La Porte Parity
With apologies to Terry Gilkyson
(music "The Bare Necessities" from The Jungle Book)

You've got the La Porte parity
The simple La Porte parity
Forget about your worries and your cares
I mean the La Porte parity
That brings a lot of clarity
Into the inorganic student's life

Whatever I look at, whatever I see
Molecules with inversion symmetry
D orbitals are split in two
T2g and Eg too.
Electron transitions are forbid
The parity's not opposite
These compounds have no hue

The rule of La Porte parity has come to you
It's come to you

You've got the La Porte parity
The simple La Porte parity
Forget about your worries and your cares
I mean the La Porte parity
That brings a lot of clarity
Into the inorganic student's life

Now when you have a compound
That is a d6
It should have no color.
Oops, you're in a fix
Because the color is faintly there
The orbitals must
Have changed somewhere
Axial distortion has reared its head
Jahn-Teller has brought the hue

The rule of La Porte parity has failed for you
It's failed for you

So just try and relax, yeah cool it
Just try not to think too hard.
'cause hexa-aquo manganese is purple
those z2 orbitals elongate
it's that thing they do.

And don't spend your time lookin' around
For some new species that can't be bound
By this simple inversion center rule
If the symmetry is perfect
They'll never have a hue
The rule of La Porte Parity has come to you.