"Ionic"
words by Brad Detlefsen and friends from Notre Dame to the tune
of Alanis
Morissette's "Ironic"

Uranium, mass two thirty-eight
Strangely decayed too Potassium Chromate.
It's a black fly in your acetate.
It's a Fluorocarbon.  Oh, no.  It's too late...
Isn't it ionic...don't you think?

CHORUS:
It's acid rain on your wedding cake.
It's the covalent bonds that are so hard to break.
It's Sodium Chloride that did not precipitate.
Who would've thought...significant figures.

Some element is number sixty five.
It's not a halogen, but a Lanthanide.
It is found naturally as a white oxide.
And when Mosander found Terbium he thought
"Well isn't this nice..."
Isn't it ionic...don't you think?

REPEAT CHORUS

Well ice has a funny way of melting down on you
When you think entropy's okay and enthalpy's going right.
Well lead has a funny way of protecting you when
You think an x-ray's gone wrong and everything blows up in you
face.

An atomic mass or a nuclear weight?
No catalyst increased the reaction rate.
It's like degrees Celsius when all you need is Fahrenheit.
It's finding Carbon-14,
And then forgetting it's half-life.
Isn't it ionic...don't you think?
A little too ionic...and yeah I really do think...

REPEAT CHORUS

Americium has a funny way of breaking down on you.
Light is a funny, funny wave:  The photoelectric effect.
The photoelectric effect.