Chords for Tom Lehrer: Lobachevsky (concert live) (1960)

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [C] _ _ _ [Bb] _ I announce that Danny Kay, who [N] has been my particular idol since childbirth, has been doing a routine
_ _ _ _ _ [B]
a routine about the great [A] Russian director Stanislavski and the secret of success in [E] the acting profession.
And I thought it would be interesting to adapt this idea to the [N] _ _ _ _ field of mathematics.
I always like to make [Ab] explicit the fact that before I went off not too long ago to fight in the trenches,
[N] 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, $3,000 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. _ _ _ _ _ _
Here, in partial explanation, perhaps, is the story of the great Russian mathematician Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky.
[Am] _ _ [Dm] _
_ [E] _ _ [Am] _ _ Who made me the genius I am today?
The mathematician that others all quote.
Who's the [E] professor that made me that way?
The greatest that ever got chalk on his coat.
[Am] One man deserves the credit.
One man deserves the blame.
And Nikolai Ivanovich [E] Lobachevsky is his [Am] name.
Hey, Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky.
I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky.
In one word, he told me secret of success in mathematics.
_ Plagiarize. _ _
[Am] _ Plagiarize.
Let no one [Dm] else's work evade your eyes.
Remember why [E] the good Lord made your eyes.
So don't shade your eyes, [Dm] but plagiarize, [E] plagiarize, [A] plagiarize.
Only be sure [E] always to call it, please, research.
_ _ [Am] And ever since I meet this man, my life is not the same.
And Nikolai [E] Ivanovich Lobachevsky [Am] is his name.
I _ _ _ [N]
am never forget the day I am given first original paper to write.
It was on analytic and algebraic topology of locally Euclidean metrization of infinitely differentiable Riemannian manifold.
Boshamoy. _ _
_ This I know from nothing.
[Bb]
But [Am] I think of great Lobachevsky and I get [G] idea. _
I [C] have a friend in Minsk who has a [C] friend in Finsk.
[G] Whose friend in Omsk has friend in Tomsk with friend in Akhmolinsk.
His friend in Aleksandrovsk [C] has friend in Petropavlovsk.
Whose [G] friend somehow is solving now the problem [C] in Dnepropetrovsk.
And when his work is [G] done, haha, [G] begins the fun.
From Dnepropetrovsk to Petropavlovsk, by way of Ilyich Novorossiysk,
to [C] Aleksandrovsk, to Akhmolinsk, [G] to Tomsk, to Omsk, to Pinsk, to [D] Minsk.
To me the [G] news will run.
Yes, to [D] me the news will run.
_ _ And _ _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ pretty [G] soon my name in Dnepropetrovsk is cursed.
[C] When he finds out I publish first.
[E] _ [Am] And who made me a big success and brought me wealth and fame.
Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Hey, Nikolai Ivanovich [E] Lobachevsky.
I never forget the day my first book is published.
_ Every chapter I stole from somewhere else.
_ _ Index I copied from old Vladivostok [N] telephone directory.
_ _ _ This book was sensational.
Правда, правда, правда,
said Jill Bill Kerouli, когда отерпринем плохожила.
It stinks.
_ _ [F] But Известия.
Известия, said я иду куда санцарий дьют пешком.
It stinks.
_ _ Metro-Goldwyn-Moscow _
bought the movie rights for 6 million rubles,
changing title to The Eternal Triangle, _ _
with Brigitte Bardot playing part of [E] Sly Pothenius.
_ [Am] And who _ deserves the blame?
Nikolai [E] Ivanovich Lobachevsky [Am] is his name.
[Dm] _ _ [E] _ [Am] Hey! _ _
_ _ [G] _ [F] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Am] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [F] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _