Perhaps Pythagoras was the first to meld music and science. Perhaps not. But one can easily imagine that Aristophanes, the great comic playwright, might have written a passable Pythagorean parody for any classical Greek chorus to stand and deliver. Today, many are the undergraduate and graduate students who try their hand at the time-honored enterprise of devising new lyrics to well-known melodies. Fewer are those who devise new melodies as well. And not just students take up the challenge.
On these pages, we present a mixed bag of songs that span nearly 100 years. Making the selections was difficult given the plethora of material. But whether they were written to entertain, to teach, to vent, to honor, or just to have fun, we hope you will enjoy our choices.
Next to some of the songs that follow, you will also see large icons signaling that recordings are available on our...
