Released 2015
Link to listen or purchase
SONG LIST
1 My Favorite Actuarial (And Statistical) Things
Parody of My Favorite Things (O Hammerstein, R Rodgers) 4:11
2 Actuaries (S Broverman) 2:59
3 I’m An Old Math Pro Parody of I’m An Old Cowhand (J Mercer)
and Hooray For Hollywood (J Mercer, R Whiting) 2:10
4 Actuarial Blues (S Broverman) 3:44
5 Let’s Estimate Parody of Let’s Fall In Love (S Cahn, T Koehler) 2:40
6 Yesterday’s Statistician Parody of Yesterday (J Lennon, P McCartney) 3:31
7 I’ve Taught Some ActSci Parody of I’ve Been Everywhere (G Mack) 2:44
8 Song Of The Actuary (S Broverman) 2:23
MUSICIANS
Sam Broverman – Vocals
Peter Hill – Piano
Jordan O’Connor – Bass
Ken Whiteley – Guitar and Vocals
PRODUCTION
Producer And Musical Director – Ken Whiteley
Executive Producer – Sam Broverman
Recorded and Mixed At Pyramid Records Studio, Toronto, December 4, 2014
Art Direction and Manufacturing – Lisa Particelli
Parody Lyrics
My Favorite Actuarial Things
Trying to find the right policy limits,
Talking to non-actuarial dimwits,
Reminding folks of their mortality,
Just a day’s work for an actuary.
Choosing assumptions to suit your conclusions,
If they’re not right, you can just pick some new ones.
Making stuff up might be necessary
To keep your job as an actuary.
Its the fourth time That I’m writing Exam MLC,
The last time I wrote it I only got 5, The time before that, a 3.
Once again missed out on summer job placement
Me and three cats living in my mom’s basement.
Why’d I decide that this field was for me?
Maybe accounting is where I should be.
Waterloo hosers/bastards suck up all the good jobs
Nothing remaining for us U of T slobs
Must be a CIA conspiracy
Willmot and Hardy are trying to screw me.
I’ll get even They’ll be sorry Just you wait and see
We’ll be a centre, if not excellence, At least mediocrity
Finding a doctor who’ll write you a sick note,
Begging for marks on the last test that you wrote,
Play online poker ’til way after three,
That’s how the students roll at U of T.
VEE credits, computer based testing,
No time for drinking and no time for resting,
But when you’re done, you’ll be happy to be
An act-sci grad with a UT degree
If you’re lucky And you work hard, If you really strive.
You might even get to your FCIA Before you reach forty-five.
I’m An Old Math Pro
I’m an old math pro, come to Toronto,
Hanging out at Fields, its the place to go.
I’ve a proof for Euclid’s fifth postulate
All the folks here think that I’m really great
‘Cause my Erdos number is twenty-eight
I think that’s pretty low, but I’ve got a few more to go.
I’m an old math pro here in Toronto,
Got my PhD sixty years ago.
Back in my day things were a lot more tough
No computers and all that fancy stuff
And my slide rule’s still plenty good enough
‘Cause one and one still is two, at least I think that’s still true.
I love the calculus, the mathematics for the rest of us,
Where ev’ry ethnic group can integrate, not discriminate,
Reimann sums for me and for you.
Where ev’ry darn fool learns l’Hopital’s rule,
And maybe even epsilons and deltas too.
Let’s all learn calculus, essential, differential calculus,
And when we’re close to the vicinty of infinity
There will be no limits for us
Another thing that’s keen’s The theorem of the mean.
Bring on that calculus.
Let’s Estimate
I have a feeling, it’s a feeling I’m concealing, I don’t know why.
It’s just a mental, incidental, sentimental alibi.
But I adore you, so strong for you.
Why go on stalling, I am falling, love is calling, why be shy?
Let’s fall in love, why shouldn’t we fall in love?
Our hearts are made of it, let’s take a chance. Why be afraid of it?
Let’s close our eyes and make our own paradise
Little we know of it, still we can try to make a go of it.
We might have been meant for each other.
To be, or not to be, let our hearts discover.
Let’s fall in love. Why shouldn’t we fall in love?
Now is the time for it, while we are young, let’s fall in love.
Let’s estimate, why shouldn’t we estimate?
Data’s inviting us, soon our techniques will be exciting us.
Let’s spend our days prioritizing with Bayes.
Life will be cheerier when we’re up close to a posterior.
Why worry about ugly data?
We’ll try fudging results so it doesn’t matta.
Let’s estimate, and if we’re not acccurate
We’ll blame the bad data we had
To estimate, it’ll be great, let’s estimate.
Yesterday
Yesterday, all the priors could be held at bay,
Structured inference held all the sway
And Bayesians had little say.
Suddenly, my best work’s a distant memory.
Every journal paper seems to be
By someone half as old as me.
It once seemed that stats was an easy field for me.
It just took two years and some bribes to get my P-H-Dee-ee.
Can it be, everybody does MCMC,
Digs a mine or plants a network tree?
That stuff is way too hard for me.
Let’s be frank, my career is really in the tank.
People say that my last paper stank,
At NSERC I don’t even rank.
And NSERC won’t give me a rank.
Once upon a time I controlled the SSC.
It’s been thirty years since I’m asked to be a referee-ee
(years since I have been asked to be a referee-ee)
Golly gee, guess I’ll soon become a retiree
They’ll be taking back my office key
And they won’t rename the lounge for me,
Hell, there goes my legacy.