THE
IWSM 2007 STATISTICAL MODELLING SONGS
Gurdeep Stephens and Michael Greenacre
The International Workshop on Statistical
Modelling took place from 2 to 6 July
For
the opening ceremony, Gurdeep Stephens and Michael Greenacre performed the
Catalan
folk song El Cant dels Ocells (The Song of the Birds) and then a medley of
songs,
by Duke Ellington and George Gershwin, with alternative lyrics written by
Michael
Greenacre. Listen to these songs by clicking on the titles below.
The
present files on the links below are stereo MP3 files.
The
video of the concert, including the opening El Cant dels Ocells can be
downloaded
from
a link on this page:
https://mat.uab.es/~iwsm2007/programme.html
(it is
recommended to download the video file first, and then play it, rather than
opening
it in your browser).
It don’t mean a thing (if you
don’t do modelling!)
It don’t mean a thing if you don’t do
modelling,
Doo-wah-doo-wah-doo-wah-doo-wah-doo-wah-doo-wah-doo-wah
(repeat)
It don’t matter if you’re frequentist
or Bayesian,
You just need a model with some
alphas and betas, x’s and y’s, and i’s and j’s and k’s in
So it don’t mean a thing if you don’t
do modelling
Doo-wah-doo-wah-doo-wah-doo-wah-doo-wah-doo-wah-doo-wah
(repeat)
Some day it'll come along
The model I love,
It'll be robust and strong
The model I love,
And when it comes my way
I'll put it on my resumé!
Of all the models out there,
Is there one for me?
I’ll give it all my love and care,
Mathematically,
And then – finally,
I’ll get my PhD
Maybe I'll do estimation
Using likelihood, or least-squares,
Or with some approximation,
Or just eyeballin',
That's the job we're all in.
To get some publications,
I'll write papers, at least two,
For my job applications,
I think that'll do, don't you?
So hear me, Lord above, I’m waiting for that model I
love,
I’m waiting for the model I love.
It ain't necessarily so
It ain't necessarily so
That for models to be formal
Data have to be normal
But it ain't necessarily so
My data had values real skew,
Relationships nonlinear too,
But with spline-approximation
Or Box-Cox-transformation
My data are more normal than you.
Now it ain't necessarily so
That your deviance has to be low,
Use less parameters,
(pronounce: paramee-ters)
Less alphas and betas,
Then apply Akaike,
Although it sounds freaky,
And less will be more as you know...
It ain't necessarily so
It ain't necessarily so
That for models to be formal
Data have to be normal
But it ain't necessarily so.
It ain’t necessarily – It ain’t necessarily
It ain’t necessarily – It ain’t necessarily
It ain’t necessarily – It ain’t necessarily
It ain’t necessarily SO!
(if you have problems opening this in
your browser, download the .mpg video file and open in MediaPlayer or
RealPlayer)
It's summertime,
Statistical modelling is easy,
Data are fitting,
Explained variance is high.
Your data are rich,
And your model's good-looking,
So hush, statisticians, don't you cry