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The good comedic songwriter and performer Tom Lehrer handed away at 97 yesterday, outliving one of many writers credited with penning the “advance” obituary that The New York Instances had been holding for a few years, a phenomenon that generally happens with notable individuals who reside longer than anticipated. Lehrer may additionally have been amused by the individuals who heard information of his passing and expressed astonishment that he hadn’t already kicked the bucket. He launched his first album in 1953 and retired from reside efficiency in 1967, by no means to return, though he continued to write down and file new songs in studios for an additional decade.
Some mistook his withdrawal from public life for having died; A 2003 Sidney Morning Herald Profile of neck started, “Phrase that we’ve secured an interview has folks across the workplace launching into such unlikely but infectious ditties as ‘The Vatican Rag,’ ‘Smut’ and Lehrer’s ode to spring pursuits, ‘Poisoning Pigeons within the Park.’ It additionally has folks asking with a shocked tone: ‘Is he nonetheless alive?’”
It’s enjoyable to think about the songs Lehrer would have written about all this. His discography is stocked with all-timers, however provided that you’re into novelty songs that riff on issues that had been occurring within the center a part of the twentieth century however now require footnotes. The work combines erudite social commentary, boundary-pushing cheekiness, and a piano sound rooted within the music halls that birthed vaudeville.
“We Will All Go Collectively When We Go” captures the grim absurdity of mutually assured destruction within the Chilly Conflict period, and now seems like a predecessor to “Dr. Strangelove” in addition to to Randy Newman’s “Political Science (Let’s Drop the Huge One).” “The Masochism Tango” is about what it sounds prefer it’s about (“I ache for the contact of your lips, pricey/However far more for the contact of your whips, pricey”). So is “The Parts,” which is about to the music of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Fashionable Main-Common” tune, and consists principally of Lehrer reciting the names of parts on the periodic desk, however rearranged to rhyme. “Nationwide Brotherhood Week” calls out the hypocrisy of devoting a mere week to brotherhood whereas giving individuals who detest one another the opposite 51 weeks of the 12 months a chance to faux they’re respectable (“It’s enjoyable to eulogize/The folks you despise/So long as you don’t allow them to in your college”).
One among my favorites is Lehrer’s nonexistent title tune for the movie adaptation of Oedipus Rexwhich incorporates such verses as, “He cherished his mom like no different/His daughter was his sister and his son was his brother!/One factor on which you’ll be able to rely is/He certain knew who a boy’s greatest good friend is!”
I first encountered Lehrer’s work when my fourth-grade choir carried out a couple of of his songs throughout a winter recital. One among them was “Air pollution,” which is finished within the model of a tune that the Sharks would’ve sung in West Aspect Story. It’s a toe-tapping ditty about humanity’s destruction of the atmosphere. It begins, “Should you go to American metropolis/You can see it very fairly/Simply two issues of which you could beware/Don’t drink the water and don’t breathe the air!” The primary refrain goes, “Air pollution, air pollution/We acquired smog and sewage and dirt/Flip in your faucet and get cold and warm working crud!”
Memorizing the names of songwriters wasn’t one thing I did at that age. I made a degree of memorizing Lehrer’s after I heard “Air pollution” and different Lehrer classics performed on The Dr. Demento Presenta syndicated radio program specializing in comedic songs, sketches, and different silliness. Demento, also referred to as Barret Eugene Hansen, introduced his retirement earlier this 12 months. Nonetheless, his present ran for greater than 5 a long time, introducing established names like Lehrer to new generations whereas giving up-and-comers a platform to discover a mass viewers. Demento’s most important discover was “Bizarre Al” Yankovic, who, as Yankovic himself has stated on many events, most likely wouldn’t have existed if he hadn’t grown up listening to Lehrer.
Lehrer was initially a arithmetic professor (first on the College of California, Santa Cruz, then at Harvard) and continued to show even when his music was at its peak. He was a ferociously nimble pianist and a composer of humorous, topical songs that he’d play for associates. It began in 1953 when, primarily for the heck of it, he paid for the urgent of 400 albums of his unique work to provide out to associates. A 1997 profile by Elijah Wald sums up his ascent:
The Nineteen Fifties are sometimes remembered as a cultural warfare zone, with Eisenhower and suburban conformity on one facet, and the wildness of rock ‘n’ roll and beat poetry on the opposite. Lehrer stood firmly towards each, and towards decency, compassion, and just about the entire vary of human virtues. His songs, crafted with the care of the nice Broadway tunesmiths, had been studiedly mental and fiendishly irreverent. His thought of a cheerful ditty was “Poisoning Pigeons within the Park.” His thought of nostalgic sentimentality was an ode to “The Previous Dope Peddler.” His thought of romance was “I Maintain Your Hand in Mine,” a paean to the lady he has killed, however whose hand he has stored as a memento.
“I believe I might get away with that stuff as a result of I used to be this clear minimize school child in a bow-tie and horn-rimmed glasses, being form of harmless and good,” Lehrer stated. Followers took the file dwelling on holidays, and orders started drifting in from across the nation. “The phrase unfold like herpes,” as Lehrer places it, and shortly he was making nightclub appearances. After some time he graduated to live performance halls, then recorded his second studio album in 1959. That very same 12 months, he recorded reside variations of each albums, one at Harvard and the opposite at MIT. (His commercial for a reside set stated it “accommodates precisely the identical songs, however sadly additionally consists of Mr. Lehrer’s tedious spoken commentary.”)
In actuality, Lehrer’s onstage patter was as sharp as his lyrics. “, of all of the songs I’ve ever sung, that’s the one I’ve had essentially the most requests not to,” he stated after performing, “I Maintain Your Hand in Mine,” an enthralling story of homicide and dismemberment, on “Songs by Tom Lehrer.” In that very same present, Lehrer stated, “I don’t like folks to get the concept that I’ve to do that for a residing. I imply, it isn’t as if I had to do that, you understand. I might be making, oh, $3,000 a 12 months simply instructing.”
Lehrer turned a nationwide phenomenon when he was invited to carry out his work on “That Was the Week That Was,” a U.S. adaptation of the same-named satirical-musical British sequence that appeared again on the earlier seven days’ price of stories. “TWTWTW,” because it was identified, ran simply two seasons, from 1963 to 65. Lehrer’s work survived and endured, although, most likely as a result of every tune appeared to exist in its personal hermetically sealed universe.
Lehrer declined all requests to return to the keys and unveil new materials or play the hits. A part of the issue, he advised interviewers, was that he didn’t discover a lot humor in lots of the main political developments after his heyday. What was he gonna do, a humorous tune about 9/11 or the 2008 recession? Greater than that, “I didn’t really feel the necessity for nameless affection, for folks at midnight applauding,” he stated. “To me, it might be like writing a novel after which getting up each night time and studying your novel. Every part I did is on the file and, if you wish to hear it, simply take heed to the file.”
Nevertheless, though Lehrer stopped performing and recording pretty quickly into his music profession, he was at all times prepared to debate his work. He did numerous interviews over the a long time. They produced many superb quotes, like “If an individual feels he can’t talk, the least he can do is shut up about it,” and “Political satire turned out of date once they awarded Henry Kissinger the Nobel Peace Prize,” and my favourite, “Life is sort of a piano. What you get out of it depends upon the way you play it.”
“I actually don’t have something extra to say,” he advised Bob Claster. “To only come again and stand on a stage and do the outdated songs once more doesn’t actually enchantment to me, and performing doesn’t enchantment to me in any respect.” He stated folks used to invest that he should not have favored performing if he determined to cease doing it. Lehrer would reply that he favored highschool, however didn’t need to do this once more, both. However he added that he was grateful for his transient window of fame as a result of it let him journey all around the world and meet fascinating folks and, extra importantly, it “enabled me to do what I at all times wished to do, which is educate half time and hang around.” If not for the music, “I might have needed to have an actual job, god forbid.”
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