before now, so I was able to look some details up. Thanks!
archbaker two things: 1. Danny Kaye's song is called Stanislavsky, and it's great. 2. Calling this particular song by Tom, or any of his other songs (that I've heard) for that matter, derivative is, in my eyes, completely missing the point of; a. good fun, not to mention b. creative spirit. the Idea of using another's work as a backdrop allows a singer to make an immediate connection with his audience, it is a reference, a shared experience mostly everyone would appreciate immediately. then twisting it to fit your own is where your part of the creation comes. you may choose to dismiss this as "derivative" and be on your snide way, but it's an amazingly effective form, it holds all characters of true creation, and hey you've got a great song, win win win. keep on listening to great music (what ever that means to you) thank you and good night.
I like this song a lot. But I thought I should answer the poster as best I could. I used the phrase cheerfully derivative because it sounded better that "plagiarizing". I suppose I could have used a better turn of phrase, and I appreciate you alerting me to that, but I also think we're all able to appreciate the humor of a derivative song about plagiarism without having it spelled out for us.
Jakob Boller Given how many completely original songs Lehrer came up with, I'm pretty sure that a song about plagarism being highly derivative of someone else's song is part of the joke.
I’m not smart enough to appreciate this song to its fullest, but enjoy it anyway. Luckily for any other uneducated heathens like myself googling the lyrics will bring up a link that explains the jokes.
First of all the Danny Kaye song is called "Tschaikowsky" and he sang it in 1941's LADY IN THE DARK, music by Kurt Weill (of Mack the Knife fame) and lyrics by Ira Gershwin (brother of George).
+Michael Lubin I don't recall the reason for my original comment other than someone else saying something about Danny Kaye's rendition of "Stanislavsky" and my correcting that egregious error. In any case you're likely right about "Tschaikowsky" and its influence on the "Elements" as opposed to ":Lobachevsky". But let's not forget good ol' Gilbert and Sullivan and their model major general. The moral is make a joke and laugh. Happy Monday and L'Shanah Tovah and that's not a joke.
+Michael Lubin It doesn't just RESEMBLE Danny Kaye's "Stanislawsky," it's an obvious and almost straight parody of it, as Tom Lehrer explained in one of his concerts. Nothing wrong with that: the individual words are mostly different, and it's about plagiarism anyway.
Thanks so much to Tom Lehrer for helping us all come to terms with the nuclear psychopathy of our so-called-leaders. Looks like his work, in this regard, remains sadly, all-too-relevant.
I don't know what he did as a mathematician, but as a songwriter he is cheerfully derivative. This song, for instance, is supposedly based on one performed by Danny Kaye, although I've never been able to track this original.
A thousand years ago, when I were but a wee lad, I discovered a FAB-U-LOUS teevee program called "That Was the Week That Was," which was largely fueled by the incomparable Dr. Lehrer. The enchantment I felt then has never worn off! I also remember an interview Scott Simon did on NPR with the Good Doctor, at the end of which Scott opined that we really needed the Doc to come back . . . and the sad response, "But nothing's funny anymore . . . ." The greatest singing satirist in American history . . . .
I am studiyng in a university named after Lobachevsky himself and was quite shocked and a little bit offended when I found this song. Eh, anyway, not like I'm making my works here in any other way than described....
It is sobering to consider, by the time Nicolai Ivanovich Lobaschvsey was my age, he had been dead for two years! Likewise Franklin Roosevelt. Thanks, Tom, for teaching us to gauge our life achievements by this metric. By the way, next year I'll be using Lee J. Cobb and Slim Pickens for comparison.
A manifold has a locally Euclidean topology, and a Riemannian manifold has a metric, but that metric need not locally Euclidean. It could, for instance, be hyperbolic.
@Quenchcar повезло вам дюже - знать мирового корифея. завидую а к чему про него? а вообще, - пожалуй соглашусь. немцы ещё во времена раздробленности своих государств очень плотно взялись за проблему своего образования и это дало очень сочные плоды культурного подъёма.
Given that it's a song about plagarism, and the sheer amount of completely original music he made over the years, I'll bet that making it so derivative of Stanislavsky is a bonus joke...
I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics: Plagiarize Plagiarize Let no one else's work evade your eyes Remember why the good Lord made your eyes So don't shade your eyes But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize Only be sure always to call it please 'research'
Lobachevsky by Tom Lehrer ~ Introduction and Lyrics For many years now, Mr. Danny Kaye, who has been my particular Idol since childbirth, has been doing a routine about the great Russian director Stanislavsky and the secret of success in the Acting profession. And I thought it would be interesting to st... To adapt this idea to the field of mathematics. I always like to Make explicit the fact that before I went off not too long ago to Fight in the trenches, I was a mathematician by profession. I don't Like people to get the idea that I have to do this for a living. I mean, it isn't as though I had to do this, you know, I could be Making, oh, 3000 dollars a year just teaching. Be that as it may, some of you may have had occasion to run into Mathematicians and to wonder therefore how they got that way, And here, in partial explanation perhaps, is the story of the Great Russian mathematician Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky: Who made me the genius I am today The mathematician that others all quote Who's the professor that made me that way? The greatest that ever got chalk on his coat One man deserves the credit One man deserves the blame And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name Hi! Nicolai Ivanovich Lobach- I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky. In one word he told me secret of success in Mathematics: Plagiarize! Plagiarize Let no one else's work evade your eyes Remember why the good Lord made your eyes So don't shade your eyes But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize - Only be sure always to call it please 'Research' And ever since I meet this man My life is not the same And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name Hi! Nicolai Ivanovich Lobach- I am never forget the day I am given first Original paper to write. It was on analytic and algebraic Topology of locally Euclidean parameterization of Infinitely differentiable Riemannian manifold. Bozhe moi! This I know from nothing. But I think of great Lobachevsky and get idea - ahah! I have a friend in Minsk Who has a friend in Pinsk Whose friend in Omsk Has friend in Tomsk With friend in Akmolinsk His friend in Alexandrovsk Has friend in Petropavlovsk Whose friend somehow Is solving now The problem in Dnepropetrovsk And when his work is done - Ha ha! - begins the fun From Dnepropetrovsk To Petropavlovsk By way of Iliysk And Novorossiysk To Alexandrovsk to Akmolinsk To Tomsk to Omsk To Pinsk to Minsk To me the news will run, Yes, to me the news will run! And then I write By morning, night And afternoon And pretty soon My name in Dnepropetrovsk is cursed When he finds out I publish first! And who made me a big success And brought me wealth and fame? Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name Hi! Nicolai Ivanovich Lobach - I am never forget the day my first book is published. Every chapter I stole from somewhere else. Index I copy from old Vladivostok telephone directory. This book was sensational! Pravda - well, Pravda - Pravda said: (Russian double-talk) It stinks. But Izvestia! Izvestia said: (Russian double-talk) It stinks. Metro-Goldwyn-Moskva buys movie rights for six million rubles, Changing title to "The Eternal Triangle," With Brigitte Bardot playing part of hypotenuse. And who deserves the credit? And who deserves the blame? Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name Hi! Source: Musixmatch Songwriter: Tom Lehrer
It is _"Once upon a time there was a king and a flea lived on him"._ The Izvestia however were much more straightforward and said _"I am going to where even the Tsar walks on his own feet",_ which means the toilet
Does anyone know where to find the score? The book "Too many songs by Tom Lehrer" lists it in its index but when you go there it just has the lyrics...
+David Sevilla "The piano player is encouraged to embrace the song's central theme when playing. . ." Yeah, just stick a recording of this song in the background and pretend to play.
![Nachts steht Hunger starr in unserm Traum [German soldier song][+English translation]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/qq76LCiP2Ds/mqdefault.jpg)
Visited my little sister in college when she was working on her PhD in theoretical math. She was quite impressed that I knew who Lobachevsky was. Didn't have the heart to tell her that the only reason I knew the name was because of this song.
do not worry, who deserves the credit? and who deserves the blame?
@@chechema1010 Tom Lehrer is his name!
😂 Thank YOU ALL for the laugh. You all are to blame !
Ditto. At Cal Tech astrofizzicks no less
I love how he keeps acting like he’s going to sing Lobachevsky’s name again and just seems to give up.
I am never forget the day...
See Danny Kaye for inspiration.
If it weren't for this song and its "research" advice I never would have graduated from college. Thanks for the great advice Tom!
Thanks ienfkdjsnikqolakdlobqchevkies for mastering Plagarism
I admire your honesty! ( And your brazenness.) Hope your professor does'nt read this...
Basically everyone does this in engineering grad school lol
Don't forget to also thank the great mathematician Lobachevsky!
One man deserves the credit, one man deserves the blame. Nikolay Ivanovich Lobachevski is his name OY
As a native Russian speaker, I must say that he nailed those bits in Russian. Surprisingly well-pronounced considering that he does not speak the language.
Don't be so sure about that not speaking Russian! In the 50s and 60s, a reading knowledge of Russian was as important as knowledge of German for math grad students, depending on the focus of their research. Although Lehrer was a statistician so maybe not. OTH this is as good as a Danny Kaye romp. Tx!
@@lskohn yes, and similarly many Russians in the field of math and physics had an elementary grasp of English. Very good point.
Math students in Cold War Amerika were required to competa a large number of semester-hours in Russian. It is a horrifying demand to learn of alluva sudden. I believe cryptography had sth to do with it. In the 1970s logic students in Texas were issued British textbooks full of stuff people like Alan Turing thought relevant and delightful. That too was a shock!
What does it mean?
He worked for the NSA in the beginning of the Cold War. I’d be more surprised if he wasn’t familiar with the Russian language.
My Russian teacher told us that they had two newspapers, Pravda ("Truth") and Izvestia ("News"), so there was a joke in Russia where they would say, "We get a lot of Izvestia but not much Pravda".
There was also a like-minded joke that went "There's no truth (pravda) in Izvestia and no news (izvestia) in Pravda" :)
@@ВладимирКруглов-к9о That is the version I knew from folks who spoke the lingo
I heard it as "there is no Pravda in Isvestia and no Isvestia in Pravda."
@@ВладимирКруглов-к9о The most elegant phrasing this was given in English is, "In The News, there is no truth. In The Truth, there is no news."
@@kenaikuskokwim9694 Yes, reads quite nicely🙂
I majored in Russian & Eastern European Studies in college and my Russian 2 TA told us if we could do the entire “I have a friend in Minsk” in Russian with the correct grammar and endings, at the proper tempo, we would get extra credit on the final. I can’t hear this song without immediately going “У меня друг в Минске”😂
Now, THERE was a person of Learning & Distinction!
Pee Ess - And DID you receive extra credit??
The way this song mixes different classical pieces is astounding.
😻 Does it really? I don't have a well enough trained musical ear to notice for myself, but if that's what it's doing he's all the more genius! Each chapter he took from somewhere else!
@@voiceoreason9884 All I caught was Franz Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2” around two minutes in.
Not so amazing, given that it's Lehrer. Ever hear his sendup of "Clementine"?
And this was before the days of Internet...
Right, but people were always the same, we haven't changed one bit
@@gluegunassault2010 People hurt each other still, you just have to pay attention to it
gluegunassault2010 People have always been people and people will always find ways to hurt one another. Time just mixes things up in the hurt department
@@stardust86x So you didn't have the world's information at your fingertips, but at the same time, universities didn't have algorithms to scan your paper!
We plagerize the informations from the internet
( And Chatgpt for sure!!! 😂 )
Жил был король когда-то при, нём блоха жила. - "Once upon a time, there was a king, with a flea living on him."
Я иду куда сам царь идёт пешком! - "I'm going where (even) the king himself goes by foot!" (I'm going to the toilet.)
Блять, я только благодаря твоему комментарию понял, что речь про туалет. Еще сидел как даун и думал, в чем тут рофл
@@1v966 i understand and agree wholeheartedly
@@vortexoftardigrades2065 well I bet you got the блять part
@ SONBoomer Thank you for translating!
@@1v966 of course he probably played csgo before its odd to me not seeing сука before it
I am to memorise this in order to recite it back to myself while riding my bike home from work
Did you?
"I am never forget the day."
@@ursulapainter5307 He am never forget the day he memorized this songs.
How to be successful in college in a nut shell.
Too true, just don't plagerize in subjucts like writing as it can affect grade, etc. Otherwise seems true at least mostly. Happy new year!
@@shorelockhomes943 Honestly college is a joke. lets make these young adults who couldn't give less of a fuck on most of the subjects learn all this useless knowledge that will never be used ever in life. I hate that I had to pay for Linear algebra, Multivariable calculus, gender studies and so on; I feel cheated and like my time has been completely wasted.
In Tom's songs about collage he talks about everyone cheating constantly
@@SpaceRaptor510 I went to a city university in my mid-20's and at the time, I enjoyed a lot of it. Well, the textbooks were a waste of trees, but I liked a lot of the lecture/discussion parts. (Especially compared to the BS & drama of HS.) But in the 20 years since, learning more & more how much BS is in society - learning how much crookery is in the "Education Industrial Complex" - how much of the data I paid to obtain was propaganda...
I now feel the same about being cheated and my time wasted. My most hated was 1800's literature - Why did a science degree require me to pay any attention (+time/money) to some made up stories pompously written by some narcissists of an era gladly gone? Blarg.
@@netname1074 Jane Eyre is one of the most insufferable people I have ever read about, I dislike pretty much all of the Bronte sisters books. Took me three days to read only 150 pages, and it was all wasted. I'm sure it has its merits but I couldn't seem to like the story, feel sympathy, connect to the characters or the situation, etc. IDK if it comes down to me liking books where there's action, like Monte Cristo or what. I guess their books are more for people who don't like too much plot or anything. I personally care a lot about interesting plots and intriguing characters so that's why Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre sucked for me since they lacked that.
First thing I thought of when I saw Hbombs video.
I came here to see if anyone else mentioned Hbomb's new vid
I got here on accident and I'm thoroughly pleased. Lehrer, Russian, and math? What more could I ask for? Space, I guess. xD
Grubert Chubbiecawké I want no forgiveness from this wretchedness that is America.
And lol I may be a good ol' fashioned dirty commie, but at least I'm not so sociopathic that I would actively *allow* poverty to exist. Capitalism is 100% pure sociopathy, and anyone that supports that ridiculousness is a sociopath.
Except you assume that I'm a Soviet, when I'm not. Also you clearly don't understand the definition of sociopathy, which is "one who exploits another without any remorse or care of another's well-being" which is *exactly* what capitalism does.
If you think what we have in America is freedom, you seriously need a strong dose of disillusionment.
Grubert Chubbiecawké You're not free unless communism is implemented. Please tell me what socialist literature you have read to hold your position. Else you're just parroting the bullshit you've learned in school.
International Space Station Oh, socialism is great. I just don't think the higher-ups should be taxed quite as much as people propose. They worked hard for that money.
Grubert Chubbiecawké You do realize under true socialism, there would be no taxes, right? It's just this goddamn disgusting wage gap we want to eliminate...
The lyrics in Cyrillic are a treat!
crazy and funny
Fabulous! Genius of comedy. Genius on piano. Genius in math. Genius entertainer!
He got his bachelor’s at 18 and his master’s at 22. He was a popular professor at Harvard.
For some reason I always end up listening to this song when I am doing an assignment. I don't plagiarize but it always makes me think of this song lmao.
It would have been nice if he'd pointed out that Lobachevsky was never accused to plagiarism. Lehrer said he only chose the name because it was Russian and it fit the meter.
Back then, people weren't so worried of getting everything absolutely fucking right in fear of someone misunderstanding something.
Yeah…that would have made for a hilarious finish! Um, no. Why would he do that? It’s not a history book, it’s a song.
Спасибо за уточнение! Честно говоря я услышал эту песню раньше, чем узнал о Лобачевском и поэтому думал, что он действительно что-то украл.
no, it's just another fact of Russophobia. and the desire to discredit the Russians during the Cold War. William Clifford called him the "Copernicus of Geometry", Lobachevsky was one of the creators of non-Euclidean geometry
@@ClarkinFlame49810stop being silly. People either don't care or look it up where it's very clear no plagiarism occured just three people capturing the zietgiest.
Tom Lehrer always cheers me up. His rhymes are a riot.
Tom Leher and I were both born on April 9 exactly eight years apart - he in 1928 myself 1936
John Barrett
My word! You are more than 80 years old! Stay strong!
:)
Are you still alive, grandpa?
@@bernd8608 Looks like it, though I'm not sure. He's 84. I hope Grandpa is still alive. If he's in heaven, may god bless him.
Aaaand I just found out I share Tom Lehrer's birthday :D
1:55 Hungarian rhapsody. So beautiful
Only be sure always to call it, please, "research"
yeah, sure. at 2:31 it says: Pravda (a Soviet newspaper, literally - "The Truth"), heh, well, Pravda said: a king lived once upon a time, a flea lived with him"
at 2:36 it says:but Izvestiya (also a newspaper - "News"/"Reports")! Izvestiya said: I'm going where even king has to go on foot!"
the first one is from Goethe's Faust and also there was a song by great russian singer Fyodor Shalyapin. the second is an euphimism for going into the bathroom - even king doesnt't go on a horse there! ;D
It's noted in a collection of his sheet music that his choices for Russian phrases varied, ranging from "merely inappropriate" to "distinctly obscene."
You have done us a great service. Many thanks
Thanks for the context and translations. My favorite Soviet era truism is "There is no Truth (Pravda) in News (Isvstya), and no News in Truth." I consider that wisdom to apply everywhere today.
There is an old joke from Soviet Russia that goes like this:
«Pravda is not Izvestia and Izvestia is not Pravda.»
"The Truth is not the News and the News is not the Truth."
I wish he could do the whole "Hungarian Rhaspody" tune, just piano. Without the lyrics about Lobachevsky. His piano playing is like nothing I've ever heard!!!!!
So where did he **ahm** RESEARCH this song from?
He "researched" from Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 by Friska and also based this off of some Danny Kaye routines.
Specifically, "Stanislavski".
He says so in the intro in the live version. "Mr Danny Kaye, who's been my particular idol since childbirth, has been doing a routine about the great Russian director Stanislavsky and the secret of success in the acting profession. And I thought it would be interesting to st-- to adapt this idea to the field of mathematics!"
@@NegativeEpsilon Kaye's Stanislavsky: ruclips.net/video/ACNPIlDVKwY/видео.html&frags=pl%2Cwn
Danny Kaye
An absolutely stunning song.
James Somerton’s favorite song.
I love that he stole the index too, from telephone directory
Stylistically, there's a lot people forgot about that went into old phone books.
It was nice of you to use cyrillic.
HAHAHA analytic and algebraic topology of locally Euclidian metrization of infinitely differentiable Riemannian manifold.
+Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz i'm an 8th grader and i know possibly what half of those terms mean
i'm so smart
Let X1, X2, . . . , Xn be a sequence of independent and identically distributed
random variables with E[Xi
] = µ and Var[Xi
] = σ
2 < ∞, and let
Sn =X1 + X2 + · · · + Xn over n
equals to1
n
Xn
i
Xi
is more complicated than your name lol
OWW!! Someone with an even worse jaw-cracking"nick" than mine!!! (But I DO know how to pronounce Polish, so let's see .... G-zheg-ozh B-zhench-sh-chicky-evich .... now say it all at once ... Aw, I give up. Too many sh's and ch's!!.)
Why was this recommended to me? I haven't a clue.
But I enjoyed it? So thanks RUclips?
Hey, thank MATH! For the code/algorithms that brought ya here. ;)
😄🤷♂
One man deserves the credit, one man deserves the blame and Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name!
This takes me back 60 years when my parents introduced me to the record player and records and I wore this and other ones ("Have Some Madeira M'Dear") out (between collecting stamps and playing freely in the woods all summer and all day and doing LEGO building with generic blocks). A wonderful and rich childhood in postwar Germany as an Air Force brat (a childhood which is now incomparable and impossible), alas. Where has the time gone? What has happened to the world? My wife of 40 years and I discussed all things life recently (dangerous undertaking with your spouse) and realized the obvious...that life roughly mimics what you see on an oscilloscope readout...the ups and downs varying is frequency and so on that make for an interesting and, alternatingly, unpleasant existence that hopefully averages out to something worthwhile. And that cannot be said by everyone as they go through life because there is an underestimated external uncontrollable force whose strength varies greatly amongst the populace and that is LUCK.
Thanks for putting this up
Oh my gosh! I thought I was just translating it all wrong. Thanks for the translation and the explination!
Pravda and Izvestia were Russian newspapers, fyi, and are both still in print. I have heard this song many times but never saw the lyrics before now, so I was able to look some details up. Thanks!
So does Tom Lehrer actually speak fluent Russian? Wouldn't surprise me - the man's an absolute genius
Nope. He had a Russian colleague who gave him random quotes for him to learn.
0:33 to 0:48 seems to be how everyone tries to achieve success on RUclips. Especially as far as things like ASMR are concerned.
Well, in case of ASMR there is not much new shit you can come up with. Fucking reaction videos tho
archbaker two things: 1. Danny Kaye's song is called Stanislavsky, and it's great.
2. Calling this particular song by Tom, or any of his other songs (that I've heard) for that matter, derivative is, in my eyes, completely missing the point of; a. good fun, not to mention b. creative spirit.
the Idea of using another's work as a backdrop allows a singer to make an immediate connection with his audience, it is a reference, a shared experience mostly everyone would appreciate immediately. then twisting it to fit your own is where your part of the creation comes.
you may choose to dismiss this as "derivative" and be on your snide way, but it's an amazingly effective form, it holds all characters of true creation, and hey you've got a great song, win win win.
keep on listening to great music (what ever that means to you)
thank you and good night.
I like this song a lot. But I thought I should answer the poster as best I could. I used the phrase cheerfully derivative because it sounded better that "plagiarizing".
I suppose I could have used a better turn of phrase, and I appreciate you alerting me to that, but I also think we're all able to appreciate the humor of a derivative song about plagiarism without having it spelled out for us.
Jakob Boller
Given how many completely original songs Lehrer came up with, I'm pretty sure that a song about plagarism being highly derivative of someone else's song is part of the joke.
rdfox76
Good point, but I think it is quite similar to what I said, minus the spelling out part.
Shakespeare's plays were derived from stories and themes current in the day. He just wrote them particularly well.
When I'm feeling down I like to sing along with this song.
I’m not smart enough to appreciate this song to its fullest, but enjoy it anyway.
Luckily for any other uneducated heathens like myself googling the lyrics will bring up a link that explains the jokes.
First of all the Danny Kaye song is called "Tschaikowsky" and he sang it in 1941's LADY IN THE DARK, music by Kurt Weill (of Mack the Knife fame) and lyrics by Ira Gershwin (brother of George).
+Murray Aronson "Tschaikowsky" was more likely the inspiration for Lehrer's Elements song, not this one, which indeed resembles "Stanislavsky."
+Michael Lubin I don't recall the reason for my original comment other than someone else saying something about Danny Kaye's rendition of "Stanislavsky" and my correcting that egregious error. In any case you're likely right about "Tschaikowsky" and its influence on the "Elements" as opposed to ":Lobachevsky". But let's not forget good ol' Gilbert and Sullivan and their model major general. The moral is make a joke and laugh. Happy Monday and L'Shanah Tovah and that's not a joke.
+Michael Lubin It doesn't just RESEMBLE Danny Kaye's "Stanislawsky," it's an obvious and almost straight parody of it, as Tom Lehrer explained in one of his concerts. Nothing wrong with that: the individual words are mostly different, and it's about plagiarism anyway.
Thanks so much to Tom Lehrer for helping us all come to terms with the nuclear psychopathy of our so-called-leaders. Looks like his work, in this regard, remains sadly, all-too-relevant.
I don't know what he did as a mathematician, but as a songwriter he is cheerfully derivative. This song, for instance, is supposedly based on one performed by Danny Kaye, although I've never been able to track this original.
ruclips.net/video/jXI2djKeerQ/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/jXI2djKeerQ/видео.html&start_radio=1
Brillant analysis Professor!
I approve of this message.
SENSATIONAL!
bless this song XD
literally, me tonight, doing my hw
2:42 "Metro-Goldwyn-Moskva buys the movie rights for *six million* rubles."
A genius! And original too!
A thousand years ago, when I were but a wee lad, I discovered a FAB-U-LOUS teevee program called "That Was the Week That Was," which was largely fueled by the incomparable Dr. Lehrer. The enchantment I felt then has never worn off! I also remember an interview Scott Simon did on NPR with the Good Doctor, at the end of which Scott opined that we really needed the Doc to come back . . . and the sad response, "But nothing's funny anymore . . . ." The greatest singing satirist in American history . . . .
amazing song..
Happy 90th, Prof Lehrer!
I am studiyng in a university named after Lobachevsky himself and was quite shocked and a little bit offended when I found this song.
Eh, anyway, not like I'm making my works here in any other way than described....
It is sobering to consider, by the time Nicolai Ivanovich Lobaschvsey was my age, he had been dead for two years!
Likewise Franklin Roosevelt.
Thanks, Tom, for teaching us to gauge our life achievements by this metric.
By the way, next year I'll be using Lee J. Cobb and Slim Pickens for comparison.
ruclips.net/video/QL6KgbrGSKQ/видео.html
Perfect captions!
isn't the "locally euclidean metrization" unnecessary because that's just riemannian manifold??
Sung Hyun Lim The more words the better, it pads the length of the paper :)
Bojemoi!
+Sung Hyun Lim The character in the song probably wouldn't be able to tell... "this, I know from nothing"
+rocklandrez Exactly!
A manifold has a locally Euclidean topology, and a Riemannian manifold has a metric, but that metric need not locally Euclidean. It could, for instance, be hyperbolic.
How infinitely delightful!
OY!!!
EXCELLENT~!
Thank you uquiz user Tea!!!! ❤
First time I am hearing this song. I had a record of many Lehrer songs. This one was not included.
2:32: Once upon a time, there lived a king, when a flea lived?
look up Goethe's Faust.
"Extreme learning Machines" brought me here
Waaait, so Izvesia basically said the book is only good for toilet paper?
If it doesn’t stink, it will soon.
slav scientists invented memes 60 years ago
WOW!!!... that is GOLD!!!
Will use this advice in my Math EE, especially in my "research". ibgang4life
Love this man
Brilliant song! Haven't heard it in decades! ... I'd love to know what some of the Russian comments mean.
This is great
@Quenchcar повезло вам дюже - знать мирового корифея. завидую
а к чему про него?
а вообще, - пожалуй соглашусь. немцы ещё во времена раздробленности своих государств очень плотно взялись за проблему своего образования и это дало очень сочные плоды культурного подъёма.
:) the best! great guy!
2:38 "I go wherever the czar goes"
TnseWlms
Or “I go where [even] the czar walks” - the shitter
the anthem of all schools
Excellent work getting the russian, too!
PetroPavlovsk rename rebrending red frend - ( Kzil Jar)
1:56 love that part where it is literally just hungarian rhapsody no. 2 (it wasn't even russian)
I will teach this to my students. :)
I am here because of Mr. D.W. Thank you Mr D.W. But most importantly thank you Lobachevsky.
Damien Tageddine who's D.W., btw?
These lyrics make the song all the better
Yes, Mr. Leher's song resembles Kaye's too closely to be an accident. I assumed that was the joke. :V
That's actually the point. One of the other recordings, of him live, has him explain that this song was actually INSPIRED BY Stanislavsky.
That's actually the point. One of the other recordings, of him live, has him explain that this song was actually INSPIRED BY Stanislavsky.
Yeah, this song is a parody of Kaye's.
Given that it's a song about plagarism, and the sheer amount of completely original music he made over the years, I'll bet that making it so derivative of Stanislavsky is a bonus joke...
It was, in his concert recording version, he acknowleges he stol-"adapted" it from "Stanislavsky".
I am never forget the day
I first meet the great Lobachevsky
In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics:
Plagiarize
Plagiarize
Let no one else's work evade your eyes
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes
So don't shade your eyes
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize
Only be sure always to call it please 'research'
He is a genius
Lobachevsky by Tom Lehrer ~ Introduction and Lyrics
For many years now, Mr. Danny Kaye, who has been my particular
Idol since childbirth, has been doing a routine about the great
Russian director Stanislavsky and the secret of success in the
Acting profession. And I thought it would be interesting to st...
To adapt this idea to the field of mathematics. I always like to
Make explicit the fact that before I went off not too long ago to
Fight in the trenches, I was a mathematician by profession. I don't
Like people to get the idea that I have to do this for a living.
I mean, it isn't as though I had to do this, you know, I could be
Making, oh, 3000 dollars a year just teaching.
Be that as it may, some of you may have had occasion to run into
Mathematicians and to wonder therefore how they got that way,
And here, in partial explanation perhaps, is the story of the
Great Russian mathematician Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky:
Who made me the genius I am today
The mathematician that others all quote
Who's the professor that made me that way?
The greatest that ever got chalk on his coat
One man deserves the credit
One man deserves the blame
And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name
Hi!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobach-
I am never forget the day I first meet the great
Lobachevsky. In one word he told me secret of success in
Mathematics: Plagiarize!
Plagiarize
Let no one else's work evade your eyes
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes
So don't shade your eyes
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize -
Only be sure always to call it please 'Research'
And ever since I meet this man
My life is not the same
And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name
Hi!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobach-
I am never forget the day I am given first
Original paper to write. It was on analytic and algebraic
Topology of locally Euclidean parameterization of
Infinitely differentiable Riemannian manifold.
Bozhe moi!
This I know from nothing. But I think of great
Lobachevsky and get idea - ahah!
I have a friend in Minsk
Who has a friend in Pinsk
Whose friend in Omsk
Has friend in Tomsk
With friend in Akmolinsk
His friend in Alexandrovsk
Has friend in Petropavlovsk
Whose friend somehow
Is solving now
The problem in Dnepropetrovsk
And when his work is done -
Ha ha! - begins the fun
From Dnepropetrovsk
To Petropavlovsk
By way of Iliysk
And Novorossiysk
To Alexandrovsk to Akmolinsk
To Tomsk to Omsk
To Pinsk to Minsk
To me the news will run,
Yes, to me the news will run!
And then I write
By morning, night
And afternoon
And pretty soon
My name in Dnepropetrovsk is cursed
When he finds out I publish first!
And who made me a big success
And brought me wealth and fame?
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name
Hi!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobach -
I am never forget the day my first book is published.
Every chapter I stole from somewhere else.
Index I copy from old Vladivostok telephone directory.
This book was sensational!
Pravda - well, Pravda - Pravda said: (Russian double-talk)
It stinks.
But Izvestia! Izvestia said: (Russian double-talk)
It stinks.
Metro-Goldwyn-Moskva buys movie rights for six million rubles,
Changing title to "The Eternal Triangle,"
With Brigitte Bardot playing part of hypotenuse.
And who deserves the credit?
And who deserves the blame?
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name
Hi!
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriter: Tom Lehrer
James Somerton moment
"This... tsk... I know from nothing" LOOOOL
Happy birthday, Tom!
I'm going to learn what the newspapers said about his book!
Big deal. What he sings about is well known in corporate America as business etiquette.
I just translated what Pravda said. This is what it is:
Once upon a time, there was a king who lived with him.
LOL!!🤣
It is _"Once upon a time there was a king and a flea lived on him"._ The Izvestia however were much more straightforward and said _"I am going to where even the Tsar walks on his own feet",_ which means the toilet
Does anyone know where to find the score? The book "Too many songs by Tom Lehrer" lists it in its index but when you go there it just has the lyrics...
+David Sevilla Just copy a different song and change the title...
+David Sevilla "The piano player is encouraged to embrace the song's central theme when playing. . ." Yeah, just stick a recording of this song in the background and pretend to play.
Oh geez speaking as an ex-international athlete, I've actually met people who talk this way. Hilarious!
If anyone is interested in the whole lobachevsky story you can read it here: www.storyofmathematics.com/19th_bolyai.html
Does anyone know what the "it stinks" bits translate into exactly?
There was no Russian version of "it stinks." That was a comment to what Pravda and Izvetstiya published.
Brilliant.
Tom Lear makes me laugh :-)
To Wolodymir Medinsky, minister of Culture in RF.
NIKOLEI INVANA VICHVOLAVESCY WOOOOOOOOOOO It's what it sounds like.
@Quenchcar нет, но это очень популярная тема для шуток среди несведущих в математике людей.
There is an irony that of the songs to copy he picked the one about plagiarism
So I can see nobody is going to address that cute ass *OY*
Ingrid Bergman as the hypotenuse...
Lolol
Handsome funny genius.