One of my favourite bits of Lehrer’s wordplay:
In addition to teaching mathematics, he took it upon himself to create and teach a course on American musical theater, evidently because he was appalled to realize his students didn’t know that Oklahoma! was the best musical ever.
He has said that the one song people mention most was “Silent E”; his students were floored to discover he wrote it. “You’d think I’d written ‘Jingle Bells’!”
A couple of odd bits of Lehrer trivia:
- He and Stephen Sondheim attended the same summer camp;
- He claims to have co-invented the Jello shot while serving in the Army.
No one since W.S. Gilbert even comes close to Lerher as a lyracist. His rhymes are simply brilliant.
Damn, you beat me to it, Nonsuch! Although I’ll add this, that supposedly that storied invention occurred at Los Alamos. Atom-Age drinks, indeed!
The great man himself looks up to Stephen Sondheim. I have a recording of a fairly recent BBC radio program where he (Lehrer not Sondheim) quotes a song from (I think) Pacific Overtures.
Nonsuch what is a jello shot?
I have a tape of a briefing given by Lehrer when he was an NCO. As I said, I work at the government agency where he served his military committment when he was drafted in the late 1950s. The tape is in pretty good shape considering how many generations old it must be.
In this briefing, Lehrer instructs a group of enlisted men in the regulations regarding the summer uniform. (That is, which uniforms you have to wear in which settings).
The high point of it is when he stipulates that swimwear may be worn only at the pool – “… but if you go out to buy beer, you have to put on uniform XYZ.”
He continues, "This regulation applies to female personnel as well as male,… which is, for the most part, no great loss". (In other words, he was saying that there were no good-looking women in the Army).
The soldiers laughed uproariously, and applauded (it was a different era).
Dedicated Lehrer fans may also wish to track down:
Hey, Mr. Producer, a concert tribute to musical producer Cameron Macintosh. It includes lots of stage veterans performing songs from musicals he produced, including Tom Lehrer (singing Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, I think) from Tomfoolery. It’s all very, very glitzy (recorded in London, I believe, and the Queen may have been in attendance). Lehrer’s intro to his song proves he hasn’t lost a step over the years. “After Tomfoolery, Cameron produced Cats; and on the combined profits of these two shows he became very wealthy indeed.” I’d only seen very few still photos of Lehrer at the time I discovered that, and to see footage of him singing was quite a surprise.
That Was The Week That Was, a political-satire television show, started originally in Britain and there was an American version for a couple years in the mid-60’s. The songs on That Was The Year That Was were originally written for the TV show, although from what I can find, they were sung on the show by other people. There’s at least one CD compilation from the show, with a couple of Lehrer songs. And the rest of the history of TW3 (as it was often called) is fascinating; the people who appeared there and went on to other things, and the biting sharpness of the satire.
A morning DJ I used to listen to (Gary Lockwood, for any Seattle old-timers) used to play one humorous song every morning, and he had a copy of Lehrer singing I Got it From Agnes. I still have not been able to track the source of that.
Does anyone have any “If you like Tom Lehrer, you might also like…” recommendations? Admittedly, he was in a league of his own, but there was a Seattle folk trio called Uncle Bonsai that had some of the same inventive rhymes and satire that I appreciate from Lehrer.
No one touches Lehrer for lyrics, and he was pretty good at writing melodies, too. Whenever I listen to “Songs” and “More Songs,” I always end up with something sticking in my head for days.
I started on “That Was the Year That Was,” and it was quite funny in its era, but over time, I’ve found the first two albums hold up better. The ones that work best on "That Was. . . " are those that havn’t dated.
As far as other options, I’d suggest the Capitol Steps for political humor, though they adapt well-known songs instead of writing their own. Still, that makes them funnier when you know the tune.
Another Lehrer fan checking in.
He is, or at least in the late 80’s was on the Math faculty at UC Santa Cruz, where I was pursuing a graduate degree in computer science. I sat in on one of his lectures, on Boolean logic, and enjoyed it–he seemed to be a pretty clear and amusing lecturer on the differences between AND and and, OR and or, and XOR (of course, I knew the subject).
He also taught, as someone mentioned, a class on American Musicals. At the end of the quarter, the class put on a musical, with no sets, props or staging, just singing the songs (and maybe reciting the dialog, I don’t really rememeber). Dr Lehrer provided the music on his “88-string guitar”. I saw “Music Man”, and enjoyed it–they did a fine job.
Finally, my aunt used to attend parties that he would show up at. Apparently he was willing to play the piano but never performed his own songs–he had gotten tired of them, and a little depressed at how applicable they all still were.
I’m old enough to remember TW3 in the US. David Frost was the host here. Quite right that he didn’t perform on the show, but he did perform Vatican Rag on a Ch. 13 (PBS in New York) fundraiser, and got them in trouble.
One more rare song, which I don’t believe has ever been recorded - The Boston Subway Song. Isaac Asimov quotes the lyrics at the beginning of In Joy Still Felt, the second volume of his first autobiography. It lists the stations of the Boston Red line, which went to Harvard and MIT, to the tune of the song mother. At the end it goes “Put them all together, they spell HCKCP…” (the initials of the stations), "which is what Boston means to me. " It comes out as a spit.
As for albums to get - you definitely need the studio and live versions of the first two. There is no studio version of That Was the Year that Was. (Send the Marines “all their rights respected, until someone we like can be elected.”) seems terribly appropriate even today. You can tell the versions of the first album by who is the hypotenuse in Lobachevsky. I’ve heard Doris Day, Ingrid Bergman and Brigitte Bardot.
There is a book, called the Rebel Comics, I think, on comedians from the 50s and 60s with an excellent interview with Lehrer. I never realized he was Jewish!
To those of you who don’t know his work, listening to it will open your eyes to many Lehrer references inserted in the better class of newspaper and magazine. For instance, the headline on a New York Time Book Review review of a book on gay life at Harvard was “Inviting the whole team up for tea.”
Thanks, guys! Now I’ll have *The Vatican Rag * stuck in my head all day! 
There the guy who’s got religion’ll
Tell you if your sin’s original
Hi famous comment on why he stopped writing was (rough quote) “Satire died when Henry Kissinger got the Nobel Peace Prize.”
The interview I mentioned said that many student fans took his musical theater course thinking it would be fun, but dropped when they found that he was very serious about theater, and that it was hard work.
I love hearing from all these folks who have met Lehrer or had contact with him. It’s great to hear what a gracious man he remains all these years later.
Smallclanger: a Jello shot is simply a cube of Jello (gelatin) made from alcohol instead of water. Scrivener, in the interview I read, Lehrer said this came about because of a prohibition against open alcohol on base—suppose that could apply to Los Alamos as well as it could to a regular Army base.
[QUOTE=Robot Arm]
Does anyone have any “If you like Tom Lehrer, you might also like…” recommendations? Admittedly, he was in a league of his own, but there was a Seattle folk trio called Uncle Bonsai that had some of the same inventive rhymes and satire that I appreciate from Lehrer.
[/QUOTE
Uncle Bonsai were great. If you haven’t already, you must check out [Roy Zimmerman]
(http://royzimmerman.com/). Hands-down the funniest satirical songwriter of the late 80s-early 90s; his work with the Foremen is essential. John Forster is also a brilliantly funny man; not as clever lyrically as Zimmerman, but more musically gifted and versatile. Pick up his album Entering Marion—you won’t regret it.
It makes me very happy to know that I’m not the only one who can sing this all the way through. 
I have no fun or interesting facts or tidbits to add here. I just wanted to check in as another Lehrer fan.
The first song I ever heard by him (that I knew was by him) was New Math and I thought it was brilliant. Then on to The Elements and Poisoning Pigeons in the Park (then all the rest, of course). I only realized later that Silent E was his, although not surprising really - he tends to get stuck in my head and I had Silent E in there for years
If I had to try to pick a favorite it would be New Math.
hhmmm. Remains of Tom Lehrer? How did I miss that? (I wonder if anyone didn’t get me my Christmas present, yet?)
In 1992, I believe it was, my sister sent him a letter asking him to perform at her wedding reception. He sent her back a very graciously-worded note, declining the gig, with the explanation that he had retired from paid performances some years hence. As far as I know, she still has the framed letter prominently displayed upon her mantlepiece.
I have always had a particular fondness for We’ll All Go Together When We Go and It Makes A Fella Proud To Be A Soldier.
“Our old mess Sergeant’s taste Buds had been shot off in the war.
But his savory collections add to our esprit de corps.”
Comedy gold.
From memory…bear with me…
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.
And I often think it tragic
Not to mention, other adjec-
tives, to think of all the weeping they will do.
But don’t you worry.
No more ashes, no more sackcloth
And an armband made of black cloth
Will one day never more adorn a sleeve.
For if the bomb that drops on you
Gets your friends and neighbors too
There’ll be nobody left behind to grieve.
And we will…All Go Together When We go…
I like David Frishberg a lot. “My Attorney Bernie” gets into some great wordplay, and like Lehrer, he wrote for children’s programming (in Frishberg’s case, Schoolhouse Rock - “I’m Just A Bill” was one of his). The key difference is that Frishberg is more prone to play instrumentals and show tunes in addition to his original work.
This collection is a surprisingly good and generous point of entry, as it’s inexpensive and nets you a whole lotta stuff, but you might feel better served by this disc instead.
He did a great version of the Hoagy Carmichael song “Two Sleepy People” as a duet on public radio a few years ago for some anniversary or other. Wish I could track that one down, because it was a great reading.
Any fans of TL should also do themselves the favor of investigating the brilliant British team of Flanders and Swann, who preceded him by a few years, but are stylistically very similar.
Just another personal note: I grew up playing my brother’s version of “That Was the Year that Was.”
In 1972, I tried out for a talent show at my junior high, and I have two vivid memories from the audition. One, that no less than three black students tried out by performing a dance to the theme from “Shaft.” Two, the silence from the audience that greeted my performance of “Folk Song Army.” Sung a capella.