# Can anyone explain Tom Lehrer's Stanleyville reference? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 11, 2001, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-explain-tom-lehrers-stanleyville-reference/75790 "2001-08-11T12:16:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2014, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-explain-tom-lehrers-stanleyville-reference/75790/21 "2014-06-27T23:11:20Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > In fact, Reagan is mentioned in the song - rhymed with Gahagan [Helen Gahagan Douglas - Wikipedia](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Gahagan_Douglas) And the questioning tone he uses for Reagan’s name to \ Ronald Reagan? is quite ironic today. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2014, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-explain-tom-lehrers-stanleyville-reference/75790/22 "2014-06-28T05:30:04Z")
> [@richardb](#): > > Back in the 1970’s while in High School (I know, I’m really dating myself here) . . . Look here – kid – I was already finished with college by then. And no, you can’t date me, except with radiocarbons. And I keep confusing Patrice Lamumba with Patrice Munsel. Not even close. ---
**Author:** ![Suicide](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Suicide](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suicide)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2014, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-explain-tom-lehrers-stanleyville-reference/75790/23 "2014-06-28T15:58:33Z")
from what i’ve heard tom lehrer is a bitter old 85 year old man living in a tenemant in san fran, he is a recluse, hasn’t done an interview in decades and shuns the world now…see what tv can do to you ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2014, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-explain-tom-lehrers-stanleyville-reference/75790/24 "2014-06-28T16:52:07Z")
Tom Lehrer lives half the year in Santa Cruz, California and the other half in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He doesn’t live in a basement. He’s 86, not 85. He’s in the phone book and not a recluse: [http://spectator.org/articles/33723/whatever-happened-tom-lehrer](http://spectator.org/articles/33723/whatever-happened-tom-lehrer) > **[Tom Lehrer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer)** > > Thomas Andrew Lehrer (/ˈlɛərər/; born April 9, 1928) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, satirist, and mathematician, who later taught mathematics and musical theater. He recorded pithy and humorous songs that became popular in the 1950s and 1960s. His songs often parodied popular musical forms, though they usually had original melodies. An exception is "The Elements", in which he set the names of the chemical elements to the tune of the "Major-General's Song" from Gilbert and Sullivan'... Suicide, do some research before you post. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2014, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-explain-tom-lehrers-stanleyville-reference/75790/25 "2014-06-28T16:57:23Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Tom Lehrer lives half the year in Santa Cruz, California and the other half in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He doesn’t live in a basement. He’s 86, not 85. He’s in the phone book and not a recluse: > > [http://spectator.org/articles/33723/whatever-happened-tom-lehrer](http://spectator.org/articles/33723/whatever-happened-tom-lehrer) > > [Tom Lehrer - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer) > > Suicide, do some research before you post. I noticed you didn’t deny the 'bitter" part. 😃 And **Suicide** was right about his age, your article is from 2013. The rest of the post, not so much. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2014, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-explain-tom-lehrers-stanleyville-reference/75790/26 "2014-06-28T17:19:05Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > My father worked for the UN and got sent there in 1961 and we followed, so I lived in Leopoldville during the Katanga secession. > > Though Stanleyville was hardly on the level of Saigon in terms of making peace - I can only guess it was in the news (those songs were written for That Was the Week that Was) and fit into the song. > US troops were not part of the UN force. The ones who were, or can remember, were Candians, Ethiopians, Indians, (the hospital), Irish, and Nigerians, who did the policing duties. Wow, what was _that_ like? My father lived in Nigeria for a year during the Biafran War, but he wasn’t particularly close to the front lines. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Knig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2014, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-explain-tom-lehrers-stanleyville-reference/75790/27 "2014-06-28T19:57:30Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > > [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > > > Tom Lehrer lives half the year in Santa Cruz, California and the other half in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He doesn’t live in a basement. He’s 86, not 85. He’s in the phone book and not a recluse: > > > > [http://spectator.org/articles/33723/whatever-happened-tom-lehrer](http://spectator.org/articles/33723/whatever-happened-tom-lehrer) > > > > [Tom Lehrer - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer) > > > > Suicide, do some research before you post. > > I noticed you didn’t deny the 'bitter" part. 😃 > And **Suicide** was right about his age, your article is from 2013. The rest of the post, not so much. From this article [Looking For Tom Lehrer, Comedy's Mysterious Genius](http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/tom-lehrer) I conclude that Lehrer isn’t bitter, he definitely does not want to be in the limelight. And that Lehrer does not care an iota what you or I or anyone else thinks. Good for him! ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2014, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-explain-tom-lehrers-stanleyville-reference/75790/28 "2014-06-28T20:03:58Z")
Suicide is wrong about his age now. Lehrer is 86, not 85. I didn’t mention the word “bitter” because I think it’s too easily thrown around. Lehrer is and has always been realistic about what the world is like. I wouldn’t call that bitter. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2014, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-explain-tom-lehrers-stanleyville-reference/75790/29 "2014-06-28T20:18:14Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > Wow, what was _that_ like? > > My father lived in Nigeria for a year during the Biafran War, but he wasn’t particularly close to the front lines. Leopoldville wasn’t close to the front lines either, though the first place we lived, while trying to get squatters out of our villa, was across the street from a Congolese Army encampment. The government did not see fit to supply them with water, so they came to our place - we were in an apartment in a construction compound. When the company turned off the water, the wives of the soldiers lines up at the four apartments to get some. When my father was in the hospital there was a wounded mercenary in a room also, under armed guard. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2014, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-explain-tom-lehrers-stanleyville-reference/75790/30 "2014-06-28T20:20:37Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Suicide is wrong about his age now. Lehrer is 86, not 85. I didn’t mention the word “bitter” because I think it’s too easily thrown around. Lehrer is and has always been realistic about what the world is like. I wouldn’t call that bitter. After he wrote his famous songs he wrote songs for The Electric Company which are hardly the work of a bitter man. Neither is Chanukah in Santa Monica. There was a profile of him in a book which contained chapters on the new comedians of the '50s and '60s. ---
**Author:** ![Suicide](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Suicide](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suicide)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2014, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-explain-tom-lehrers-stanleyville-reference/75790/31 "2014-06-29T04:30:48Z")
there was a story in the sf paper a few years ago about lehrer and they went to his home and he was all angry and bitter and didn’t want to be interviewed…that’s all i know…:(:(☹ ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2014, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-explain-tom-lehrers-stanleyville-reference/75790/32 "2014-06-29T07:52:08Z")
None of these are the article you’re talking about, I assume, but they’re in San Francisco newspapers: [http://www.sfweekly.com/2000-04-19/news/that-was-the-wit-that-was/full/](http://www.sfweekly.com/2000-04-19/news/that-was-the-wit-that-was/full/) [http://www.sfgate.com/music/article/That-Was-The-Tom-That-Was-Satirist-Lehrer-Sort-2771631.php](http://www.sfgate.com/music/article/That-Was-The-Tom-That-Was-Satirist-Lehrer-Sort-2771631.php) It appears that during the part of the year that he lives in Santa Cruz, he lives in a house by the beach. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2014, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-explain-tom-lehrers-stanleyville-reference/75790/33 "2014-06-29T08:14:09Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > And the questioning tone he uses for Reagan’s name > to \ Ronald Reagan? > is quite ironic today. There’s also a Stan Freberg routine from about the same era. It’s a parody of the old _Batman_ TV series with Reagan and his press agent, Flackman, planning Reagan’s run for governor in '66. It ends with him making a reference to someday being president. ---
**Author:** ![Suicide](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Suicide](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suicide)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2014, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-explain-tom-lehrers-stanleyville-reference/75790/34 "2014-07-03T01:29:19Z")
does south africa still need two bombs? ---
**Author:** ![BobArrgh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobarrgh/32/2881_2.png) [@BobArrgh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobArrgh)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-explain-tom-lehrers-stanleyville-reference/75790/35 "2014-07-04T03:11:52Z")
When is National Brotherhood Week happening this year? ---
**Author:** ![Suicide](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Suicide](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suicide)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-explain-tom-lehrers-stanleyville-reference/75790/36 "2014-07-04T15:02:30Z")
craziest thing about that album is that many of the issues he sung about are still issues today: nuclear proliferation, pollution, state of education, race, and of course his famous line ‘everybody hates the ----’ ---
**Author:** ![Truman\_Burbank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@Truman\_Burbank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truman_Burbank)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-explain-tom-lehrers-stanleyville-reference/75790/37 "2014-07-04T18:19:56Z")
In the 70s the reason he lived half the year in Santa Cruz was he was a visiting professor there. I regret I did not take his Musical Comedy class when I had the chance - I was intimidated then, but upon reflection, my voice was at least as good as his was! ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2014, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-explain-tom-lehrers-stanleyville-reference/75790/38 "2014-07-04T21:36:50Z")
Tom Lehrer taught part-time at UC Santa Cruz from 1972 to 2001. I would presume that his title during those years was not visiting professor (which implies that someone is at a university only a short time) but adjunct professor (which implies that someone is at a university for a long time but never a full-time tenure-track professor). I’ve just done a search and some websites refer to him as an adjunct professor. In any case, it appears that he wanted to spend half the year in Santa Cruz and half the year in Cambridge. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2014, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-explain-tom-lehrers-stanleyville-reference/75790/39 "2014-07-05T06:15:37Z")
> [@Suicide](#): > > craziest thing about that album is that many of the issues he sung about are still issues today: nuclear proliferation, pollution, state of education, race, and of course his famous line ‘everybody hates the ----’ Hell, the stuff he wrote when he was a student, on the first album, is still funny and pretty advanced today. And you forgot that the new Pope is clearly doing the Vatican Rag. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2014, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-explain-tom-lehrers-stanleyville-reference/75790/40 "2014-07-05T08:25:50Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Tom Lehrer taught part-time at UC Santa Cruz from 1972 to 2001. I would presume that his title during those years was not visiting professor (which implies that someone is at a university only a short time) but adjunct professor (which implies that someone is at a university for a long time but never a full-time tenure-track professor). I’ve just done a search and some websites refer to him as an adjunct professor. In any case, it appears that he wanted to spend half the year in Santa Cruz and half the year in Cambridge. I didn’t know he still lived around Cambridge. I’ve seen pictures but I don’t know if I’d recognize him if we just passed on the street. I wonder how often people recognize him from his voice, though, like when he’s ordering coffee or something. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-explain-tom-lehrers-stanleyville-reference/75790.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-explain-tom-lehrers-stanleyville-reference/75790.md?page=3)