Fifty Ways to Love Your Lever by Jeff “Dr Chordate” Moran

It’s not a vision in your head, she said to me,
But a machine when you have work to do simply.
I’d like to help you understand, mechanically.
There must be fifty ways to love your lever.

She said, “It’s got a fulcrum or a pivot point, you know,
Relative to the points of effort and of load,
And what is lost in force is gained in motion, so
There must me fifty ways to love your lever.”

Chorus: Just slip out the jack, Mack.
Use a pry bar, Carl.
Those pliers employ, Roy.
Just listen to me.
Work that pump, Gump.
Fill a wheel barrow, Cheryl.
Magnify the force, Doris.
And let your lever be.

She said, “There’s three kinds of levers you can use
When you’ve heavy weights to lift or motion to infuse.”
And I realized that though she had a lot of screws,
There must be fifty ways to love your lever.

In most, the fulcrum’s in between the effort and the mass,
Or at one end as in a nutcracker of brass.
Sometimes the effort’s in the middle of the task.
There must be fifty ways to love your lever.

Chorus: Just slip out the jack, Mack.
Use a pry bar, Carl.
Those pliers employ, Roy.
Just listen to me.
Work that pump, Gump.
Fill a wheel barrow, Cheryl.
Magnify the force, Doris.
And let your lever be.