Get all 14 Ensonglopedia releases available on Bandcamp and save 50%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Ensonglopedia of the Human, Nature Under Lock(down) and Key(change), Ensonglopedia of British History, Ensonglopedia of Plants, Ensonglopedia of Animals, Ensonglopedia of Science, The Element in the Room: A Radioactive Musical Comedy about the Death and Life of Marie Curie, Albert Einstein: Relativitively Speaking, and 6 more.
1. |
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Ja, you’d better come prepared
This is MC Squared
Here to tell you about a preposterous fact
That’s gonna make you scared
Ich bin the crazy-haired rapper who has dared to declare
That the E is the M to the C to the square.
This is energy-mass equivalence –
There’s no ambivalence –
It’s an inevitable inference once you’ve cancelled out the dividends.
I’ll set the world aflame with my outrageous claim:
Energy and mass are one and the same.
I’m gonna give reality a brand new face,
Gonna communicate my case, gonna prove it to be true.
I’m gonna lay before you a theory of space…
Und it’s about time too.
Now when I say ‘E’, y’all give me east-side
Copy me, that’s these three fingers held wide.
Now ‘E’ stands for ‘energy’, commit this to your memory.
Your left hand gives an equals sign, exactly as it’s meant to be.
When I say ‘M’, keep your fingers as before
But let your wrist flop, flip the tips to the floor.
Now ‘M’ stands for ‘mass’, be it solid, liquid, gas.
Yo, break down, and let me see you give it hardcore.
(That was a cue for you all to do some break-dancing, ja? Nein? Oh well.)
Now when I say ‘C’, y’all gimme this sign.
‘C’s the constant speed of light, over two nine nine
Million metres every second, so the scientists have reckoned.
Let’s rewind to recap how those letters combine.
E equals M to the C ja.
Gimme E equals M to the C, everybody now:
E equals M to the C ja.
Gimme E equals M to the C.
Okay! One more symbol, it’s incredibly simple,
Stick two fingers up, like peace to the people,
Hold it high up in the sky, make it superscripted. Why?
‘Cos it’s itself that the speed of light is multiplied by.
E equals M to the C squared,
Gimme E equals M C squared, everybody now,
E equals M to the C squared.
Gimme E equals M C squared.
For Schnitzel my nitzel.
But so what if the E is M C to the peace?
What species of beast is this algebraic centrepiece?
What knowledge does it increase? What truths does it release?
What’s the significance of equivalence? These questions I’ll appease.
Matter…is frozen…energy. I’ll say that again:
Matter…is frozen…energy. Just think about it, cos if
Matter…is frozen…energy, then even the tiniest morsel of
Matter’s potentially the biggest energy source that our century’s yet to see.
For example, even the tiniest grain of sand,
Tiny enough to get lost in your hand,
Has enough frozen energy locked in its core
To boil two billion kettles or more.
I’m gonna give reality a brand new face,
Gonna communicate my case, gonna prove it to be true,
I’m gonna lay before you a theory of space…
And it’s about time too.
Okay one final chorus!
E equals M to the C squared
Gimme E equals M C squared, everybody now
E equals M to the C squared
Gimme E equals M C squared, fo’ schnitzel!
E equals M to the C squared
Gimme E equals M C squared, one final time
E equals M to the C squared
Gimme E… equals M… C… squared, yeah!
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2. |
Not The USA
02:32
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It is highly pleasurable, I have to say,
To be offered the fine distinction (piano accompaniment joins in)
Of such a warm reception to the USA
And a professorship and Princeton
University
How can you be so good to me?
It’s really disturbing
I’m quite undeserving
Of such a generous salary.
I know there’s some of you out there who thought you’d never convince me to take up this position.
People said I should not come
They said this part of the world was glum
They said “Choose Paris or London
But not the USA!”
Hey!
They said that I should steer well clear
They said there is no science here
My joie de vivre would disappear
And I’d grow old and grey.
But I said, “It’s an offer I cannot pass!
I won’t have to teach a single class!
And the pay will easily surpass
My dreams – I’ve got to take it!
To turn that down would be really dumb,
Plus this way my distance from
Those horrid fascist Nazi scum
Is as far as I can make it.
Still people said “No, don’t go there!
It would be more than you can bear.
Choose Asia, Australasia, anywhere
But not the USA!
Hey!
Take heed!” my trusted peer group hollars,
“You don’t need their wads of stinky dollars,
They don’t deserve such high-class scholars
They’ll drive you to dismay.”
God knows there are those
Who will readily suppose
That the best work of my life is behind me,
That to hire an old fart like this
Really takes the piss
And I’m not up to the task you have assigned me.
To that I say, you could be right.
My work now may be tired and trite.
But hey, I’ve answered your invite.
So deal with it, you’ve bought me.
And I have severed all my ties
With Germany, since the Führer’s rise,
That grease-haired bigot I despise,
So please do not deport me.
They said “You don’t want to be in America
‘Cos you’ll be bored in the USA
Don’t wanna be a part of it
New York, New York,
So pretty soon you’ll be cursin’, cursin’ USA
Don’t wanna be an American idiot.
But still I chose the USA
Hurray!
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3. |
The Algebra Monster
02:52
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Evoke wonder in the younger generation
Inspire awe in nature’s law before adolescence slams the door
Make them marvel at life’s miracles
Theoretical and empirical
And don’t let them think for a moment anything you teach them’s gonna be a bore.
As a rule,
Most people, when taught algebra at school,
Are told they’ll find it difficult,
That their lack of understanding’s typical,
And that enjoying it is über über uncool.
Whereas I was told that I was on a bold
Adventure to capture an elusive creature
Which we called x, and the aim of the game
Was to force it to reveal its secret name.
Aged six,
When I was always up to naughty tricks,
My father, to stop my rumpus,
Showed to me a compass,
And that compass had me totally transfixed.
I twisted and turned, and my young mind yearned
To know how the needle knew which way was North
Its mystical powers had me spellbound for hours
And I was hooked on books on facts thenceforth
Aged sixteen
I was prone to daydream.
I imagined I was flying alongside a light beam.
And I pondered with feelings of wonderment, awe and unease
Could light beams such as these
Merely slow down and freeze
As your own speed increases to match its velocity?
Such crazy hypotheses
Are quite prone to displease
Even though they follow inexorably from the decrees
Of Newtonian laws
But could those laws have flaws?
Are there any theories
Whose conclusion agrees
With the stacks of observable facts and with analyses
Of imagined scenarios such as those
Seen fleetingly as I daydream about a light beam and its possibilities?
If you evoke wonder in the younger generation
And inspire awe forever more before adolescence slams the door
If you make them marvel at life’s miracles
Theoretical and empirical
And you don’t let them think for a moment anything you teach them’s gonna be a bore
Then one day eventually your little baby may be able to uncover nature’s law.
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4. |
Letter To Franklin
02:25
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Dear Mr President,
Lord knows I’ve never been an advocate for war
But if it’s war then it’s a war like none we’ve seen before
This is a threat that we simply can’t ignore
And that is why I’m writing to implore you Franklin
You’d better build a bomb.
In papers that have been communicated to me
I can see there’s a very real possibility
Of setting up a nuclear chain reaction
With clear applications in military action
And if the Nazis got there first
Then that would really be the worst
In fact I’ve heard they’ve stopped exporting
Uranium from Czechoslovakia, supporting
My fear that they’re on to this as well
In which case we can all just kiss farewell
To any chance that we’ll ever win the war
‘Cos if it’s war then it’s a war like none we’ve seen before
This is a threat that we simply can’t ignore
And that is why I’m writing to implore you Franklin
You’d better build a bomb.
Yours very truly,
Albert Einstein, August 2nd, 1939.
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5. |
Wife Song Für Elsa
00:46
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BOTH: And hey so [A: I; E: you] may not be able to claim that [A: I am; E: you are] the first man that [A: you’ve; E: I’ve] married,
And hey so I may love my cousin, but who doesn’t? Come [A: Elsa; E: Albert], too long we have tarried.
ALBERT: You were born an Einstein,
ELSA: And I shall be an Einstein again.
BOTH: The curvature of space-time has altered our trajectory to bring you back to me.
You put the relative in relativity…
ALBERT: Quite literally.
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6. |
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On August 6th, 1945
Slightly less than two pounds of uranium 235
Destroyed the beautiful city of Hiroshima, and left barely a man, woman or child alive.
Just 3 days and 3 hours later
A bomb whose explosive yield was five kilotons greater
Reduced the beautiful city of Nagasaki to nothing but a big bomb crater.
It started with a radioactive core above a critical mass
In which a neutron headed straight for an atom, and alas,
Unrepelled by the nucleus’s positive charge
It split that atom into two, each one half as large,
And because those atoms had neutrons to spare
They sent them spinning off to collide with other atoms elsewhere.
An uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction had begun,
10,000 times hotter than the surface of the sun.
200,000 souls; 200,000 souls; 200,000 souls; 200,000 souls.
Within a mile-wide blast radius destruction’s absolute,
The pressure-wave incinerating all the people on its route
And after that initial shock the fire-storm will start
And tear the flesh of untold other men and women clean apart.
And those who happen to be placed a little further away
Will suffer radiation sickness and be subject to decay,
Mutation, cancer, cataracts, sterility and disease,
Not to mention all the damage to the land and to the seas.
200,000 souls; 200,000 souls; 200,000 souls; 200,000 souls.
It started with a simple equation
Stating a simple relation
Which has been true but hidden from view since the dawning of creation,
And so I now offer confession:
It was my algebraic expression
Which opened the door to a new kind of war and the ultimate act of aggression
The firing of a radioactive core above a critical mass
In which a neutron headed straight for an atom, and alas,
Unrepelled by the nucleus’s positive charge
It split that atom into two, each one half as large,
And because those atoms had neutrons to spare
They sent them spinning off to collide with other atoms elsewhere.
An uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction had begun,
10,000 times hotter than the surface of the sun.
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7. |
||||
Ja you’d better come prepared
This is MC Squared
Here to tell you about a preposterous fact
That’s gonna make you scared
Ich bin the crazy-haired rapper who has dared to declare
That the E is the M to the C to the square.
Ja this is energy-mass equivalence
There’s no ambivalence
It’s an inevitable inference once you’ve cancelled out the dividends.
I’ll set the world aflame with my outrageous claim:
Energy and mass are one and the same.
I’m gonna give reality a brand new face
Gonna communicate my case, gonna prove it to be true,
I’m gonna lay before you a theory of space…
Und it’s about time too.
Now when I say ‘E’, y’all give me east-side
Copy me, that’s these three fingers held wide.
Now ‘E’ stands for ‘energy’, commit this to your memory.
Your left hand makes an equals sign, exactly as it’s meant to be.
When I say ‘M’, keep your fingers as before
But let your wrist flop, flip the tips to the floor.
Now ‘M’ stands for ‘mass’, be it solid, liquid, gas
Yo, break down, and let me see you give it hardcore.
That was a cue for you all to do some break-dancing, ja? Nein? Oh well.
Now when I say ‘C’, y’all gimme this sign
‘C’s the constant speed of light, over two nine nine
Million metres every second, so the scientists have reckoned.
Let’s rewind to recap how those letters combine.
That’s E equals M to the C ja.
Gimme E equals M to the C, let me hear ya now
E equals M to the C ja.
Gimme E… M… C.
One more symbol, it’s incredibly simple
Stick two fingers up, like peace to the people
Hold it high up in the sky, make it superscripted. Why?
‘Cos that says it’s itself that the speed of light gets multiplied by.
That’s E equals M to the C squared,
Gimme E equals M C squared, wave those fingers at me,
E equals M to the C squared.
That’s E equals M C squared.
For Schnitzel my nitzel. Okay, you have one more chance to do that perfectly later, so prepare yourselves.
But so what if the E is M C to the peace?
What species of beast is this algebraic centrepiece?
What knowledge does it increase? What truths does it release?
What’s the significance of equivalence? These questions I’ll appease.
Matter…is frozen…energy. I’ll say that one more time:
Matter…is frozen…energy. Just think about it, cos if
Matter…is frozen…energy, then even the tiniest morsel of
Matter’s potentially the biggest energy source that our century’s yet to see.
For example, even the tiniest grain of sand
Tiny enough to get lost in your hand
Has enough frozen energy locked in its core
To boil two billion kettles or more
I’m gonna give reality a brand new face
Gonna communicate my case, gonna prove it to be true,
I’m gonna lay before you a theory of space…
And it’s about time too.
Okay now everybody this time!
E equals M to the C squared
That’s E equals M C squared, be prepared
Gimme E equals M to the…
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