I could hardly believe my ears the other day when a friend confessed that she’d never heard of Tom Lehrer.
His musical and stage career was brief, but he was unquestionably one of the great US satirists of the 20th century. You can read about his life in a Wikipedia article, which contains links to other sources. He’s retired, and living in California at present.
YouTube has quite a lot of his material. For the benefit of those who’ve missed out on his satirical genius, I’ve selected a mere half-dozen tracks to post here. I highly recommend looking for more on YouTube and elsewhere.
First, as he was (and is) a mathematician by profession, we’d better hear Lehrer’s tribute to Lobachevski and the field of mathematics in general. After all, who can resist his mental image of Brigitte Bardot playing the hypotenuse in the eternal triangle?
From mathematics we move to science, more specifically the Periodic Table of Elements (with profound apologies to Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan).
From science to religion, in ‘The Vatican Rag’.
Lehrer was, one might say, an equal opportunity offender – his songs offended everyone at some point! This one’s enough to make PETA froth at the mouth, I should imagine.
In ‘A Christmas Carol’ Lehrer skewers the commercialization of the season.
And finally, Lehrer reminds us of what happens when we grow older . . . and encourages us to do something about it while we still can.
As I said earlier, there’s lots more of his material on YouTube. Highly recommended for a good laugh.
Peter
I always liked, "So Long Mom, I'm Off to Drop a Bomb"
(Theme song for the last world war)
Shortly after my sister graduated from college in California, we went down to visit her. Our firstborn, then 6 years old, told his aunt that he really wanted to sing a song for her. She was expecting some Sunday school song, or maybe some sweet little ditty from a kids' album, and (being young and idealistic) became nearly teary-eyed at the prospect.
He regaled her with a very heartfelt edition of "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" — word perfect. I was so proud! But my sister has never forgiven me…
An Irish Ballad has always been a favorite of mine.
Back in 7th grade general music we were encouraged to bring samples of music to share. The teacher refused my offering of Tom Lehrer.
My Uncle Jim taught me The Hunting Song when I was 8 or 9. He had both 10 inch LPs issued privately by Lehrer. In turn I've introduced my nephew (cousins, etc) to the maniacal genius of Tom Lehrer.
He was something 'special'… 🙂
In our family if you walk into a room and say Bulbous Bouffant, everyone is reduced to giggles. The man was a genius.
Wow, thanks for posting these. I'm apparently old now because it hadn't occurred to me to look in youtube for my favorite artist. These gave me great memories of singing these songs in the forward cabin of the Argosy a couple decades ago. Chipping ice off the inside of the porthold and warming to the tune of the Harvard Rag. Back in the days when looking up "trans substantiate" meant going to the library 🙂 Thanks -BoydK