Tom Lehrer - George Murphy intro?

Cafe Society
1

Love Tom Lehrer’s music dearly, but at this point, some of them really need ‘subtitles-for-the-(then)-current-events-impaired’.

Like George Murphy

The verbal intro to the song: Massachussetts had three senators? Obivously a joke, but why? Some ex-senator shooting his mouth off as if he was still elected? Would someone with a knowledge of 1964 MA history please explain this to a non-Massite?

2

It was probably a reference to Bobby Kennedy. He was elected senator from New York in 1965, but he’d spent most of his life in Massachusetts and few considered him a New Yorker.

3

Definitely a Bobby Kennedy reference. George Murphy was an actor turned California “Tap Dancing” Senator, inspiring the line: “now we’ve got a Senator who can really sing and dance”