Irish folk meets particle physics

By Matin Durrani

The guys who in 2008 came up with the annoyingly catchy “There’s no-one as Irish as Barack O’Bama” – more than a million hits on YouTube and counting – have re-recorded their song with new lyrics describing the latest mystery in particle physics.

Jumping on the huge interest in claims that neutrinos may travel faster than light, the musicians, known as the Corrigan Brothers and featuring someone called Pete Creighton, have called their new version simply “The neutrino song”.

The song’s not bad if cheesy synths and breezy pop are your thing, although it does that awful thing of going up a key near the end, which is a pet hate of mine.

But as I’ve learned to expect from a string of recent physics-meets-pop disasters, it’s the lyrics that will make your toes curl up.

I won’t spoil the lyrics by reprinting them here in full except to warn you of what is possibly the worst rhyme ever in the history of physics:

Now physics for ever may not be the same
And boffins are gonna be driven insane
If light’s not the fastest
What can this mean-o
And is something faster than the neutrino.