Tom Lehrer Songs

[Eishtmo]

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Songs and Lyrics by Tom Lehrer DISCLAIMER STATEMENT I, Tom Lehrer, and the Tom Lehrer Trust 2007,

tomlehrersongs.com

Tom released ALL of his music, for free. He does stuff like this:

 

[Exposition Owl]

An absolute genius. No one writes songs about mathematics like Lehrer. That might be because few people bother to try, but that’s their fault, not his.

 

[Kirin]

Lehrer is great - a few bits don’t hold up well due to dated cultural context, but even there his heart‘s usually in the right place. I have most of his catalog as piano sheet music and pull it out to play every once in a while.

 

[JBear]

I basically know nothing about him or his collected works, but I memorized The Elements Song in full back in high school as a party trick so... props to him for that, I guess!

 

[Violentvixen]

Tom Lehrer gave me a huge career boost.

In genetics class in college the professor referenced one of his songs, then quickly noticed a lot of blank stares. He stopped, then said "who knows who Tom Lehrer is?" and only myself and one other person did.

Later in the semester this very cool miniseries about DNA was airing on TV. One day after class I came up to him, gushed about the show and asked if he knew if the university usually bought access to things like that. He didn't know, then paused and said "weren't you one of the people who knew who Tom Lehrer was?" I said yes, and he immediately offered me a position in his lab as an honors undergraduate student, apparently he was unimpressed with all the applicants so far and looking to fill a spot and knew my grades were good and now I'd shown interest in science outside of just the classwork.

That lab position was one of the most formative science experiences for me and I'm forever grateful.

 

[Kirin]

I basically know nothing about him or his collected works, but I memorized The Elements Song in full back in high school as a party trick so... props to him for that, I guess!

Apparently my dad did the exact same thing in college in the 60s to win a bet.

 

[lincolnic]

Not only did he release all his music, but he relinquished all of his copyrights as well as performance/recording rights (not counting the songs that used other people's music, of course), so now everything is as much in the public domain as it possibly can be. This rules and is completely fascinating to me. I wonder why he did it.

 

[Kirin]

I obviously don’t know the guy, but he’s a lifelong academic (Math, PoliSci, and more), and I wouldn’t be surprised if he were just more interested in seeing people do stuff with his work than in making money off it. Also he’s 94 and probably figures he doesn’t have a lot more use for money.

in other news, he may have invented the modern Jell-O shot?

 

[FelixSH]

I have never heard of this person, but I immediately recognized the melody from the Elements Song, when listening to it. Delightful. Also

Tom Lehrer gave me a huge career boost.

In genetics class in college the professor referenced one of his songs, then quickly noticed a lot of blank stares. He stopped, then said "who knows who Tom Lehrer is?" and only myself and one other person did.

Later in the semester this very cool miniseries about DNA was airing on TV. One day after class I came up to him, gushed about the show and asked if he knew if the university usually bought access to things like that. He didn't know, then paused and said "weren't you one of the people who knew who Tom Lehrer was?" I said yes, and he immediately offered me a position in his lab as an honors undergraduate student, apparently he was unimpressed with all the applicants so far and looking to fill a spot and knew my grades were good and now I'd shown interest in science outside of just the classwork.

That lab position was one of the most formative science experiences for me and I'm forever grateful.

I love that story.

 

[Violentvixen]

I immediately recognized the melody from the Elements Song

Well, to be fair it's a parody of the more well known Major General song from a Gilbert and Sullivan musical:

Which I very much enjoy the Animaniacs parody of:

Anyway, Tom Lehrer was one of my earliest intros to dark humor. "Poisoning Pigeons In The Park" is one my parents both found hilarious and I heard a lot growing up.

I did not at all understand what an absolutely scathing song "Wernher von Braun" was until I was older and knew more history of the space program, WWII, etc.

I'd completely forgotten about Vatican Rag until right now. Some very fun rhymes in this one.

 

[Felicia]

My friend introduced me to Lehrer many years ago, and I immediately became a fan. Here's some of my favorites:

He did everything from fun kid-friendly educational songs...

...to humorously grim songs about nuclear proliferation:

Many of his political songs mostly make sense in a particular historical context, but some (sadly) seem to be timeless:

Of course, he could also get somewhat dirty, though in a clever rhyming way:

But one of his most remarkable songs, in my opinion, is the one that is obviously about STDs, but manages to avoid mentioning it directly at all. It also manages to get quite disturbing in parts, if you think about the lyrics. Specifically, "She got it from her daddy, who gives her everything" and "Daniel, whose spaniel has it now". And of course, I think it can get a different meaning in these times of Covid:

Supposedly, Lehrer gave up writing satirical songs when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel peace prize, because he thought that political satire had now become obsolete. Oh, buddy, if you only knew how much worse it would get...