RIP Tom Lehrer
Tom Lehrer has died at the age of 97. I’ve written about Lehrer before; you can find many of those posts here.
I was raised on Lehrer from early childhood, which is a bit weird since many of his songs (most of his songs, actually) were pretty warped. I loved them. I think I still know every word of every song, many of which are satiric masterpieces.
He was a decent piano player, too.
Oh, and a math professor at several then-prestigious institutions.
My family were early adopters of Tom Lehrer’s oeuvre because a family friend had been his college roommate. That’s how I came by his records at such a young age, before he was famous. It’s hard to choose a Lehrer song for this post because I have so very many favorites, but I’ll go with this for the humor:
And this very dark one for the fabulous run of rhymes that goes from 0:35 to 1:10:
And of course, this homage to Gilbert and Sullivan and the Periodic Table:
I could just keep going, but I’ll stop here.
Repost from last night:
________________
Re: Tom Lehrer
I didn’t know he had been still alive. He made it to 97, an inspiration for everyone.
According to wiki, he put all his lyrics, music and even recordings in the public domain. Indeed, here they are.
https://tomlehrersongs.com/
Get ’em while you can!
BTW, Lehrer remained an old school liberal Democrat. One of the last political comments he made was in 2008. “Just tell the people that I am voting for Obama.”
Tom Lehrer is proof that liberals used to be a lot more fun.
While he was fine taking shots at the military industrial complex, usually related to Republicans, he also wrote songs about the rose-colored glasses the Democrats wore during his time, like “National Brotherhood Week,” which is an indictment of the 60’s version of Rodney King’s “can’t we all just get along.”
What I think happened in his later years is he succumbed to what I call “Old Man Syndrome,” whereby an older man sees that nothing has really gotten better over the course of his life, which makes him bitter and angry. I don’t know. Maybe he just despised the right more than the left.
His music was so clever and savage. I look him up on Youtube from time to time. Still amusing after all these years.
Mitchell Strand agreed. Carlin took the same turn.
Poisoning Pigeons in the Park
Tom Lehrer is a throwback to a time when people entertained themselves in their parlors, by singing and playing the piano. Or doing a trio or quartet, with or without a piano. He was a polymath (can’t help myself!), mathematician, pianist, wordsmith. Listen to his song featuring Lobachevsky, who was a 19th century Russian mathematician.
He wrote a large number of songs. Click on huxley’s link. I found him cynical.
Lehrer graduated from the same high school I did, the Connecticut prep school Loomis. Once some Loomis students contacted him asking him to come back and give a talk, he replied “Loomis never seems to be on my way to anywhere”.
The lines that stick in my mind the most are from “National Brotherhood Week”:
All the Protestants hate all the Catholics
All the Catholics hate all the Protestants
All the Hindus hate all the Moslems
And everybody hates the Jews
Cicero (1:53 pm) said: “Listen to his song featuring Lobachevsky, . . . .”
I think it’s worth pointing out that the actual mathematician/geometer Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky was *never* accused of plagiarism, despite the content of Lehrer’s lyrics. Lehrer used his name only as a device because the syllables in Lobachevsky’s name made the poetic meter work.
(“Lobachevsky” is perhaps among Lehrer’s least remembered songs, but it’s long been a personal favorite of mine.)
“Lobachevsky” (Tom Lehrer, writer and singer)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCr-vUHanQM
Clementine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5u4n64g2G0
When You Are Old and Gray always reminds me of the White Knight’s Song from Through the Looking Glass. I have no doubt Lehrer had it in mind.
And now, if e’er by chance I put
My fingers into glue,
Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot
Into a left-hand shoe,
Or if I drop upon my toe
A very heavy weight,
I weep, for it reminds me so
Of that old man I used to know–
Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow,
Whose hair was whiter than the snow,
Whose face was very like a crow
With eyes, like cinders, all aglow,
Who seemed distracted with his woe,
Who rocked his body to and fro,
And muttered mumblingly and low,
As if his mouth were full of dough,
Who snorted like a buffalo–
That summer evening long ago
A-sitting on a gate.
Like Neo, Lehrer songs were part of my childhood. I knew the words for all the songs of his first 3 albums, with the exception of The Elements: too much effort for me–though I was a big Gilbert & Sullivan fan. Last night I told my sister that our babysitter—whose family featured some tragic deaths that Lehrer could have written about (The Irish Ballad)—found it unusual that we kids listened to The Old Dope Peddler. My sister and I had no idea, of course, what Dope was.
Mitchell Strand
I still refer to his songs. While his songs were topical, comments on current events of the 50s through the mid 60s, they haven’t lost their bite. His Christmas Carol is still as topical today as it was 6 decades ago—even though the Herald Tribune is no longer published.
The Instapundit article on Tom Lehrer’s death featured a photo in the comments of Tom Lehrer looking down on a sidewalk full of dead pigeons.
Too bad he didn’t write more, but what he wrote was very good.
My favorite was The Folk Song Army.
When the song came out in 1965 I was enrolled in the Folk Song Army, so didn’t like the song. Over the years, the song grew on me, as it called out the not inconsiderable number of lefties who believe their excrement has no odor.
Michael Strand & Ghost Dog: George Carlin had it really bad. Saw him live in 2004 or so. I did not smile or laugh during the last 30 minutes. Just a long, bitter rant.
Old Man Syndrome explains a lot. And how Carlin would have hated hearing that said about him.
Listening to him again I’d bet money he was a fan of Groucho Marx’s singing in the Marx Brothers’ films. At times it sounds a bit like an impersonation.
Regarding neo’s first selection and parodies of Mexico and Mexican music, I prefer Allan Shermans, “Mexican Hat Dance.” https://youtu.be/WtJNo9aQkQ8?si=klx-_dHkB4HEXUnf
R.I.P. Tom Lehrer. A great talent! He brought joy to millions and seemed to be a true mensch. Few who are exposed to fame can keep their wits, but he navigated his celebrity with class and elan, eschewing most of it.
George carlin was an inveterate lefty but he didnt go along with the climate change foolishness inpart because he was a misantrope
A contemporary of larry collins the newsweek columnist and novelist
In 2009, I launched a blog entry regarding illegal immigration at the VDARE website off Lehrer’s “Plagiarize!” song involving Lobachevsky: https://vdare.com/posts/plagiarize
Same here, my father must have seen him perform at Harvard. I grew up on that was the year that was. It took me many years to actually do understand the lyrics. A real genius
@M J R: I think it’s worth pointing out that the actual mathematician/geometer Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky was *never* accused of plagiarism, despite the content of Lehrer’s lyrics. Lehrer used his name only as a device because the syllables in Lobachevsky’s name made the poetic meter work.
Thanks. I always assumed that Lehrer knew something I didn’t.
I suspect, however, that Lehrer may have been making a general point about academia.
huxley (12:20 am): ohh definitely, definitely.
Wow. I think of him from time to time, and I have a fondness for many of his songs as well. A college professor I had liked to introduce Tom Lehrer to his classes.
What about the Vatican Rag-
Get in line in that processional
Step into that small confessional
There the guy whose got religion’ll
Tell you if your sin’s original…
That is as good as it gets!
Miguel, Gordon, Ghost Dog–
Spot on about Carlin. Occupation: Foole and A Place for my Stuff are terrific albums, the first mostly a meditation about growing up in Morningside Heights, or what he called “White Harlem.” A Place for my Stuff is getting into his fun with language.
But then he started getting older, Reagan got elected, followed by H.W., and it looked like the country was smiling at him, patting him on the head, and going about its business of everything he hated. Odd, because at that point he was probably pretty well-off. Was he thinking that “peace, love, dope” was going to be the culture? The squares always outnumbered the hip.
At the end, he was Colbertesque, ranting about stupid Americans using euphemisms to hide how they were screwing the country. He forgot he was there to make people laugh.
To his credit, Tom Lehrer never forgot; making people laugh just wasn’t important to him anymore, so he stopped.
I discovered him on the Dr. Demento radio show, listening to all the wacky songs late at night, as a sailor in San Diego, then in Kansas City when we moved back here. Him, Alan Sherman, Weird Al, Spike Jones, all comedic geniuses. It definitely shaped my warped sense of humor!
“[Lehrer], Alan Sherman, Weird Al, Spike Jones, all comedic geniuses.”
Let’s not overlook Ray Stevens.
One article on Tom Lehrer’s death pointed out something I had never realized: Tom Lehrer’s Lobachevsky was based on Danny Kay’s Stanislavsky.
Consider the phrases that populate both songs.
https://www.stevesailer.net/p/im-baaaack
Tom Lehrer was great, tho I learned of him in LA high school in ‘72-‘73, from Dr Demento (who came to one of our South Gate dances as DJ).
I’ve sung in karaoke his Masochism Tango.
Daniel Radcliffe sang a good version of Elements, somebody created a duet version of them (fading out Radcliffe’s couple small mistimings).