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Happy 90th birthday Tom Lehrer


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The great satirist Tom Lehrer was born 90 years ago today on April 9, 1928. I listened a few months ago to his brilliant 1965 LP "That Was the Year That Was" and was struck by how relevant many of the songs remain in the age of Trump. This one could have been dedicated to Scott Pruitt and Michigan state officials responsible for the Flint crisis. The performance here is from Norway in 1967 -- three years before the the EPA was founded.

 

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When I was 16, early in 1960, I saw the 10" LP of 'Songs by Tom Lehrer' in Imhofs in Bond Street; was intrigued by the cover:

Tom+lehrer.jpg

(That's the UK edition)

I bought it and loved it. I learned all the songs, sang them to my friends (a form of torture not widely appreciated) and started them and me buying comedy albums. My best mate, Rose, bought the 45 of 'Poisoning pigeons in the park'/'The masochism tango'. Sue got the first Bob Newhart album. Others got Peter Sellers' first two albums. I bought Shelley Berman and George Formby albums. 

A couple of years passed and I hit the dole, so Tom Lehrer and the other comedy albums I had parted company.

But those Lehrer songs stayed with me. I'd sing them occasionally at work (I called this 'teambuilding'.) And in 1996, our chief economist loaned me a twofer CD of 'An evening wasted' and 'Tom Lehrer revisited'. And finally, in 2001, I bought the Rhino box

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My daughter loved it.

Comedy recordings aren't things I get out and listen to frequently or even reasonably often. I think I've listened to this box fewer than half a dozen times. I ripped it to my hard drive ten days ago and I've listened to it all, except the live albums.

Really, that first album seems to me, even now, to be one of the best comedy albums of all time. The quality of the writing is superb in the second album, 'More of Tom Lehrer' - fabulously horrendous images such as 'sliding down the razor blade of life' don't grow on trees you know. But that album seems to be too much the sort of thing a comedian has to do to produce something new and more amusing. 'Songs by Tom Lehrer', while frequently somewhat childish in its humour, is so much a completely integrated view of the world from where Lehrer sat that the album becomes a work in itself which is much greater than the sum of its parts.

But Lehrer's stuff sticks even more than Slim Gaillard's. Comedic napalm.

So Happy Birthday Mr Teacher.

MG

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Tom Lehrer has been a favorite of mine ever since I was a youth still in single digits.  "Pollution" and "Vatican Rag" were probably the first songs I heard by him.  Having been raised Catholic, that latter tune had an air of naughtiness about it which must have appealed to Catholic school boys and girls everywhere at the time.

We should also remember his more recent(ish) addition to the holiday music catalog:  "I'm Spending Hanukkah in Santa Monica" with such great lines as,

"Those eastern winters, I can't endure 'em

So every year

I pack my gear

And head out here for Purim."

Happy Birthday, Mr. Lehrer, and thank you for a lot of laughs over the years.

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My mom had three Tom Lehrer LP's in her collection (along with a couple Alan Sherman records too), which I got endless enjoyment from as I was growing up in my pre-teen years (for me in the late 70's and very early 80's).

I have some really fond memories of the Lehrer albums especially, which I haven't heard in over 30 years, but I bet I could tell you some sample lyrics from probably half the songs on every album, to this day.

Really a unique voice.  Kind of reminds me (now), of an apolitical Mark Russell, who was similar but different (and later, I realize).

Edited by Rooster_Ties
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20 hours ago, The Magnificent Goldberg said:

The songs really stick in the mind.

The one I always loved most was 'Lobachevsky'. REALLY sarcastic. And VERY clever.

MG

Plagiarize!
Let no one else's work evade your eyes
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes
So don't shade your eyes
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize

(spoken) Only be sure always call it please "research"
 

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