Tom Lehrer: Mathematician, Musician, Satirist, Inventor of Jello-Shots.

“It's people like that who make you realize how little you've accomplished. It is a sobering thought, for example, that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.” ~ Tom Lehrer

When discussing influential humor in the 20th century, many people would rattle off a list from the Marx Brothers to Chris Rock. But as soon as one mentions “Tom Lehrer”, one’s audience either smacks the head in self chastisement and begins singing any one of his famous/infamous ditties or their face screws up in confusion. Yet few artists have had such an impact on American humor as this Harvard Math Professor.

We’ve all heard him. If you watched the Electric Company growing up he was the voice behind the catchy “L-Y”. But what many of the “Gen X”-ers and most of the “Twixters” (Times’s new name for “Gen Y”) don’t realize is that the guy who penned “Silent E” also penned some of the most politically biting and socially depraved satire American has ever seen.

Tom Lehrer started out writing his humorous tunes for himself and his friends for frat parties while a student at Harvard in the 1940’s and, later for faculty cocktail parties while a professor there. Eventually he self published a long playing album “Songs by Tom Lehrer” for the locals who came to see him perform at Boston clubs but with tunes like “Fight Fiercely Harvard”, “The Old Dope Peddler”, “Lobachevsky” & “My Hometown” (a song that humorously peels back the thin veneer of "Rockwellian America" before David Lynch was even born), it swiftly became the first recording to sell over 100,000 copies by word of mouth advertising alone (the disc would eventually sell 370,000 copies, my parents still have theirs).

After serving a stint in the Army (wherein, so the story goes, he invented Vodka Jello to get around the liquor restrictions in secure areas), he returned with “More of Tom Lehrer” which contained the infamous “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park”, the lesser known “Masochism Tango”, “The Elements" (Must have Flash to see animation), “Be Prepared” and the sunny look at Nuclear Holocaust “We’ll All Go Together When We Go”. He then wrapped them all up in “An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer.”

But the epoch of his work didn’t arrive until he was brought on to write songs for the NBC show “That Was the Week That Was” in 1963. A show of social satire in the turbulent 1960’s, many of the songs Lehrer penned for the show never made it past the censors and had to be released on the album “That Was The Year That Was”, which contains such wicked barbs as “National Brotherhood Week”, “Wenher von Braun”, “The Vactican Rag” , "MLF (Multi-Lateral Force) Lullaby”, and the famous “So Long Mom”.

Including “Lobechevsky”, long standing personal favorites are “Smut”:

“I do have a cause though. It's obscenity.

I'm for it.

Smut!
Give me smut and nothing but!
A dirty novel I can't shut
If it's uncut
and unsubt-le.

I've never quibbled
If it was ribald.
I would devour
Where others merely nibbled.
As the judge remarked the day that he acquitted my Aunt Hortense,
"To be smut
It must be ut-
Terly without redeeming social importance."

Por-
Nographic pictures I adore.
Indecent magazines galore,
I like them more
If they're hard core.

Bring on the obscene movies, murals, postcards, neckties, samplers, stained
glass windows, tattoos, anything!
More, more, I'm still not satisfied!

Stories of tortures
Used by debauchers
Lurid, licentious and vile,
Make me smile.
Novels that pander
To my taste for candor
Give me a pleasure sublime.
Let's face it I love slime!

Old books can be indecent books,
Though recent books are bolder.
For filth, I'm glad to say,
Is in the mind of the beholder.
When correctly viewed,
Everything is lewd.
I could tell you things about Peter Pan
And the Wizard of Oz - there's a dirty old man!

I thrill
To any book like Fanny Hill,
And I suppose I always will
If it is swill
And really fil-thy.

Who needs a hobby like tennis or philately?
I've got a hobby: rereading Lady Chatterley.
But now they're trying to take it all away from us unless
We take a stand, and hand in hand we fight for freedom of the press.
In other words: Smut! I love it.
Ah, the adventures of a slut.
Oh, I'm a market they can't glut.
I don't know what
Compares with smut.
Hip, hip, hooray!
Let's hear it for the Supreme Court!
Don't let them take it away!”

And “Who’s Next?”:

“First we got the bomb and that was good,
'Cause we love peace and motherhood.
Then Russia got the bomb, but that's O.K.,
'Cause the balance of power's maintained that way!
Who's next?

France got the bomb, but don't you grieve,
'Cause they're on our side (I believe).
China got the bomb, but have no fears;
They can't wipe us out for at least five years!*
Who's next?

Then Indonesia claimed that they
Were gonna get one any day.
South Africa wants two, that's right:
One for the black and one for the white!
Who's next?

Egypt's gonna get one, too,
Just to use on you know who.
So Israel's getting tense,
Wants one in self defense.
"The Lord's our shepherd," says the psalm,
But just in case, we better get a bomb!
Who's next?

Luxembourg is next to go
And, who knows, maybe Monaco.
We'll try to stay serene and calm
When Alabama gets the bomb!
Who's next, who's next, who's next?
Who's next?”

Amazingly, after his wild success with this album, Tom Lehrer returned to being a Math professor. Many rumors have been circulated as to why this sudden disappearance form the public eye, but Lehrer had long said he was never fond of performing. In an interview with the radio host “Dr. Demento” about ten years ago, he said he found himself waking up in them middle of the performance. Music was no longer enjoyable, it was a mindless job, so he returned to mathematics. Though the joke he made at the time was “that political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize”. Given the ridiculous actions and agendas that politicians engage in today, he has a point. The world’s greatest comedian could not have invented G.W. Bush and his administration.

So Tom Lehrer lives in enjoyable obscurity today, teaching mathematics and occasionally spreading rumors of his demise to cut down on junk mail. Though occasionally a journalist can coax him out of his den with a cold cut.

Sydney Morning Herald (Will have to register with the site, but the interview is worth it.)

And here’s a great interview he did for The Onion recently.

“Speaking of love, one problem that recurs more and more frequently these days, in books and plays and movies, is the inability of people to communicate with the people they love: husbands and wives who can't communicate, children who can't communicate with their parents, and so on. And the characters in these books and plays and so on, and in real life, I might add, spend hours bemoaning the fact that they can't communicate. I feel that if a person can't communicate, the very least he can do is to shut up.” ~ Tom Lhrer.

On a side note, today is Candlemass. Blessed Be to all in this New Year!