grandpa's Ohio farm there was no kids around
old books and shiny stars in the sky
they moved out to L.A. school was sometimes a waste
he'd rather walk around in the woods
too clumsy for the lab this Stanford undergrad
too shaky with his hands (and so Charles Richter studied physics)
breakin' down in Palo Alto
Charles Richter got a job and a psychiatrist
eventually enrolled at Cal Tech
then Richter hit the books was chosen to assist
a well-known seismologist a guy named Harry O. Wood
when the earth quakes and the ground shakes!
the Richter scale don't stop at ten and if there is some kind of end
well the limitation is built into the earth
these granite blocks will shuffle ‘round
sea floor subducted underground for rebirth
Charles Richter was an avid nudist seismic moment absolutist
up in Altadena with his faults
tectonic plates of brittle ground
they get shoved beneath but they'll soon rebound on basalt
is there some giant fish a herd of elephants
or a humungous frog underground?
the old Mercalli scale told us a vivid tale
eyewitnesses' accounts but now we use the scale of Richter
when the earth quakes and the ground shakes!
the Richter scale don't stop at ten and if there is some kind of end
well the limitation is built into the earth
these granite blocks will shuffle ‘round
sea floor subducted underground for rebirth
Charles Richter was an avid nudist seismic moment absolutist
up in Altadena with his faults
tectonic plates of brittle ground
they get shoved beneath but they'll soon rebound on basalt

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