It really is amazing that the bulk of Lehrer's songs, which were written decades ago, are still known and loved by damn near everybody.

I remember when I was a teenager, sitting with a friend on the swim float at our summer cottage, dealing with our peeling sunburns, singing "...and occasional pieces of skin, of skin..."

One of my favorite stories about Tom Lehrer appeared in a story about him in the Washington Post in July of 2000. I related it in the thread about "The Elements," but it still cracks me up, so here it is again:

"And he has been deliciously rewarded by his song about rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and his Third Reich background. ...[quotes from song] ...   Some years ago, Lehrer says, von Braun's daughter applied to an Eastern college, and in the process of her admissions interview, she talked animatedly about her father.

" 'The admissions officer couldn't wait to call me afterward,' Lehrer remembers with an expression of puckish glee. 'The girl said her father had many interests other than rockets. At the moment he was teaching himself Chinese.' "

Nancy