Resistant to Base!

An organic chemistry-themed music video parodying Robert Palmer's 1985 "Addicted to Love."

Shot on Canon XL-1s (MiniDV) w/ Canon XL 5.5-88mm IS II 16X lens. Edited on Sony Vegas HD 6.

***LYRICS***
Your lights are on, but you're not home
You're in the lab, working alone.
Your synthesis is nearly done
Just add a chain to that carbon.

You can't wait to alkylate
But first you must deprotonate
You add a mole of LDA
To overcome that pKa

Whoa, you like to think it will react with the stuff, oh yeah
It's closer to the truth to say you can't add enough
You know you're gonna have to face it, it's resistant to base.

You check pH, it's past fourteen
Your stirring bar is dissolving
The TLC shows no products
Another mole and then reflux!

With LDA, it won't react
Butyllithium just might abstract
That hydrogen that won't obey
Le Chatelier's communiqué

Whoa, you like to think it will react with the stuff, oh yeah
It's closer to the truth to say you can't add enough
You know you're gonna have to face it, it's resistant to base.

REFRAIN
Might as well face it, it's resistant to base. (x5)

Your potassium t-butoxide
And ammonium hydroxide
Your KOH and hydrazine
Push the pH beyond eighteen

REFRAIN

Category:

Comedy

Tags:

• organic
• chemistry
• music
• video
• ochem
• robert
• palmer
• addicted
• to
• love
• resistant
• base
• spoof
• parody

[bonfire5555]

haha my o-chem prof sent my class this one (class of 2012 at A&M). wonder if any other of my classmates checked this out

[scottkj]

@bonfire5555 I assume that's Bergbreiter?

[brad123451234512345]

isnt koh and hydrazine used as a reduction technique in basic media

[scottkj]

Yes, the Wolff-Kishner reaction.

[tharock220]

I put myself through 2 semesters of orgo, and got B's and I didn't get into pharmacy school. I want to cry, but this video is awesome.

[scottkj]

I also got Bs both semesters.

[cddiazo]

Hahahaha... it's very good, the best is that we (the chemists) are so crazy, that only we can understand this thing... It's so natural to us the pKa, the alkylation, LDA, hydrazine, KOH, all of that... God bless Chemistry

[Bullsfan9820]

LOL "your stirring bar is dissolving"

[ff8masterc]

@gksrn Or at the very least a chemistry undergrad chemist like myself. Ugh column chromatography >.>

[autumnbeauty104]

I took organic chem in 2006/2007, and love this video!!! I work in a chem lab now and I find myself singing this version, and I don't really even know the words to the original anymore :P

[FalconX88]

@gksrn Try work with sugars, you have to alkylate up to 5 OH groups:-P

[gksrn]

OMG I am trying to alkylate 3 OH groups that are in one molecule... tried potassium t-butoxide KOH and so on.... and it is really hard to all OH groups... TLC shows lots of impurity and have to be columned at least twice (Even after 2 column NMR is still OFF !! )

If you can understand that you are chem nerd

[celibate44]

Superb... creative, a work of genius. "...push the pH past 18" I just love it!

[jpdemers]

@scottkj: If it is, tell him "Bug" (Bock's undergraduate) says hello.

[nateritwo]

Wow, That was so well done. I'm impressed.

[mehdan2]

@bergyblue

how do you know...unless u know him personally

[bergyblue]

Hey Scott..RIP