From the recording Family Portraits (Volume 3)
One of my (favourite!) American cousins is a physical chemist. She does impressive work on batteries -- the kind that make electric cars drive. She is married to another physical chemist, whom I also like enormously. He is the safety guy at the hadron collider at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA. He gave me a tour once -- most impressive!
Somewhat naughtily, I imagine this song almost as pillow talk between them. I imagine physical chemists to be very empirical people -- science all the way. So what do they make of love?
This is my love song to these two lovebirds.
Lyrics
Chemistry
Oh why is life
Such a surprise?
When the answer and the prize
At the bottom of the mystery
Is so clearly chemistry?
The periodic table’s unstable
Add electricity
Or heat
The big bang booms
Across the room
Measured in entropy
Sparks
Fly between us
You and me
We have chemistry
We are made up
Of the same stuff
We’re space dust
Elementally
Oh love,
Where do you fit in this scheme?
Alchemy or chemistry?
Pheromones or love potions
Or something else entirely?
Solids and liquids, invisible gases
All have mass
And that’s what matters
Molecules and atoms dance and scatter
In an alchemy of love
Sparks
Fly between us
You and me
We have chemistry
We are made up
Of the same stuff
We’re space dust
Elementally
Our bodies contain eleven elements
Arranged
In such a way
To imply
Design or the accident of life?
Sparks
Fly between us
You and me
We have chemistry
We are made up
Of the same stuff
We’re space dust
Elementally
Sparks
Fly between us
You and me
We have chemistry
We are made up
Of the same stuff
We’re space dust
Elementally