The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #128311 Message #2871351
Posted By: The Fooles Troupe
25-Mar-10 - 05:15 AM
Thread Name: Tom Lehrer?
Subject: RE: Tom Lehrer?
Tom came to Australia, and was censored for - the boy scout song :-) Be Prepared! - if I remember correctly...
Aus ABC Radio interviewed him some years ago - it may still be on the ABC site somewhere - it was for years. (Found the transcript!)
QUOTE hat whole controversy was before I arrived in 1959, about a year before I arrived. The Customs Department took it upon themselves to ban the record, which is very strange. But I gather the history was that somebody, a Queensland reviewer, Queensland aptly called... I believe it was called the Wowser Capital of Australia, I don't know, do they still use that term? But he called it to the attention of the Queensland Chairman of the Boy Scouts who also called it to the attention then of the Scout Commissioner, who declared -- I just happen to have the clip, I knew I was going to be talking to you so I dug this quote out: 'The Scout Commissioner, CV Dixon, declared 'It's a rotten record. The song does not advise Boy Scots to be prepared at all in terms of the famous Scout slogan, in fact it tells Boy Scouts to get ready for things that are immoral, it makes an obscenity out of the high ideals of scouting.' You can imagine that made me very proud. UNQUOTE