Jason Ankeny wrote:Biography Tom Lehrer was one of comedy's great paradoxes -- a respected Harvard mathematics professor by day, he also ranked among the foremost song satirists of the postwar era, recording vicious, twisted parodies of popular musical trends which proved highly influential on the "sick comedy" revolution of the '60s. Despite an aversion to the press and a relatively small recorded output, Lehrer became a star, although he remained an enigma to even his most ardent fans; he rarely toured, never allowed his photo to adorn album jackets, and essentially retired from performing in 1965, leaving behind a cult following which only continued to grow in his absence from the limelight.
I like this Tom Lehrer character, even though his music is anything but uplifting. Lehrer is funny and witty. He has said of his music, jokingly I believe, "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." Here are my favorite satirical songs of his and, to understand his genus better, I'd like to hear the originals before he modified them. Please post a link to any of his musical sources, if you know them.
Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky - Tom Lehrer
Tom Lehrer - Pollution
Tom Lehrer - Wernher von Braun
Tom Lehrer - The MLF Lullaby
Tom Lehrer - The elements song
(with lyrics)
There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium,
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium,
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium,
Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium,
And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium,
And gold and protactinium and indium and gallium,
<gasp>
And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium.
There's yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium,
And boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium,
And strontium and silicon and silver and samarium,
And bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium, and barium.
There's holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium,
And phosphorus and francium and fluorine and terbium,
And manganese and mercury, molybdenum, magnesium,
Dysprosium and scandium and cerium and cesium.
And lead, praseodymium, and platinum, plutonium,
Palladium, promethium, potassium, polonium,
And tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium,
<gasp>
And cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium.
There's sulfur, californium, and fermium, berkelium,
And also mendelevium, einsteinium, nobelium,
And argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc, and rhodium,
And chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper, tungsten, tin, and sodium.
These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard,
And there may be many others, but they haven't been discovered.
Tom Lehrer - The Wiener Schnitzel Waltz
Tom Lehrer - The Masochism Tango
Tom Lehrer - When You Are Old And Gray
Tom Lehrer - A Christmas Carol
Tom Lehrer - The Vatican Rag
Tom Lehrer - Derivative Song
Tom Lehrer - There is a Delta for Every Epsilon
I can't get over how talented this guy is. He is far more entertaining than "Weird Al" Yankovic.
