R.I.P. Tom Lehrer, mathematician and musical satirist
Tom Lehrer, the renowned Cold War-era musical satirist whose jaunty and grim show tunes inspired generations, has died. Per Variety, Lehrer was found dead at his Cambridge, MA, home on July 26. He was 97.
Lehrer infiltrated the world of music from the ivory tower of academia. Born in New York City in 1928, Lehrer was a math prodigy. He entered Harvard at the age of 15 and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in mathematics, magna cum laude, before his 20th birthday. He received his master’s in 1947 and went on to teach math at MIT, Harvard, Wellesley, and UC Santa Cruz, where he remained for much of his career. After being drafted into the army in 1955, he served in the NSA. There, he made his first contribution to American society: The Jell-O shot. “We were having a Christmas party on the naval base where I was working in Washington, D.C. The rules said no alcoholic beverages were allowed,” Lehrer told San Francisco Weekly. “We wanted to have a little party, so this friend and I spent an evening experimenting with Jell-O. It wasn’t a beverage.”
Lehrer’s unassuming rule-bending served him well as a satirist who couched a sardonic worldview in upbeat show tunes. After some time on the nightclub circuit, where he delighted Isaac Asimov with songs about venereal disease, Lehrer recorded his first album, Songs By Tom Lehrer, for $15 in 1953. Mocking his alma mater, the Boy Scouts, and Confederate nostalgia, Lehrer established himself as a bespectacled firebrand with a wry smile who didn’t pull punches. He returned six years later with More Of Tom Lehrer, which included “Poisoning Pigeons In The Park” and “The Elements,” perhaps his most famous song. Parodying Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates Of Penzance tongue twister, “Major-General’s Song,” Lehrer’s “Elements” recounted all 102 chemical elements on the periodic table. It became a staple of elementary school science classes and popular culture. Yakko Warner used “The Elements” as the basis for “Yakko’s World,” an Animaniacs fan favorite that has found currency in social media memes. Daniel Radcliffe said a recitation of “The Elements” landed him the role of “Weird Al” in Weird.
Lehrer’s political engagement extended beyond the United States. While touring New Zealand in 1960, he criticized Prime Minister Walter Nash and the New Zealand Rugby Football Union for its racist exclusion of Māori players from a tour of apartheid South Africa. “When the team goes to South Africa, we all must act politely,” Lehrer sings in “Oh, Mr. Nash. “So to all their local problems, let’s be mute. It might be a friendly gesture as a token of affection if we brought along some Blacks for them to shoot.” Saying he was banned and threatened with arrest for his satire, Lehrer stopped touring in the early ’60s. He found work on the satirical news programs That Was The Week That Was and the BBC’s The Frost Report. Later, Lehrer wrote songs for The Electric Company. Though he retired from music, his legend grew, influencing Dr. Demento, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Randy Newman, and Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. In 2012, his parody of “The Old Lamplighter,” entitled “The Old Dope Peddler,” was sampled by 2 Chainz for the track “Dope Peddler.” When asked permission to use the song, Lehrer reportedly responded, “I grant you motherfuckers permission to do this. Please give my regards to Mr. Chainz, or may I call him 2?” In 2020, Lehrer put all his songs and lyrics in the public domain before relinquishing the copyrights to his songbook two years later.
Though he retired from music, Lehrer remained a keen observer of the political world. In 2000, responding to questions about his musical retirement, he told The New York Times, “Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”
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