This lyric written, performed, and recorded in 2018 by Larry Lesser (The University of Texas at El Paso) won honorable mention in the 2019 A-mu-sing contest. The song helps launch learning about permutations by showing how many ways n distinct objects can be ordered for the first non-trivial case (n = 3), modelling the systematic strategy of listing orderings in alphabetical order to make sure none are missed. (Before using the song, students can be asked for their prediction – many will say 3 or 9 instead of 6. After using the song, students can be asked to find the answer for n = 4, which is just small enough to generate by hand.) The song also introduces vocabulary (“order”, “permuted”, “sort”) commonly used in this context.
