# Anyone heard of this guy?



## Edward Elgar (Mar 22, 2006)

Tom Lehrer seemed to be quite influencial in the 50's and 60's. Musical satire is what I would call his music. Have you heard anything by him, and if so, what do you think?


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## cmb (Dec 20, 2006)

Oh my YES!!!!

In the 80's when I went to college - it was THE thing to collect his albums.

An opera-goer I know did the same thing back in the 50's - he used to appear at places like the hungryi in San Francisco - you probably already know this, but he is actually still a math professor at Cambridge.

He only did the music thing for fun.
He wrote one musical, which sorry to say, never did very well.

I have a great video of him performing at a math lecture at a college a few years ago.


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## Saturnus (Nov 7, 2006)

His song about the elements is certainly a classic


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## Edward Elgar (Mar 22, 2006)

Yes! Elements is good, but poisoning pigeoens is fantastic too! I saw on the internet information about a guy who rattled off the names of 50 Russian composers in a song. Anybody heard this?


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## opus67 (Jan 30, 2007)

I've heard, or rather read, a quote of his.

_It's a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years._


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## toughcritic (Jan 22, 2007)

Saturnus said:


> His song about the elements is certainly a classic


Oh, no doubt about it


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## soundandfury (Jul 12, 2008)

Yes, I have listened to quite a bit of Tom Lehrer; he is not just a ready wit, he's also very skilful with the musical side. Amazingly, he's still alive, despite being over 80. He has said (fairly recently) that _"Most people think that I am dead -- which I encourage, because it cuts down on the junk mail"_.

As for specific songs, 'We Will All Go Together When We Go' is one of the best, if you ask me.


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## bertalm (Sep 10, 2008)

Yes, I especially liked the song "Polution", which by the way is a pressing issue nowadays.


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

bertalm said:


> Yes, I especially liked the song "Polution", which by the way is a pressing issue nowadays.


Can't say I thought his political stuff was best (including 'MLF' which seems so incredibly dated now). For real staying power, I enjoyed "Be Prepared."


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## soundandfury (Jul 12, 2008)

Nothing dated about MLF... 
#Once all the Germans were warlike, and mean,#
#But that couldn't happen again;#
#We taught them a lesson in nineteen-eighteen... #
#And they've hardly bothered us since then!#

Completely up-to-date!


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## Mr. Terrible (Oct 17, 2008)

Still have some of my original vinyl of the good prof. including his first album.
He was by trade a professor of mathematics , I think, at harvard but I could be wrong. Wiki is your buddy!

Sure he sounds dated now but he did most of his stuff back around the same time as victor borge was doing the puctuation song and the "youre mcu three twotiful, three twotiful five words" schtick.

So for the 1950`s he was pretty hip and played a mean piano.


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## Mr. Terrible (Oct 17, 2008)

Edward Elgar said:


> Yes! Elements is good, but poisoning pigeoens is fantastic too! I saw on the internet information about a guy who rattled off the names of 50 Russian composers in a song. Anybody heard this?


Are you sure this isnt lehrer`s "Nicolai Ivanovitch Lobcehvski is hois name" which runs through about 50 unpronouncable russian placenames?

Starts "I have a friend in Minsk, who has a friend in Pinsk, whose friend in Alexandrovsk, has friend in Nietzepetrovsk " or similar.


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## msegers (Oct 17, 2008)

Search on YouTube. In fact, there is a special channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/6funswede) of old b&w videos that are used with his permission that are, apparently, not available anywhere else.

From the Wikipedia page about Lehrer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer), there are some good links, including to a site that gives his lyrics (http://members.aol.com/quentncree/lehrer/index.htm) as well as to a thirteen minute video of five songs on Archive.org (http://www.archive.org/details/lehrer).


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