I’M STILL BONDING
The Ballad of Magnesium Chloride - based on "I’m Still Standing"
Original words and music by Bernie Taupin and Elton John
MAGNESIUM (to the audience)
You can never trust halogens -
They pull electrons off time and again,
And what you lose, they gain in negativity,
So you’re stuck to their opposing charge electrostatically.
CHLORINE (to Magnesium)
Quit the whingeing, let me be reduced -
Us oxidants have got a job to do:
I need one more electron for my outer shell -
If you’re reducing me, you’re bound to end up oxidised yourself.
ONE OF THE CHLORIDE IONS (having run off with Magnesium’s electrons)
Don’t you know I’m still bonding - your electrons I’ve acquired -
Looking well and truly minus, feeling like a right halide,
Oh I’m still bonding - I’ve been reduced to
Nicking the electrons off the metals in Groups I and II,
I’m still bonding - yeah yeah yeah!
I’m still bonding - yeah yeah yeah!
MAGNESIUM ION (to the Chloride Ions)
So I’m oxidised and you’re reduced:
I gave my outer shell electrons up to you;
But I’m not big, and I’m charged quite highly -
So your electron cloud’s distorted, and now it’s pulled to me.
Don’t you know I’m still bonding - I had electrons to give -
Looking like a true cation, feeling really positive;
Oh I’m still bonding now that I’ve been through
Losing my electrons to the oxidising likes of you,
I’m still bonding - yeah yeah yeah!
I’m still bonding - yeah yeah yeah!
(instrumental bit during which the other chloride ion joins in and they all link arms and dance about a bit)
ALL TOGETHER (now doing a sort of ionically-bonded can-can)
Don’t you know we’re still bonding - if a bit covalently -
Looking not quite heteropolar, joined electrovalently;
Oh we’re still bonding exothermically,
Forming an ionic solid of high lattice enthalpy,
We’re still bonding - yeah yeah yeah!
We’re still bonding - yeah yeah yeah!
(And they all waltz off.)
© Aimee Hartnell, September 2000