Chuck Smeeton
Chuck Smeeton is Chief Operating Officer of the Royal Institution of Australia.
It’s that time of year where we start looking for a bit of fun. With that in mind, we present our first crack at a Periodic Playlist: songs that feature the elements in their titles. There are indeed a lot of gaps to fill in – unless you are a fan of EDM music where you can just about fill everything. It indeed seems that EDM producers have a penchant for naming dance tracks after things like Polonium.
But in the interest of keeping it a little more diverse, we tried to stick to songs with lyrics (with a couple of exceptions). And we wanted to try and keep them listenable – Frank Zappa’s The Girl In The Magnesium Dress is hard work!
So here are a couple of videos to get you in the mood, but head to our Spotify Playlist to hear this full list.
| Atomic Number | Element | Song/Artist |
| 2 | He | Helium, Sia |
| 3 | Li | Lithium, Nirvana |
| 4 | Be | Beryllium, The Jellybricks |
| 6 | C | Carbon, Tori Amos |
| 8 | O | Love Is Like Oxygen, Sweet |
| 10 | Ne | Neon, John Mayer |
| 11 | Na | Sodium Light Baby, The The |
| 13 | Al | Aluminium, Bare Naked Ladies |
| 14 | Si | Silicon, Prince |
| 17 | Cl | Petrol & Chlorine, Silverchair |
| 19 | K | Potassium, Nancy Boy |
| 22 | Ti | Titanium, David Guetta feat Sia |
| 24 | Cr | Chromium, The Church |
| 25 | Mn | Manganese, Thelonius Monk |
| 26 | Fe | Iron Man, Black Sabbath |
| 28 | Ni | On The Nickel, Tom Waits |
| 29 | Cu | Copperhead Road, Steve Earle |
| 30 | Zn | Zinc, New York Ska-Jazz Ensemble |
| 36 | Kr | Kryptonite, 3 Doors Down |
| 46 | Pd | Play Palladium, Weather Report |
| 47 | Ag | Silver Coin, Angus & Julia Stone |
| 50 | Sn | Tin Soldier, Small Faces |
| 53 | I | Iodine, Leonard Choen |
| 78 | Pt | Platinum, Miranda Lambert |
| 79 | Au | Fools Gold, Stone Roses |
| 80 | Hg | Mercury Blues, Steve Miller Band |
| 86 | Rn | Radon Balloon, Oysterhead |
| 94 | Pu | Plutonium, The Arcs |