Lehrer, who died July 26, wrote quite a few satirical songs, together with “Air pollution” and “The Vatican Rag.” Within the latter half of his life, he additionally taught math at Harvard and MIT.
TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:
That is FRESH AIR. Tom Lehrer, the composer and occasional performer of such satirical, typically topical songs like “Air pollution” and “Vatican Rag,” died final week on the age of 97. Our TV critic David Bianculli notes that for the overwhelming majority of these years, Tom Lehrer was not a performer. He was a professor instructing arithmetic at Harvard and MIT. However his songs, largely from the Fifties and ’60s, weren’t forgotten. Here is David’s remembrance.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “POLLUTION”)
TOM LEHRER: (Singing) See the halibuts and the sturgeons are being worn out by detergents. A fish bought to swim, and birds bought to fly. However they do not final lengthy if they struggle. Air pollution. Air pollution. You need to use the newest toothpaste after which rinse your mouth with industrial waste.
DAVID BIANCULLI, BYLINE: Tom Lehrer was born in New York Metropolis in 1928. As a teen, he had a keenness and an inherent ability for each music and math. He beloved logic puzzles and likewise took classical piano classes. However he most popular the comedian operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan, the songs of Cole Porter and the tongue-twisting vocal performances by Danny Kaye. He attended the identical summer season camp as one other puzzle and music fanatic, Stephen Sondheim. However they did not get to know one another till virtually 60 years later. In a uncommon 1997 interview, Lehrer known as Sondheim, quote, “The best lyricist that the English language has ever produced,” unquote, and went on so as to add, “and that is a reality, not an opinion.” Tom Lehrer, like Sondheim, was precocious at a younger age, skipping sufficient grades to enter Harvard College at age 15. He settled on the examine of arithmetic however started writing songs for the amusement of his classmates, performing sometimes at college exhibits and at native golf equipment. In 1953, whereas nonetheless a graduate pupil, he paid $15 for an hour of time at a Boston recording studio. When the hour was up, he had recorded sufficient of his personal comedian compositions to fill an album.
He known as it “Songs By Tom Lehrer” and printed 400 copies. Demand ultimately known as for a second urgent, then a 3rd. And over the a long time, Lehrer’s albums have offered within the hundreds of thousands. Here is a style from that first do-it-yourself report, a love music known as “I Maintain Your Hand In Mine.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “I HOLD YOUR HAND IN MINE”)
LEHRER: (Singing) I maintain your hand in mine, expensive. I press it to my lips. I take a wholesome chew out of your dainty finger ideas. My pleasure could be full, expensive, when you had been solely right here. However nonetheless, I preserve your hand as a valuable memento.
BIANCULLI: Within the mid-’50s, Tom Lehrer booked a couple of appearances the place he sang his previous and new songs, accompanying himself on piano. However he additionally discovered time to graduate from Harvard, attend grad faculty, spend two years within the Military and start instructing math programs at each Harvard and MIT. In the meantime, “Mad” journal began that includes and illustrating his lyrics. Six years after his first album, Tom Lehrer added to his discography, releasing each studio and dwell recordings of such songs as this one. “We Will All Go Collectively When We Go,” just a little ditty in regards to the impending risk of worldwide nuclear annihilation.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “WE WILL ALL GO TOGETHER WHEN WE GO”)
LEHRER: (Singing) We’ll all burn collectively after we burn. There will be no want to face and wait your flip. When it is time for the fallout, and Saint Peter calls us all out, we’ll simply drop our agendas and adjourn. You’ll all go on to your respective Valhallas. Go instantly. Don’t move go. Don’t accumulate $200. And we’ll all go collectively.
BIANCULLI: Lehrer’s popular culture profile and his visibility peaked within the mid-’60s. His compositions had been featured on NBC’s “That Was The Week That Was,” the American model of a satirical British present, each of which had been hosted by David Frost. However Lehrer by no means appeared on NBC’s present to sing them himself. He simply equipped them to be sung by Nancy Ames, Phyllis Newman and others. Whereas he was recording and performing, Lehrer additionally was instructing. In his concert events and his recordings, he launched every music like a trainer with a mini lecture placing it in context. That definitely has helped his music keep alive over the a long time. And on the recordings, you may hear how a lot he values each his diction – each phrase, whether or not spoken or sung, is enunciated completely – and his dictionary. Here is an important instance – a music he says he did not even undergo “That Was The Week That Was” as a result of he knew it will be rejected. And you’ll hear from the viewers response, simply how shocked and delighted they had been by its aggressive irreverence.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LEHRER: One other huge information story of the 12 months involved the ecumenical council in Rome, often known as Vatican II.
(LAUGHTER)
LEHRER: Among the many issues they did in an try to make the church extra industrial…
(LAUGHTER)
LEHRER: …Was to introduce the vernacular into parts of the Mass to exchange Latin and to widen considerably the vary of music permissible within the liturgy. However I really feel that in the event that they actually need to promote the product in…
(LAUGHTER)
LEHRER: …This secular age, what they should do is to redo among the liturgical music in widespread music varieties. I’ve a modest instance right here.
(LAUGHTER)
LEHRER: It is known as “The Vatican Rag.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THE VATICAN RAG”)
LEHRER: (Singing) First, you get down in your knees, fiddle together with your rosaries, bow your head with nice respect and genuflect, genuflect, genuflect.
(LAUGHTER)
LEHRER: (Singing) Do no matter steps you need in case you have cleared them with the pontiff. All people say his personal Kyrie Eleison doing the Vatican Rag.
BIANCULLI: He loved writing and recording however not performing, and his most distinguished TV appearances weren’t even in America. After “That Was The Week That Was,” he reteamed with David Frost for the BBC’s “The Frost Report,” showing every week on the identical present, whose different performers and writers included all the longer term British members of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus.” And Tom Lehrer’s final TV efficiency was on Denmark TV – a full-length one-man present for a pupil affiliation in Copenhagen. And after that 1967 live performance, he retired from present enterprise, resurfacing within the Nineteen Seventies just for an occasional political fundraiser or to offer an academic music or two for “The Electrical Firm.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “SILENT E”)
LEHRER: (Singing) Who can flip a can right into a cane? Who can flip a pan right into a pane? It isn’t too arduous to see, it is silent E.
BIANCULLI: However from 1970 till his demise in 2025, Tom Lehrer was a math trainer, not a musical satirist. That is greater than half a century, and that is how he noticed himself. But a Rhino CD field set, “The Stays Of Tom Lehrer,” collected loads of songs to show that Tom Lehrer was a beautiful songwriter, as nicely. And that is a reality, not an opinion. To shut this appreciation, this is one of many final songs he wrote for certainly one of Garrison Keillor’s radio exhibits in 1990. Tom Lehrer did not carry out it then however recorded it later. The thought was to offer a Jewish counterpart to such Christmas classics as “White Christmas.” And his title? “(I am Spending) Hanukkah In Santa Monica.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “(I’M SPENDING) HANUKKAH IN SANTA MONICA”)
LEHRER: (Singing) However in December, there’s only one place for me. Amid the California flora, I will be lighting my menorah like a child in his cradle, I will be enjoying with my dreidel. Here is to Judas Maccabeus. Boy, if he may solely see us spending Hanukkah in Santa Monica by the ocean.
MOSLEY: David Bianculli teaches tv research at Rowan College. Tom Lehrer died final week on the age of 97. On the subsequent FRESH AIR, Scott Anderson chronicles the Iranian Revolution of 1979 – the upheaval that deposed the reigning monarch and remodeled the nation from a U.S. ally to an Islamic republic. He says blunders by American policymakers performed a key function within the final result. I hope you may be part of us. To maintain up with what’s on the present and get highlights of our interviews, observe us on Instagram – @nprfreshair.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MOSLEY: FRESH AIR’s government producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Sam Briger is our managing producer. Our interviews and opinions are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi, Anna Bauman and John Sheehan. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Hope Wilson is our consulting visible producer. Roberta Shorrock directs the present. With Terry Gross, I am Tonya Mosley.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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