# Tom Lehrer dies at age 97 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** music\ **Created:** [July 27, 2025, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-dies-at-age-97/1021386 "2025-07-27T17:38:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2025, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-dies-at-age-97/1021386/41 "2025-07-28T03:13:05Z")
> [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](#): > > The one that always left me cold, despite my best efforts, was “New Math.” It’s my favorite! When people find out I’m a teacher, one of the most common responses–especially from conservatives–is to ask what I think about “the way that they’re teaching math these days.” I always smile brightly and tell them that there’s a great song, “New Math,” that makes fun of the newfangled ways of teaching math, instead of sticking to the classic method. Right as they’re about to agree with me, I add, “Thing is, it was written sixty years ago, making fun of the way we learned math when we were kids, because that was the new style then, and older people complained about it then.” About half the time they pick up what I’m putting down. The other two thirds\* they ignore it and launch into the rant they were planning on anyway. RIP Tom Lehrer. \*in base eight ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2025, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-dies-at-age-97/1021386/42 "2025-07-28T03:29:33Z")
In my (bright) college days everyone I knew were huge fans; and even though I don’t think I’ve heard any of his works in 50 years his lyrics are still rattling around in my brain. I think my favorite is We’ll All Go Together When We Go. When you attend a funeral It’s sad to think that sooner or l- ater the ones you love will do the same for you. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2025, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-dies-at-age-97/1021386/43 "2025-07-28T03:44:00Z")
A friend of mine bought a bunch of his 10" while in college, and that was my introduction to him. Loved it. > [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > > [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > > > These threads are usually very eulogistic, so perhaps I shouldn’t mention that. > > I don’t think Mr Lehrer would approve if this thread were pure hagiography. 😉 Too true, and a bunch of his songs were indeed bitter (esp. against Germany). But then again, it was a different time, and sometimes the subject really does merit it. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2025, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-dies-at-age-97/1021386/44 "2025-07-28T03:50:30Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > > [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](#): > > > > The one that always left me cold, despite my best efforts, was “New Math.” > > It’s my favorite! I learned “new math”, in all its set-theoretical glory. And i loved that math. But i also love that song. I think it’s a fun description of how people look at basically the same algorithm in different ways. When i tutor math, i always tell my students “there’s no one right way to do it”. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2025, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-dies-at-age-97/1021386/45 "2025-07-28T04:27:29Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > When i tutor math, i always tell my students “there’s no one right way to do it”. Absolutely! I tell kids my three cardinal rules of choosing a method to solve a problem. In decreasing order of priority, your method must: 1. Get the right answer. If you get the wrong answer with the method, either you need to git gud, or you need to choose a different method. 2. Be something you understand. If you don’t know why it works, you’re casting a magic spell, not doing math. 3. Not take too long. You wanna solve the problem and move on, not be stuck working a problem for half an hour when a different method would get you the answer in thirty seconds. The more methods you learn, the better chance you have of finding one that works for any problem. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2025, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-dies-at-age-97/1021386/46 "2025-07-28T10:44:03Z")
Some time ago, I played _The Elements_ for two cousins of mine; retired physics and mathematics teachers. They loved it, and wanted to get a copy…that is, until they heard Lehrer’s song, _Smut._ That changed their fundie-Christian minds, and they said, “Never mind.” I doubt if they would appreciate _New Math._ ---
**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:** [July 28, 2025, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-dies-at-age-97/1021386/47 "2025-07-28T11:55:16Z")
You simply must play I Got It From Agnes for them! Tom would have wanted it that way. I suppose the answer to the question “How in galactic megacluster sized cognitive dissonance does a fundamentalist become a physics teacher???” will have to be in another thread. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2025, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-dies-at-age-97/1021386/48 "2025-07-28T12:15:02Z")
This prediction held up > [@Tom Lehrer is still alive!](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-is-still-alive/731044/3): > > The secret to his long life - he’s never been married. smiley Lehrer is going to die on the front page of the Times, I’m sure. They still refer to his songs in headlines. At least, i got a news alert from the NYT, which is basically today’s “front page”. That whole thread is kinda worth reading with this one. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2025, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-dies-at-age-97/1021386/49 "2025-07-28T12:37:44Z")
the Elements Song is one of Lehrer’s best, because it’s just so much fun, and (unlike,say, political satire) it is timeless. And appropriate for all ages. So, in tribute to Mr. Lehrer, let’s all enjoy the [world’s cutest version of the Elements, sung by a three-year old](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSabZhFaB-M) ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2025, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-dies-at-age-97/1021386/50 "2025-07-28T12:59:33Z")
That time Tom Lehrer hid a song reference in an NSA document: [Opal: “With Tom Lehrer’s passing, I suppose this is a moment to share the story of the prank he played on the National Security Agency, and how it went undiscovered for nearly 60 years.” — Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/opalescentopal.bsky.social/post/3luxxx27nos23) ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2025, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-dies-at-age-97/1021386/51 "2025-07-28T13:09:37Z")
And how sadly apt today is _I could tell you things about Peter Pan_ _And the Wizard of Oz (there’s a dirty old man)_ ---
**Author:** ![ShadowFacts](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shadowfacts/32/2934_2.png) [@ShadowFacts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShadowFacts)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2025, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-dies-at-age-97/1021386/52 "2025-07-28T13:34:36Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > That time Tom Lehrer hid a song reference in an NSA document: That’s fucking great! It occurs to me that there aren’t too many polymaths like Lehrer around anymore. (Well, there never was anyone quite _like_ Lehrer, but you know what I mean). Genius mathemetician (went to Harvard at 15), teacher, gifted musician and performer, cutting satirist, Army veteran, and he apparently also worked for the NSA. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2025, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-dies-at-age-97/1021386/53 "2025-07-28T13:44:19Z")
And he taught both math and musical theater. That has to be unusual. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2025, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-dies-at-age-97/1021386/54 "2025-07-28T14:01:19Z")
Ah, you beat me to it. It’s a great story. One of the things that has stuck with me were [his thoughts on whether his political satire made any difference](https://www.avclub.com/tom-lehrer-1798208112): > [@](#): > > **O:** Do you feel that you had any impact? > > **TL:** That’s hard for me to say. I don’t think this kind of thing has an impact on the unconverted, frankly. It’s not even preaching to the converted; it’s titillating the converted. I think the people who say we need satire often mean, “We need satire of them, not of us.” I’m fond of quoting Peter Cook, who talked about the satirical Berlin cabarets of the '30s, which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the Second World War. You think, “Oh, wow! This is great! We need a song like this, and that will really convert people. Then they’ll say, ‘Oh, I thought war was good, but now I realize war is bad.’” No, it’s not going to change much. What he wanted was for people to be _angry_ about what was going on, not just “titillated”. I’ve often thought the same about The Daily Show - for all the lampooning of the political establishment (mostly but not entirely on the right), all they really do is entertain people already predisposed to agree with them. ---
**Author:** ![ShadowFacts](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shadowfacts/32/2934_2.png) [@ShadowFacts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShadowFacts)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2025, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-dies-at-age-97/1021386/55 "2025-07-28T14:57:04Z")
This is possibly an interesting topic of its own, but I don’t think I entirely agree with Lehrer here. His standard of “We need a song like this, and that will really convert people. Then they’ll say, ‘Oh, I thought war was good, but now I realize war is bad.’” No, it’s not going to change much” is much too harsh. There is not one single thing/idea/book/speech/whatever in the world that can do that. I think of satire kind of like a gateway drug, to use a somewhat negative simile. It does titillate in many cases, which can lead to a puncturing of the seriousness of certain weighty ideas and institutions, which in turn can lead to questioning those ideas and institutions (over a long time and through lots of other ideas and media). Satire is like Intro to Questioning. _ETA: Fixed typo_ ---
**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 28, 2025, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-dies-at-age-97/1021386/56 "2025-07-28T18:45:17Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > At least, i got a news alert from the NYT, which is basically today’s “front page”. > > That whole thread is kinda worth reading with this one. Wanna hear my stock picks? He wasn’t in today’s print Times, but I suspect he’ll be in tomorrow. There was a time when you could hardly understand the headlines in the Times without a good knowledge of Lehrer. The headline for a review of a book on homosexuality at Harvard was “invite the whole team up for tea.” I forget when I first heard him, but everyone at MIT knew his songs well. I saw or saw a tape of him doing “Vatican Rag” for Channel 13, the PBS station, in New York. That’s mentioned in the Times obit. “I got it from Agnes” - dirty even today - was on one of the collections. And I saw him do the “Boston Subway Song” on YouTube somewhere. The lyrics are in the beginning of vol. 2 of Asimov’s first autobiography. I saw Tomfoolery in previews in NY. Previews because we went on my wife’s official due date for our first kid. “When are you due?” “Today.” That freaked out the other people at the table. The audience knew the words better than the performers did. ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2025, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-dies-at-age-97/1021386/57 "2025-07-28T19:28:31Z")
I was introduced to his songs at university. Inspired lyrics, flawless delivery. I was actually surprised to discover he was still alive recently. Sad to hear about his death, but 97 is a good age to reach. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2025, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-dies-at-age-97/1021386/58 "2025-07-28T19:57:28Z")
Yeah, child prodigy, early retirement, long life, and i suspect he secured his legacy by putting his works in the public domain. A life well lived. ---
**Author:** ![Hatchie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hatchie/32/3983_2.png) [@Hatchie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hatchie)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2025, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-dies-at-age-97/1021386/59 "2025-07-28T21:24:20Z")
I want to put in a word for his music. The tunes he wrote were really quite subversive in their own way. I remember hearing “The Old Dope Peddler” at a very young age, and the melancholy tune just made me sad. Of course, I didn’t know what a “dope peddler” was, but the melody and words about an old guy from the past just filled me with a nostalgia that a seven-year-old had no business feeling. He was awfully good at that. You could do an album of Lehrer with the words removed and it would work on a different level. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/XtR7rYJ8Cls/maxresdefault.jpg "The Old Dope Peddler") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtR7rYJ8Cls) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2025, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-dies-at-age-97/1021386/60 "2025-07-28T22:07:56Z")
I didn’t hear Lehrer’s songs when they first came out. I was a kid, and, although some of my friends heard them, they couldn’t remember the songfs, so I only got badly garbled versions of them. It wasn’t until I was in grad school that I was properly introduced to Lehrer by my advisor, a quintessential German professor (accent and beard and all), who gave me dubs of a couple of Lehrer’s albums on cassette. A pretty gutsy move considering how the Germans fared in Lehrer’s songs “The MLF Lullabye” and “Werner von Braun”. In any event, I played it over and over and eventually got his other albums. I wrote up an essay on Lehrer tat still hasn’t been published, but I’d like to share the beginning with you: > [@](#): > > _It’s people like that who make you realize how little you’ve accomplished._ > > _It is a sobering thought, for instance, that when he was my age, Mozart had been dead for two years._ > > Tom Lehrer, the Harvard-educated mathematician and composer of dark satiric songs, was 37 years old when he said that. He was performing onstage at **the hungry i** nightclub in San Francisco in July 1965. The _hungry i_ was a hot spot for up and coming performers. Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, Bill Cosby, and the Kingston Trio, among others, had been on that stage. Lehrer’s performance was recorded and marketed as **That was the Week that Was**. > > The line was from the introduction to his song “Alma”, inspired, he said, by his reading in the New York Times “the juiciest, spiciest, raciest obituary it has ever been my pleasure to read.” It was that of Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel. He went on to explain that “she had managed to acquire as lovers practically all of the top creative men of Central Europe. Among these there three that she went so far as to marry – composer Gustav Mahler, composer of _Das Lied van der Erde_ and other light classics, architect Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus School of Design, and writer Fraz Werfel, author of _Song of Bernadotte_”. > > The obituary Lehrer was referring to was undoubtedly the one appearing in the Sunday _New York Times_ for December 13, 1964. Alma had died on the preceding Friday in her apartment at 120 East 73rd street in Manhattan at the age of 85. It observed that she had written in her autobiography that “she had always been attracted to genius,” and had confided to her first husband that “what she really loved in a man were his achievements.” > > That attraction went beyond the bounds of marriage. As Lehrer observed, her lovers were listed in the obituary, which is what made it such a hot item. She had an affair with painter Oskar Kokoscha, biologist Paul Kammerer, and pianist/conductor Osip Gabrilowitsch. She was also friends with (although apparently not a lover of) artist Paul Klimt, and composer Alexander von Zemlinsky. Later, in Los Angeles, she was friends with (but not romantically involved with) Arnold Schoenburg, Thomas Mann, and Igor Stravinsky. > > “Attracted to genius,” indeed! > > Tom Lehrer, even at the ripe old age of 37, had no need to denigrate himself. He’d graduated _magna cum laude_ from Harvard, then taught at Harvard, MIT, Wellesley and UC Santa Cruz, worked at Los Alamos Laboratory and for the National Security Agency, and invented (he claimed) the Jello Shot (an expedient to circumvent the naval base’s strictures on alcohol consumption). > > He had also recorded five albums of songs and done quite a lot of performing. He was the song writer for the US version of the show _That was the Week that Was_ that ran on NBC from 1963 to 1965, although he did not personally perform his topical songs on the show. > > One wonders what Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel would have made of Lehrer. As a composer herself, she might have been entranced. Although maybe she would have a dim view of such popular fare. In any event, Lehrer himself presents a daunting view to the rest of us, making us reflect on how little we’ve accomplished. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-dies-at-age-97/1021386.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-dies-at-age-97/1021386.md?page=4)