My mother gave me Tom Lehrer's first record as a high school graduation present in 1954. [ObFolk: I had already heard one of the songs on it ("The Irish Ballad"); it was in oral circulation in my high school.] I still have it, and I still listen to it from time to time.

I agree that he has worn remarkably well. It is nice to know that he is appreciated even by people who are too young to remember what a breath of fresh air he was in the Stuffy Fifties.

Flanders & Swann of blessed memory outdid him in metrical & musical agility; but hell, they were professionals, whereas Lehrer was just having fun. In that, IMO, he deserves a world of emulators.