Lives rent free in my head since January:
“And we will all go together when we go.
What a comforting fact that is to know.
Universal bereavement,
An inspiring achievement,
Yes, we all will go together when we go.”
It was during the Apollo missions that my grandfather was bitching about Nazis and I was only 10 when I heard Lehrer’s song. I was in high school before I learned some of these scientists oversaw slave labor in concentration camps and had records scrubbed of their fervent support for the Nazis and their atrocities. I don’t know how widely this was known when Lehrer wrote the song or if he just made a good guess.
He won’t even frown.
The problem with hating von Braun is the reality that his rockets for the Army worked and got our first satellite into space after the Navy rockets failed. He also was one of the foremost propagandists for the space program, which our country’s leaders ignored, underfunded, and all-but destroyed until Sputnik. Blame the government for Operation Paperclip, not the people who wisely jumped at the offer. Whether or not we need to sink huge amounts of money into a space program today - I am a not - those who led the government in the 1950s were idiots who simply got lucky in this regard.
AFAICT neither I nor Elmer_J.Fudd’s grandfather have blamed German Nazi immigrant scientists for the government project Operation Paperclip.
AFAICT, the reason the elder Fudd was bitching about them—and I concur with him in this opinion—was that they were Nazis.
AFAICT, I made a general comment about reality. I found out about Operation Paperclip many decades ago and have had plenty of time to think about it.
AFAICT, I also hate Nazis as much or more than anyone on this board and any implication that I am downplaying their evil is way out of bounds.
Why’s any of that a “problem” with “hating von Braun”? You can condemn somebody for their political affiliations while still acknowledging their outstanding professional skills and achievements.
Too bad that nobody in this thread has done that. Oh, except me.
So what you’re trying to say here is that the anti-Nazi disparagement of von Braun and other postwar German Nazi immigrant scientists, with reference to the song “Wernher von Braun” by the late Tom Lehrer, in this Tom Lehrer memorial thread, hasn’t been sufficiently balanced by expressed appreciation of said postwar German Nazi immigrant scientists’ professional achievements, until you joined the discussion.
Well, okay then.
But shouldn’t the widows and cripples in old London town be grateful?
“We both made shells for the Nazis, but mine worked, damnit!”
Moderating:
This is a thread about Tom Lehrer. Please drop the topic of how much we should hate Nazis who were successful in the US space program.
I think my favorite thing about his songs are the outrageous rhymes, and that song has some of the best examples:
There will be no more misery / When the world is a rotisserie
Just sing out a Te Deum / When you see that ICBM
When the air becomes uraneous / we will all go simultaneous
You will all go directly to your respective Valhalllas …. do not pass Go, do not collect 200 dollahs
But my favorite is from “Bright College Days”:
Open up the spigot
Pour the beer and swig it
and Gaudeamus Igit-
ur
A few years ago, I played that one for some younger co-workers during downtime during a business trip. Good times
He also came up with a rhyme for “orange”:
Eating an orange
while making love
makes for bizarre enj-
oyment thereof.
My favorite is still his rhyming “Oedipus” with “duck-billed platypus” in Oedipus Rex
But they both live on as the Russell/Lehrer hybrid from The Simpsons:
Somewhere in my CD collection (which is in serious need of organization so I can find things) I have one of the complete box set compilations of Tom Lehrer’s music. I’m not exactly sure which one it is, as there appear to be several of them.
I am certain that I first encountered Lehrer on The Electric Company.
Some years later, I would find myself spending lots of time in the lovely public library our township built. My parents basically gave me the run of the place and never restricted what I could bring home. I used to wander the place and just pick up whatever seemed interesting at the time. Early on, I started bringing home records, and An Evening Wasted… hit my funny bone hard. I probably only got half the jokes, but that was enough. Then I found TWTYTW and I got even fewer of the references, but it was just as funny to me.
And then, browsing the stacks, I found the book “Too Many Songs by Tom Lehrer (with not enough drawings by Ronald Searle),” and discovered that the songs I remembered from The Electric Company were from one of my now-favorite comedians. It was like my entire world coalesced into one coherent thing.
Adam Gopnik has a nice little piece in “The New Yorker” today about why Lehrer endures so well when so much satire has an extremely short shelf-life. I don’t think it’s wrong to call him a genius of the form. His staying power is pretty remarkable.
Also, re: “New Math” my favorite bit is actually the part when he switches over to octal (“it’s like base 10, if you’re missing two fingers”). He’s not wrong. 
His lyrics should come with footnotes.