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Subterranean Homesick Blues - Archimedean Homesick Blues

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For Dylan Song Tribute Poetry Contest sponsored by Oliver Mckeithan

This poem, which is loaded with math terms, is to be sung to the tune of Subterranean Homesick Blues.  What was I thinking?  

Johnny’s in the basement
Working on geometry
You’ll see my intent
A theorem in development
Presh is on the website 
Hit pause, scratch head
Trick problem, misled 
Try another approach instead
Look out kid
Better check it again
God knows man
Another paper in the trash can
You better try trigonometry 
Lookin’ for a new way 
The man with an isomorphic map 
and a toupee 
Wants eleven equations    
You only got ten 

Maggie writes chicken scratch
Paper full of cross hatch 
Says she wants to attach
You better detach
You can’t find the hypotenuse
Maggie says you gotta use 
Pythagoras or you lose
But the angle is obtuse 
Look out mate
This spheroid’s oblate 
Get on the rack
This nut won’t crack
Better get back from the ledge
With a compass and a straight edge
No primes, God knows,
Can decompose 
You don’t need Terrence Tao
Can’t square a circle nohow 

Add y, add x
See the roots are complex 
Closed loop, subgroup
You need to jump through another hoop
Let’s see, try three
Take five, relax
Eat snacks, do tax
If you should fail, take an ax
Look out bub
Surely you’ll flub
By blunders, errors
Five-choose-two-sers 
And logical abusers
Girl with a slide rule 
Lookin’ like an old fool
Don’t copy Euler 
Get yourself a lawyer

Ah add four, add five
It rhymes, it’s prime, then derive 
One two, buckle your shoe
It’s one-to-one and onto 
Square here, cube there, eggs poach
Twenty years of schoolin’
And you’re workin’ on a roach coach
Look here Jack
This nut still won’t crack
Break your hands accidental
Use a tail prehensile 
Be inferential
You’ll find it’s exponential 
You’re gonna have a fit 
You’ll never solve it 
Ken Chesebro says
‘Cause Mike Pence’ll take your pencil

Copyright © | Year Posted 2024




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Date: 6/19/2025 7:32:00 PM
I read this before Dave and enjoyed it the first time as well. Like the way you tied in math and the song. Well done and congrats on your placement in my contest
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David Crandall
Date: 6/19/2025 7:35:00 PM
Thanks Oliver. There were a lot of great poems coming out of this contest!
Date: 1/14/2025 9:38:00 PM
I also wrote a poem A Tribute to Robert Zimmerman a pantoum earlier on this site.
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David Crandall
Date: 1/14/2025 9:53:00 PM
I'll check it out
Date: 1/14/2025 8:55:00 PM
Excellent!!! Am a big Dylan fan!!! This is great. I was singing right along although math wasnt big for me in school. I was lost in geometry especially, trying to do proofs. I am a retired pharmacist, perhaps I will try a Dylan song or maybe Mothers Little Helper by the Stones.
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David Crandall
Date: 1/14/2025 9:53:00 PM
It was a lot of fun to try to match the rhyme patterns, somewhat, but hard. I love listening to music, but I don't know how to make it.
Date: 5/2/2024 3:46:00 AM
That’s a classic. Dylan would be proud of that and you should be too. What I know about maths you could write on a stamp but I know a good piece of writing when I see it. Cheers.
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David Crandall
Date: 5/2/2024 7:51:00 AM
Thanks Keith, great song. Writing alternate words made me appreciate it even more.

Book: Reflection on the Important Things