I thought his *Lobachevsky *used music from some other song. If so, it would be appropriate, as the entire song is about plagiarism.
Not only the music, but the entire idea – he’s riffing on a Danny Kaye piece originally about Stanislavsky (as Lehrer admits in his intro). Plagiarism, indeed.
The only songs on Allmusic.com that have additional credits to Lehrer’s are: The Elements Song, Clementine, and She’s My Girl. I suppose it’s possible he’s got some public domain songs parodied in there, too, or the credits are incomplete, but I’m not convinced that he “usually borrows the music.” It seems to me quite the opposite.
Oh, I agree. The vast majority of his songs use original music. Not *very *original, of course, but then his music is just a vehicle for his lyrics, which are the real attraction.
RealityChuck, you’ll notice that I said that Lehrer is the smarter of the two. He’s also clearly the better writer of lyrics. You know, most of the time I can count on you to be moderate in your posts and not exaggerate. Why did you have to claim then that they shouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath? That sort of wild overstatement is really not necessary. (You know, I wonder if the reason that you like Lehrer’s songs so much better is just that you like the styles of music that he parodies better. I know that I do.)
What Weird Al has going for him is his ambition. He certainly appears to be planning to continue writing and performing the rest of his life. The songs will be good but not great, but they will continue to sell. Lehrer burned out quickly. The songs are fantastic, but there aren’t very many of them. Lehrer is a brilliant man who didn’t care enough to continue to impress people with new work when he could get by resting on his laurels.
Amen. F&S were the ones I came in here to mention.
I Guess That’s Why They Call It The News. I don’t think it will be back, though.
Well, depending on what aspect of Lehrer you mean, there’s They Might Be Giants for writing nerdy songs about science. Or for quirky non-heavy-rock-and-roll songs from Massachusetts, there’s Jonathan Richman.
I’ve been think about posting this for a while, so this thread is timely:
Molly Lewis, a just-turned-twenty college student, puts up some quite good YouTube videos of her performances. Some are excellent covers of other artists (see this one of Lady Gaga’s Poker Face), and some are her own work. She accompanies herself on ukulele, mostly, but occasionally on guitar and other instruments.
My personal favorite is her original song MyHope, a very funny rumination about what will happen to all those MySpace pages in the future. Frankly, I don’t know how a twenty year old (actually nineteen at the time) can appreciate how life will change for her generation over the next twenty or so years, but she does so spectacularly well. Here’s the chorus:
Also check out Two Girls, One Uke, (which, despite the title, is quite safe for work), Peep Fight, and It All Makes Sense At the End, which dramatizes her breakup with Wikipedia (Did I mention she’s a geek?). She’s also put out a CD collection, entitled “I Made You A CD, But I Eated It”.
Oh, and she also has covers of “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” and “Christmas Time is Here”. I think she is well on her way to becoming her generations’ answer to the great Tom Lerher.
Filling Tom Lehrer’s shoes is a pretty tall order - there are lots of good parodists, satirists and humorous singer/songwriters out there, but Lehrer has set the bar pretty f#@ing high for everybody.
I don’t think he’s in the same league, but Tim Minchin is worth a mention here.
If you really loved me. (Audio Not Safe For Work.)
That’s a pretty safe bet considering that his first album is 57 years old cite and Fight Fiercely Harvard was written in 1945. There are frequent references to Lehrer in the better publications - a review of a book on gay life at Harvard in the NY Times Book Review was titled “Invite the Whole Team up for Tea.”
Lehrer had the career he wanted. He quit performing because he wanted to, not because he wasn’t popular. That we are having this discussion over 40 years after he quit performing actively is proof enough. Weird Al is cool, but he won’t have any more long term impact than Homer and Jethro.
BTW, I cast another vote for Flanders and Swann as being good choices.
Stan Freberg? Sorta?
Christine Lavin has some clever story songs.
If there is one lesson to be learned from this thread, it is this: Novelty song writers/performers tend to be unique. More so than interchangeable standard pop artists. I think that is a good thing…TRM
OH, I KNOW! HOW ABOUT ME!?!?!?
(myspace music link)
O.K., I won’t nominate myself in the “similar to Tom Lehrer” Thread, but several of my songs are available to listen to at the above link. Should any of you choose to give a listen, feel free to nominate me in this Thread- if you see fit. 
I’m sure it will. All three shows have seasons, and they’ve been through several rotations in my time listening.
Honestly, though, I don’t really like Mitch Benn. The musical background is kind of bland, and I don’t think his lyrics are unusually good, either. But hey, YMMV.
Some of my favorite humorist musicians:
Tim Minchin
Da Vinci’s Notebook
Jon LaJoie
Camille West
Asylum Street Spankers
Cheryl Wheeler (some of her songs are really hilarious, but she has more serious bits)
Tom Lehrer is a popular choice at Filksings and there is lot of overlap between the filk genre and the novelty-song genre. Check out filker Tom Smith.