What’s a Guy Gotta Do

Music by Joe Nichols
Words by me

What’s a guy gotta do to change his motion around?
If I’m going straight, I’ll go straight through town.
And if I’m going up, how will I ever come down?
What’s a guy gotta do to change his motion around?

Something’s motion is described by its velocity
Position’s change with time, Δx by Δt.
Changing speed or direction will create a Δv
And acceleration’s Δv over Δt.

What’s a guy gotta do to change his motion around?
If I’m going straight, I’ll go straight through town.
And if I’m going up, how will I ever come down?
What’s a guy gotta do to change his motion around?

To begin, what does Newton’s first law say?
An object’s state of motion won’t just go away.
Something already moving will continue on its way
And if it’s just at rest, then that’s how it’s gonna stay!

What’s a guy gotta do to change his motion around?
If I’m going straight, I’ll go straight through town.
And if I’m going up, how will I ever come down?
What’s a guy gotta do to change his motion around?

For acceleration, Newton’s once again our source
a’s directly in proportion to applied net force.
But inversely to the mass of what you’re pushing, of course.
Which will lead us to the lesson that we all can endorse:

What’s a guy gotta do to change his motion around?
Well, according to the laws that Isaac Newton found
Any mass will resist speeding up or slowing down.
So a guy needs a force to change his motion around!
I said a guy needs a force to change his motion around!

Sing Along!

Download the music and join in! Right-click on the links below to download the music with the words (a Karaoke file; Quicktime will play the music and show the words as you go along; other applications may play it as well), the music without the words (a MIDI file; more applications, such as Windows Media Player, can play this file), or, if you’re feeling brave, the accompaniment only, so you can sing the vocal line!

• Right-click to download the Music and words (karaoke file)
• Right-click to download the Music (MIDI file)
• Right-click to download the Accompaniment only (MIDI file)

Note: If you right-click the links, your browser may play the files, but it may not. It depends on what add-ins it has installed. If you left-click on the links, you can directly download the files and play them with whatever player you have that works. Since these are MIDI files, they may sound different on different players.