Tom Lehrer | |
|---|---|
 Lehrerc. 1957 | |
| Born | Thomas Andrew Lehrer (1928-04-09)April 9, 1928 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | July 26, 2025(2025-07-26) (aged 97) Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Education | Harvard University (AB,MA) |
| Occupations |
|
| Musical career | |
| Genres | |
| Instruments |
|
| Years active |
|
| Labels |
|
Musical artist | |
| Website | tomlehrersongs |
| Signature | |
.svg) | |
Thomas Andrew Lehrer (/ˈlɛərər/ ⓘ; April 9, 1928 – July 26, 2025) was an American musician, singer-songwriter, satirist and mathematician, who later taught mathematics and musical theater. He recorded pithy, humorous, and oftenpolitical songs that became popular in the 1950s and 1960s. His songs often parodied popular musical forms, though they usually had original melodies. An exception is "The Elements", in which he set the names of thechemical elements to the tune of the "Major-General's Song" fromGilbert and Sullivan'sThe Pirates of Penzance.
Lehrer's early performances dealt with non-topical subjects andblack humor in songs such as "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park". In the 1960s, he produced songs about timely social and political issues, particularly for the U.S. version of the television showThat Was the Week That Was. The popularity of these songs has far outlasted their topical subjects and references. Lehrer quoted a friend's explanation: "Always predict the worst and you'll be hailed as a prophet."[1] In the early 1970s, Lehrer largely retired from public performance to devote his time to teaching mathematics and musical theater history at theUniversity of California, Santa Cruz.
Thomas Andrew Lehrer was born in New York City on April 9, 1928, and grew up onManhattan'sUpper East Side.[2][3] He was the son of Morris James Lehrer (1897–1986), a successful necktie designer, and Anna Lehrer (née Waller; 1905–1978) and older brother of Barry Waller Lehrer (1930–2007).[4][5][a] Lehrer told an interviewer that he recalled an idyllic childhood onManhattan'sUpper West Side that included attendingBroadway shows with his family and walking throughCentral Park day or night.[7] He and his family were ethnicallyJewish, following a generally secular lifestyle that included attendingJewish Sunday school but alsocelebrating Christmas; he remarked that his ties to Judaism were "more to do with the delicatessen than the synagogue (...) and 'God' was primarily an expletive(.)"[8] As a child, he loved logic puzzles and math.[9] He began taking classical piano lessons at the age of seven, but was more interested in the popular music of the age. Eventually, his mother sent him to a piano teacher who taught him how to play theBroadway show tunes he loved.[10] At this early age, he began writingshow tunes, which eventually helped him as a satirical composer and writer in his years of lecturing atHarvard University and later at other universities.[11]
Lehrer attended theHorace Mann School inRiverdale, part ofthe Bronx borough of New York.[2][12] He also attendedCamp Androscoggin, both as a camper and a counselor.[13]Stephen Sondheim had Tom Lehrer as a camp counselor.[14][15]
Lehrer was considered a child prodigy and skipped two grades.[16] After graduation fromLoomis School, at the age of 15 he enteredHarvard College, where one of his professors wasIrving Kaplansky.[17][18][2] As an undergraduate student at Harvard, he began to writecomic songs, to entertain his friends, including "Fight Fiercely, Harvard".
A fellow student and friend,[b] the physicistJeremy Bernstein, recalled that he was told to organize a luncheon entertainment for the seniors graduating in 1951.[6] He knew only two entertainers, Lehrer andAl Capp, both of whom agreed. Lehrer ("and a small group of co-conspirators," Bernstein wrote) performed his songs asThe Physical Revue for Harvard's physics department then and again in 1952.[19] (Bernstein said, "This performance had remarkable consequences for Lehrer. Capp had a weekly radio program, and Lehrer became a fixture. I think that this was the first time he had been let loose on the general public, although the program only lasted four weeks."[6]) The revue was punningly revived by Lehrer in 1993 asSongs of the Physical Revue – a special performance for theAmerican Physical Society to commemorate the centenary of their journal, thePhysical Review.[20]
Lehrer graduated fromHarvard with aBachelor of Arts in mathematics,magna cum laude,[21] in 1946.[22] At Harvard, he was the roommate of the Canadian theologianRobert Crouse.[23] He received hisMA degree the next year and was inducted intoPhi Beta Kappa.[24] He later taught mathematics and other classes atMIT, Harvard,Wellesley, and theUniversity of California, Santa Cruz.[25]
Lehrer remained in Harvard's doctoral program for several years, taking time also for his musical career.[26] "I spent many, many years satisfying all the requirements, as many years as possible, and I started on thethesis," he once said. "But I just wanted to be a grad student, it's a wonderful life. That's what I wanted to be, and unfortunately, you can't be a Ph.D. and a grad student at the same time."[7]
Lehrer reportedly worked briefly as a researcher withStan Ulam at theLos Alamos Scientific Laboratory for two months in 1952.[27][28]
In 1953, he left Harvard, to work for Baird-Atomic, which made scientific and industrial instruments, including radiation detection andspectroscopy.[29][30]
Lehrer wasdrafted into theU.S. Army in 1955.[c] He served until 1957, working at theNational Security Agency (NSA). Lehrer once stated that he invented theJello shot during this time, as a means of circumventing the base's ban on alcoholic beverages.[26] Despite holding a master's degree in an era when American conscripts often lacked high school diplomas, Lehrer served as anenlisted soldier, achieving the rank ofspecialist third class, which he described as being a "corporalwithout portfolio".[31] These experiences became fodder for songs, such as "The Wild West is Where I Want to Be" and "It Makes a Fellow Proud to Be a Soldier".[32] In 2020 Lehrer publicly revealed that he had been assigned to the NSA; since the mere fact of the NSA's existence was classified at the time, Lehrer found himself in the position of implicitly using nuclear weapons work as a cover story for something more sensitive.[33]
In 1960, Lehrer returned to full-time mathematics studies at Harvard.[12] From 1962 he taught mathematics in thepolitical science department atMIT inCambridge, Massachusetts.[34] In 1965 he gave up on his mathematics dissertation onmodes in statistics, after working on it intermittently for 15 years.[2]
Lehrer grew tired of shoveling snow in the harsh Cambridge winters and already knew he liked California's Bay Area.[6][35] He contacted botany professorKenneth V. Thimann, provost ofCrown College, University of California, Santa Cruz, and suggested teaching courses inmusical theater. Since Crown was science-oriented, Thimann asked mathematicianAnthony Joseph Tromba, who had been at Harvard and knew of Lehrer's musical antics, to find him a position at humanities-heavyCowell College instead. Tromba sold Lehrer to the Fellowship Committee: "No one on the committee had heard of Tom. So I had to convince them that it was a great idea... We had Ph.D.s in music and art history who did scholarly work. But Cowell also wanted to have practicing artists to give students actual meaningful contact with them. Rather than just writing papers aboutMichelangelo, let's have Michelangelo here—and why not?"[35] So in 1972, Lehrer joined the faculty of theUniversity of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). Tromba said that Lehrer was officially a "Lecturer in American Studies,"[35] not mathematics, though he taught two introductory classes, "The Nature of Mathematics" and "Mathematics in the Social Sciences," to liberal arts majors—"Math for Tenors", according to Lehrer. He occasionally performed songs in his lectures.[18]
In 2001, Lehrer taught his last mathematics class, on the topic ofinfinity, and retired from academia.[36] He remained in the area, maintaining homes in both Santa Cruz and Cambridge.[37] In 2003 Lehrer confirmed he still "h[ung] out" around UCSC.[38] Mike Peña of UCSC said in 2025, "Lehrer's reputation matched UC Santa Cruz's creative and irreverent spirit; and his talents played perfectly into the campus's original intent to elevate the humanities and foster deeper connections between scholarship and society... Lehrer taught at UC Santa Cruz until 2001 and last came here about five years ago. His cultural contributions are so woven into the American fabric that they ensure his place as one of the most beloved educators ever to teach at our campus."[35]
| When You Are Old and Gray | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Lehrerc. 1958 | |
"When You Are Old and Gray", a satirical song about love. Studio recording fromSongs by Tom Lehrer (1953). |
Lehrer was mainly influenced bymusical theater. According toGerald Nachman's bookSeriously Funny,[39] theBroadway musicalLet's Face It! made an early and lasting impression on him. Lehrer's style consists ofparodying various forms ofpopular song. For example, his appreciation oflist songs led him to write "The Elements", which lists thechemical elements to the tune ofGilbert and Sullivan's "Major-General's Song".[40][41]
"He gave his first public concert as a third-year graduate student, at theSanders Theatre in 1950."[15] –Jeremy Bernstein
In author andBoston University professorIsaac Asimov's second autobiographical volume,In Joy Still Felt, Asimov recounted seeing Lehrer perform in aBoston nightclub on October 9, 1954. Lehrer sang a song about Jim getting it from Louise, and Sally from Jim, "... and after a while you gathered the 'it' wasvenereal disease. Suddenly, as the combinations grew more grotesque, you realized he was satirizing every knownperversion without using a single naughty phrase. It was clearly unsingable outside a nightclub." Asimov also recalled a song that dealt with theBoston subway system, making use of the stations leading into town from Harvard, observing that the local subject-matter rendered the song useless for general distribution. Lehrer subsequently granted Asimov permission to print the lyrics to "The Subway Song" in his book. "I haven't gone to nightclubs often," said Asimov, "but of all the times I have gone, it was on this occasion that I had by far the best time."[42]
| We Will All Go Together When We Go | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Lehrerc. 1958 | |
"We Will All Go Together When We Go", a song aboutnuclear holocaust leading tohuman extinction. Studio recording fromMore of Tom Lehrer (1959). |
Lehrer was encouraged by the success of his performances, so he paid $15 (equivalent to $176 in 2024) to record in a single one-hour session on January 22, 1953, at theTransRadio studio on Boylston Street[43] in Boston,Songs by Tom Lehrer.[44][45] The initial pressing was 400 copies. Radio stations would not air his songs because of his controversial subjects, so he sold the album on campus at Harvard for $3, equivalent to $35 in 2024, while "several stores near the Harvard campus sold it for $3.50, taking only a minimal markup as a kind of community service. Newsstands on campus sold it for the same price."[46] After one summer, he started to receive mail orders from all parts of the country, as far away as San Francisco, after theSan Francisco Chronicle wrote an article on the record.[47] Interest in his recordings spread by word of mouth. People played their records for friends, who then also wanted a copy.[48] Lehrer recalled, "Lacking exposure in the media, my songs spread slowly. Likeherpes, rather thanebola."[49]
The album included the macabre "I Hold Your Hand in Mine", the mildly risqué "Be Prepared", and "Lobachevsky", regarding plagiarizing mathematicians. It became acult success by word of mouth, despite being self-published and without promotion. The limited distribution of the album led to a knock-off album by Jack "Enjal" (a pseudonym of Jack Nagel) being released in 1958 without Lehrer's approval, where some of the lyrics were mistranscribed.[50]
Lehrer embarked on a series of concert tours and recorded a second album in 1959. He released the second album in two versions: the songs were the same, butMore of Tom Lehrer was a studio recording andAn Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer was recorded live in concert. In 2013, Lehrer recalled the studio session for "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park", which referred to the practice of controlling pigeons in Boston withstrychnine-treated corn:[51]
The copyist arrived at the last minute with the parts and passed them out to the band ... And there was no title on it, and there was no lyrics. And so they ran through it, "What a pleasant little waltz" ... And the engineer said,"'Poisoning Pigeons in the Park,' take one," and the piano player said, "What?" and literally fell off the stool.[52]
.jpg)
Lehrer had a breakthrough in the United Kingdom on December 4, 1957, when theUniversity of London awarded adoctor of music degreehonoris causa toPrincess Margaret, and the public orator, Professor J. R. Sutherland, said it was "in the full knowledge that the Princess is a connoisseur of music and a performer of skill and distinction, her taste being catholic, ranging from Mozart to thecalypso and from opera to the songs of MissBeatrice Lillie and Tom Lehrer."[53][54][55] This prompted significant interest in Lehrer's works and helped to secure distribution in Britain for his five-year-old debut album. It was there that his music achieved real sales popularity, as a result of the proliferation of university newspapers referring to the material, and inadvertently due to theBBC, which in 1958 banned from broadcast 10 of the 12 songs on the album.[56] By the end of the 1950s, Lehrer had sold 370,000 records.[2]
In 1960, Lehrer essentially retired from touring in the U.S.[2] That same year, however, he toured Australia and New Zealand, performing a total of 33 concerts to great acclaim[46] and controversy.[57] While in New Zealand, he penned lyrics critical of theAll Blacks' upcoming tour of Apartheid-era South Africa and Prime MinisterWalter Nash's stance on it.[58][59] Lehrer's tours occurred during a time in which he was, he said, "banned, censored, mentioned in several houses of parliament and threatened with arrest." In particular, "Be Prepared" drew advance resistance inBrisbane from the commissioner of police. He performed several songs in Australia that were still unreleased, including "The Masochism Tango."[38]
In the early 1960s, Lehrer was employed as the resident songwriter for the U.S. edition ofThat Was The Week That Was (TW3), a satirical television show.[46] A greater proportion of his output became overtly political, or at least topical, on subjects such as education ("New Math"), theSecond Vatican Council ("The Vatican Rag"), race relations ("National Brotherhood Week"), air and water pollution ("Pollution"[60]), American militarism ("Send the Marines"), andnuclear proliferation ("Who's Next?" and "MLF Lullaby"). He also wrote a song satirizing rocket scientistWernher von Braun, who worked forNazi Germany before working for the United States. Lehrer did not appear on TW3; vocalistNancy Ames performed his songs (to Lehrer's chagrin),[50] and lines were often cut from his songs.[50] Lehrer later performed nine of these songs at theHungry i nightclub inSan Francisco, and this became the albumThat Was the Year That Was (1965).[61]
| National Brotherhood Week | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Lehrer performing in Copenhagen, 1967 | |
"National Brotherhood Week", a song about an annual event promoted by theNational Conference for Community and Justice. Live recording fromThat Was the Year That Was (1965). |
In 1966, BBC TV hostDavid Frost returned to the UK with the BBC programThe Frost Report; alongsideJulie Felix, Lehrer provided musical satire on the weekly subject.[62] The show was transmitted live, and he pre-recorded all his segments at one performance.[61] Lehrer was not featured in every edition, but his songs featured in an appropriate part of each show.[63] At least two of these songs were not included on any of his LPs: a reworking ofNoël Coward's "That is the End of the News" (with some new lyrics)[64] and a comic explanation of how Britain might adapt to thecoming of decimal currency.[65]
Lehrer's record deal withReprise Records forThat Was The Year That Was also gave Reprise distribution rights for his earlier recordings, because Lehrer wanted towind up his own record imprint.[50] The Reprise issue ofSongs by Tom Lehrer was a stereo re-recording. This version was not issued on CD, as Lehrer was unhappy with this version.[61] The live recording included bonus tracks "L-Y" and "Silent E", two of the ten songs that he wrote for thePBS children's educational seriesThe Electric Company. Lehrer later commented that worldwide sales of the recordings under Reprise surpassed 1.8 million units in 1996. That same year,That Was The Year That Was went gold.[48] The albumliner notes promote his songs with self-deprecating humor, such as quoting aNew York Times review from 1959: Mr. Lehrer's muse is "not fettered by such inhibiting factors as taste".[66]
Lehrer toured Sweden, Norway, and Denmark in 1967;[67] his concert in Oslo was recorded for Danish television and subsequently released on DVD some 40 years later.[68] He performed as a prominent international guest at theStudenterforeningen (student association) in Copenhagen, which was televised, and he commented on stage that he might be America's "revenge forVictor Borge".[69] He performed original songs in aDodge automobile industrial film distributed primarily to automobile dealers and shown at promotional events in 1967, set in a fictional American wild west town and titledThe Dodge Rebellion Theatre presents Ballads For '67.[46][70] He attempted to adaptSweeney Todd as a Broadway musical, working withJoe Raposo, to starJerry Colonna. They started a few songs but, as Lehrer noted, "Nothing ever came of it, and of course twenty years laterStephen Sondheimbeat me to the punch."[71]
| L-Y | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Lehrer performing at a fundraising event for George McGovern in Brattleboro, Vermont, 1972 | |
Although Lehrer was "a hero of theanti-nuclear,civil rightsleft", he disliked the aesthetics of thecounterculture of the 1960s and largely stopped performing in the United States as the movement gained momentum.[2]
In the 1970s, Lehrer concentrated on teaching mathematics and musical theater,[37] although he also wrote ten songs for the educational children's television showThe Electric Company. His last public performance for many years took place in 1972, on a fundraising tour for theanti-Vietnam War Democratic U.S. presidential candidateGeorge McGovern.[2][15]
When asked why he had abandoned his musical career in an interview for the booklet accompanying his CD boxed set,The Remains of Tom Lehrer (2000), Lehrer replied: "If an idea came to me, I'd write, and if it didn't I wouldn't—and, gradually, the second option prevailed over the first. Occasionally people ask 'If you enjoyed it'—and I did—'why don't you do it again?' I reply, 'I enjoyed high school but I certainly wouldn't want to dothat again.'"[72]
Yet at different times he gave other explanations for quitting. In 1973, he had said that "political satire became obsolete whenHenry Kissinger was awarded theNobel Peace Prize."[73] In 1981, at a New York performance ofTomfoolery, he toldThe New York Times, "The Vietnam War is what changed it. Everybody got earnest. My purpose was to make people laugh and not applaud. If the audience applauds they’re just showing they agree with me. But that’s not humor. So I dropped out just in time."[73]
Lehrer's musical career was relatively brief. He once mentioned that he performed a mere 109 shows and wrote 37 songs over 20 years.[74] Nevertheless, he developed a cult following in subsequent decades.[75]
.jpg)
Lehrer's music became a staple ofTheDoctor Demento Show when it began national syndication in 1977.[76] In 1980,Cameron Mackintosh producedTomfoolery, a revue of Lehrer's songs that was a hit on the London stage. Lehrer was not initially involved with the show, but he was pleased with it; he eventually gave the stage production his full support and updated several of his lyrics for the show.Tomfoolery contained 27 songs and led to more than 200 productions,[48] including anOff-Broadway production at theVillage Gate which ran for 120 performances in 1981.[77] Lehrer made a rare TV appearance onBBC'sParkinson show in conjunction with theTomfoolery premiere in 1980 at theCriterion Theatre in London, where he sang "I Got It from Agnes".[78][79] There wereTomfoolery performances in San Francisco about 1982 and in 2018–19.Tomfoolery was performed at theArena Stage Theater in Washington, DC, in 1982.[80] In 1993, he wrote "That's Mathematics" for the closing credits to aMathematical Sciences Research Institute video[81] celebrating the proof ofFermat's Last Theorem.
On June 7 and 8, 1998, Lehrer performed in public for the first time in 18 years at theLyceum Theatre, London, as part of the showHey, Mr. Producer! celebrating the career of Cameron Mackintosh, who had producedTomfoolery. The June 8 show was his only performance before QueenElizabeth II. Lehrer sang "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" and an updated version of the nuclear proliferation song "Who's Next?".[82]
In 2000, Lehrer commented that he doubted his songs had any real effect on those not already critical of the establishment: "I don't think this kind of thing has an impact on the unconverted, frankly. It's not even preaching to the converted; it's titillating the converted ... I'm fond of quotingPeter Cook, who talked about the satirical BerlinKabaretts of the 1930s, which did so much to stop the rise ofHitler and prevent theSecond World War."[83]
Lehrer said, jokingly, of his musical career: "If, after hearing my songs, just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend, or perhaps to strike a loved one, it will all have been worth the while."[10] In 2003, Lehrer commented that his particular brand of political satire is more difficult in the modern world: "The real issues I don't think most people touch. TheClinton jokes are all aboutMonica Lewinsky and all that stuff and not about the important things, like the fact that he wouldn't banland mines ... I'm not tempted to write a song aboutGeorge W. Bush. I couldn't figure out what sort of song I would write. That's the problem: I don't want to satirize George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporize them."[38] Earlier, he had said: "Political satire became obsolete whenHenry Kissinger was awarded theNobel peace prize."[84]
In 2000, the boxed CD setThe Remains of Tom Lehrer was released byRhino Entertainment. It included live and studio versions of his first two albums,That Was The Year That Was, the songs that he wrote forThe Electric Company, some previously unreleased material, and a small hardbound lyrics book with an introduction byDr. Demento. In 2010,Shout! Factory launched a reissue campaign, making Lehrer's out-of-print albums available digitally. The CD/DVD comboThe Tom Lehrer Collection was issued, including his best-known songs, with a DVD featuring an Oslo concert.[85]
In a February 2008 phone call,Gene Weingarten ofThe Washington Post interviewed Lehreroff the record. When Weingarten asked if there was anything he could print for the record, Lehrer responded, "Just tell the people that I am voting forObama."[86]
In 2012, rapper2 Chainz sampled Lehrer's song "The Old Dope Peddler" on his debut album,Based on a T.R.U. Story. In 2013, Lehrer said he was "very proud" to have his song sampled "literally sixty years after I recorded it". Lehrer went on to describe his official response to the request to use his song: "As sole copyright owner of 'The Old Dope Peddler', I grant you motherfuckers permission to do this. Please give my regards to Mr. Chainz, or may I call him 2?"[52][87]
In October 2020, Lehrer transferred the music and lyrics for all songs he had ever written into thepublic domain:[88][89]
In short, I no longer retain any rights to any of my songs.So help yourselves, and don’t send me any money.
— Tom Lehrer
In November 2022, Lehrer formally relinquished thecopyright and performing/recording rights on his songs, making all music and lyrics composed by him free for anyone to use, and established a website from which all of his recordings and printable copies of all of his songs could be downloaded.[90] His statement releasing all his works into the public domain concludes with this note: "This website will be shut down at some date in the not too distant future, so if you want to download anything, don't wait too long."[90] As of October 2025, the website is still online.[37]
Comedy labelStand Up! Records released Lehrer's holiday songs "(I'm Spending)Hanukkah inSanta Monica," which he had written forGarrison Keillor'sThe American Radio Company of the Air in 1990 and recorded later,[9][d] and "A Christmas Carol" as a seven-inch single in 2024. The limited-edition release also included sheet music for both songs.[91]
Lehrer never married and had no children.[37][92] He died at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on July 26, 2025, at the age of 97.[37]
In 1967, Swedish actorLars Ekborg, known outside Sweden for his part inIngmar Bergman'sSummer with Monika, made an album calledI Tom Lehrers vackra värld ("In the beautiful world of Tom Lehrer"), with 12 of Lehrer's songs translated intoSwedish. Lehrer wrote in a letter to the producer Per-Anders Boquist that, "Not knowing any Swedish, I am obviously not equipped to judge, but it sounds to me as though Mr. Ekborg is perfect for the songs", along with further compliments to pianist Leif Asp for unexpected additional flourishes.[93]
In 1971, Argentinian singerNacha Guevara sang Spanish versions of several Lehrer songs for the show/live albumEste es el año que es.[94][95] In the 1950s,Georg Kreisler wrote two songs likely inspired by Tom Lehrer's "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" and "I Hold Your Hand in Mine", as mentioned by Lehrer himself even though disputed by Kreisler. ComposerRandy Newman said of Lehrer, "He's one of the great American songwriters without a doubt, right up there with everybody, the top guys. As a lyricist, as good as there's been in the last half of the 20th century."[52] Singer and comedianDillie Keane has acknowledged Lehrer's influence on her work.[96]
Dr. Demento praised Lehrer as "the best musical satirist of the twentieth century." Other artists who cite Lehrer as an influence include"Weird Al" Yankovic, whose work generally addresses morepopular and less technical or political subjects,[97] and educator and scientistH. Paul Shuch, who tours under the stage name Dr. SETI, and calls himself "a cross betweenCarl Sagan and Tom Lehrer: He sings like Sagan and lectures like Lehrer."[98] Yankovic sawDaniel Radcliffe (who called Lehrer his "hero")[99] perform "The Elements" onThe Graham Norton Show in his native United Kingdom,[100] which led to Radcliffe starring inWeird: The Al Yankovic Story.[101]
From January 16 to February 25, 2006, the playLetters from Lehrer, written and performed by CanadianRichard Greenblatt, ran atCanStage in Toronto. It followed Lehrer's musical career, the meaning of several songs, the politics of the time, and Greenblatt's own experiences with Lehrer's music, while playing some of Lehrer's songs.[102]
In the March 16, 2006, issue ofNew York magazine,Donald Fagen ofSteely Dan named Tom Lehrer among the writers who had influenced him and his songwriting partnerWalter Becker. "We also liked comic songwriting, like Tom Lehrer. He was a piano player and songwriter who wrote these grim, funny songs."[103]
In 2010, the German musician-comedian Felix Janosa released an album with the title "Tauben vergiften: Die bösen Lieder von Tom Lehrer" ("Poisoning pigeons: The Evil Songs of Tom Lehrer"), with German versions of some of his best-known songs.[104]
In 2024,Francis Beckett wrote a playTom Lehrer Is Teaching Math and Doesn't Want to Talk to You, which features Lehrer's music and was performed with Lehrer's tacit approval at theUpstairs at The Gatehouse theatre inHighgate, London.[105][106]
In 2025,The Harvard Crimson recalls how Lehrer expressed his surprise that "well, I wrote 'Fight Fiercely, Harvard' in 1945" and it was still being performed in the 21st century.The Crimson comments, "[As]Harvard squares off with theTrump administration, the song — which genteelly urges football players to 'hurl that spheroid down the field' — has become aprotest anthem of sorts, too."[73]
Performers influenced by Lehrer's style include American political satiristMark Russell,[107] Canadian comedian and songwriterRandy Vancourt, and the British duo Kit and The Widow. Composer/cabarettistLeonard Lehrman extended three of Lehrer's songs, writing a new verse 4 to "Clementine",[108] a new verse 2 to "Hanukkah in Santa Monica",[109] and a new verse 3 to "The Elements".[110]
Lehrer has been referred to as the "King of Satire" by fans.[111]
Studio albums
Live albums
Compilation albums
Singles
Covers
Many of Lehrer's songs are performed by others inThat Was The Week That Was (Radiola LP, 1981).
Mathematics
Reference 3:Lobachevsky "Analytic and Algebraic Topology of Locally Euclidean Metrizations of Infinitely Differentiable Riemannian Manifolds" (Unpublished)[113]
TheAmerican Mathematical Society database lists him as co-author of two papers:
Songs
Two of Lehrer's songs were reprinted, with his permission, inMad magazine:[114]
Sheet music
He responded: No one is more dangerous than someone who thinks he has The Truth. To be an atheist is almost as arrogant as to be a fundamentalist. But then again, I can get pretty arrogant.
Lehrer was officially a Lecturer in American Studies, not mathematics. In his primary course, The American Musical, Lehrer explored classics likeMy Fair Lady,Guys and Dolls,Camelot, andThe King and I.
on October 8, 1954, at Transradio Studio on Boylston Street in. Boston—under the auspices of the Woodberry Poetry Room (and its then curator Jack ...
The satirical songwriter plays "Pollution" from his 1965 album "That Was The Year That Was." Aired Jan. 4, 1966 on CBC's The Public Eye.
Media from Commons
Quotations from Wikiquote
Texts from Wikisource
Data from Wikidata...Public Domain... This website will be shut down at some date in the not too distant future, so if you want to download anything, don't wait too long...
— Tom Lehrer,Disclaimer (Nov 26, 2022)
Papers
...Joan Baez—whom I've never met—was asked in an interview if she sang lullabies to her baby. She said that doesn't work, but she sings 'The Old Dope Peddler' to him and he goes right to sleep.
Audio
Metadata
Fan sites
