General

You've Got Your Models

Lyric copyright by Dennis Pearl
may sing to tune of "You've Got Your Troubles" (The Fortunes)
I see that worried look upon your face,
You've got your models, I got mine.
She's found another theory to take your place;
You've got your models, I got mine.
I too have lost my fit today,
All my outliers are too far away.
Now just like you, I sit and wonder why;
You've got your models, I got mine.
You need some assumptions, well so do I,
You've got your models, I got mine.
It used to fit the data, that I know,
And it don't seem so long ago
That we were talking, about adding blocking
The way that models do.
I too have lost my fit today,
All my outliers are too far away.
And so forgive me if I seem unkind,
You've got your models, I got mine.
(Counter: And it must seem to you, my friend
That I ain't got no pity for you,
Well, that ain't true,
You see I love that linear model, linear model, linear model.)
It might help predict another time,
You've got your models, I got mine.
You've got your models, I got mine.
You've got your models, I got mine.
Bayes! (You're the One for Me!)

Lyrics copyright by David Blackwell
May sing to the tune of "Who! [Stole my Heart Away]" (Jerome Kern)
Bayes! You're the very best,
True than all the rest,
Confidence, significance too,
I don't need them since I have you!
CHORUS: Bayes! Best of all I see,
Bayes! Right as right can be,
Bayes! You're the one for me,
Bayes! Bayes! No one but you!
Bayes! You're the very best,
Simpler than all the rest,
Just five words as clear as can be:
Post is prior times likelihood. See!
(Repeat Chorus)
Where Have All the Students Gone

Lyrics copyright by Dennis Pearl
may sing to the tune of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" (Pete Seeger)
Where have all the students gone?
They're just passing
Where have all the students gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the students gone?
Exams have tricked them every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the midterms gone?
They're just passing
Where have all the midterms gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the midterms gone?
Taken rote answers every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the answers gone?
They're just passing
Where have all the answers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the answers gone?
Soon forgotten every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where has what's forgotten gone?
They're just passing
Where has what's forgotten gone?
Long time ago
Where has what's forgotten gone?
Stayed with teachers every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the teachers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the teachers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the teachers gone?
Wanting students thinking every one
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?
I Got You Bayes

Lyric copyright by Matthew Finkelman
may sing to the tune of "I Got You Babe" (Sonny Bono and Cher)
They say that your assumptions are strong.
You have your critics, but I know you can't be wrong.
Well I don't know if your prior is true
but you got me, and Bayes-ie I got you.
Bayes, I got you Bayes, I got you Bayes . . .
Minimize average risk.
I can't stand frequentists.
When the prior's bad it might let you down,
But do not get scared Persi's always around.
You're so easy to learn, you're so easy to see
Unless you're taught from chapter 4 TPE
We'll never forget you, never at all,
at least until after we finish the quals.
I Want to Teach You Stats

Lyric by Armin Schwartzman
may sing to the tune of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (John Lennon, Paul McCartney)
Oh yeah, I'll teach you something.
I hope you'll understand.
Let's start testing something
I want to teach you Stats
I want to teach you Stats
I want to teach you Stats
Oh please, say to me
If you don't understand
And please, don't fall asleep
Just please raise your hand.
Now let me see your hand,
Come on and raise your hand.
And when I teach you, I feel happy inside.
It's such a feeling to feel smart
I can't hide, I can't hide, I can't hide.
Yeah, you, please ask something,
How much math can you stand?
Let's now estimate something
I want to teach you Stats
I want to teach you Stats
I want to teach you Stats
X-Y-Z, Theta-Pi

Lyric copyright by Armin Schwartzman and Matthew Finkelman
may sing to the tune of "Obla Di Obla Da (John Lennon, Paul McCartney)
What proof is he doing on the board today?
All I know is I don't understand.
I can't read his writing, but what can I say?
I'm much too timid and I'll never raise my hand.
x-y-z, theta-pi, class goes on, brah!
La-la-la-la, class goes on
In a couple of years they have built a theory, nice theory
with a couple of kids running in the back
the grad students doing the work.
Happy is the master that we call the prof.
Long live my superior advisor
I can't understand him, but I do my job
I'm much too timid and I'll never say a word
x-y-z, theta-pi grad school rocks, brah!
La-la-la-la, grad school rocks!
And if you want some fun, take x-y-z-mu-pi
Give Stats a Chance

Lyric copyright by Armin Schwartzman
may sing to the tune of "Give Peace a Chance" (John Lennon)
Everybody's talking about
Classification, estimation, information, validation,
Integration, derivation, expectation, deviation
All we are saying is give Stats a chance
Everybody's talking about
Simulation, computation, transformation, model selection,
linear regression, ridge regression, spline regression,
logistic regression
All we are saying is give Stats a chance
Everybody's talking about
Univariate, multivariate, distribution, convolution
Maximizer, minimizer, analyzer, optimizer
Databases, smoothing bases, wavelet bases,
So amazing!
All we are saying is give Stats a chance
The Bootstrap Begins

Lyric copyright by Giles Hooker
may sing to the tune of "American Pie" (Don McLean)
Long long time ago,
Ingram can still remember when
ANOVA used to be the thing.
Small samples were all that we had
And of the Normal we were glad
And we all said R.A. Fisher was our kin
But my data would never fit,
No matter how I transformed it.
Significance was too low;
I did not know where to go.
My referees all called it "crap",
When a thought hit me with a slap:
"You should try out the bootstrap."
That's how I got published.
CHORUS (slow):
My, my, this assumptions a lie,
But if we bootstrap we can use it and the paper will fly.
We'll resample and kiss the normal goodbye
Singing "Theory is too hard for this guy".
Well Tukey in the olden days
Used to sing the Jack-knife's praise
'Though no-one knew exactly what it did.
Mann and Whitney and Signed Ranks
Received our non-parametric thanks
When non-normality could not be hid.
But if the data was over-dispersed
And transforms seemed to make it worse:
The Chi-squared wouldn't work
The doctors went berserk!
But Brad told us to resample,
A few hundred times should be ample;
Use the histogram empirical
We'll call that the bootstrap.
CHORUS
Do you know that our confidence
Can be put in places that make sense
Even when the distribution is unknown?
Do you have processing power
To run this scheme within an hour
And find a result that's not yet been shown?
Any applied statistician
Will almost always say "I can!"
What ever task you bring
"We'll bootstrap anything."
A distribution we can plot
For any statistic you've got;
You've stepped into the perfect shop
Here's the best thing on the lot.
CHORUS
Twenty-five long years have come and gone
Since Efron's idea came along
And now you see it everywhere.
With computers now so very fast
Simulation is a blast
And for all that theory we don't really care.
Though Donoho still rails away
At the lack of rigor found today;
Models are complicated,
Distributions are not stated.
And though there is no guarantee
That the truth is what we'll see,
When consulting comes to me
I'll still say "Let's bootstrap".
CHORUS (x2: soft then fast)
King of the Mode

Lyric copyright by Dennis Pearl
may sing to the tune of "King of the Road" (Roger Miller)
Lectures for sale or rent, fifty topics that make no sense.
No loan - no school, I bet, I ain't got no internet.
Ah but, two hours of pushin' chalk,
could have been a two-minute talk.
I'm a man of means by no means, king of the mode.
Third moment x-bar to explain, notation to hang your brain.
Old worn out teaching views, I don't care if students lose.
I run old stories into the ground, short but not too profound.
I'm a man of means by no means, king of the mode.
I know every engineer I'm s'pose to train
All the students but none of their names
And every handout in every town
And every talk that ain't a talk 'cause no-ones around
I sing...
Lectures for sale or rent, fifty topics that make no sense.
No loan - no school, I bet, I ain't got no internet.
Ah but, two hours of pushin' chalk,
could have been a two-minute talk.
I'm a man of means by no means, king of the mode.
They Can't Take Stat Away from Me

Lyric copyright by Robert Carver
may sing to the tune of "They Can't Take That Away from Me" (George and Ira Gershwin)
There are many many crazy things
That will keep me loving you
And with your permission
May I list a few:
The way to fit Y-hat
The way to test with t
The memory of all that
No, they can't take stat away from me.
Oh, center, shape and spread
The look of symmetry
It's all within my head!
No, they can't take stat away from me
I may never, never build another model that I love
But I'll always, always know the meaning of
The bootstrap and jackknife,
Joint probability,
The way it changed my life!
No, they can't take stat away from me.
No, they can't take stat away from me.

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