Tom Lehrer?

Subject: RE: Tom Lehrer?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 06:57 AM

Last I heard was "The Chair of Mathematics and Music Hall"

Subject: RE: Tom Lehrer?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 12:13 PM

Gary-

Thanks for the update that Lehrer is still teaching at UC Santa Cruz. Nice to know.

Stringsinger-

"My understanding is that he stopped writing songs because what he was writing about
came to pass and he no longer considered these events funny any more."

So true!

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Tom Lehrer?
From: MoorleyMan
Date: 28 Mar 10 - 02:21 PM

The Bill Oddie song in question appears in episode 8 of the 1968 series - look out for the priceless El Budgerigar sequence in the same show (that is, if the b******s haven't decided to broadcast the World service transcription edition instead, which omits some items).
However, I don't know which series of ISIRTA is being re-broadcast on 7 at the moment, and have no DAB radio so I can't hear it... most frustrating...

Subject: RE: Tom Lehrer?
From: Franz S.
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 09:41 AM

I think it was in the winter of 1993-94. My youngest daughter was a freshman (person?) in her first year at UC Santa Cruz. She called home and said that she'd just had lunch with some friends and a nice old man who did musical comedy. She said he also taught math. I explained to her who he was, and when she came home I played for her the LP my parents had bought back in 195what? Then we went to the presentation of "Guys and Dolls" that he produced (I think). A very happy memory. And it gave me some cred with the daughter.

Subject: RE: Tom Lehrer?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 09:29 PM

Franz-

Nice to know that another generation connected with this incredible time-traveler. And nice to know that he still walks this earth.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Tom Lehrer?
From: GUEST,Ken Brock
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 06:16 PM

Tom Lehrer retired from UCSC circa 2006. I was able to visit him briefly in Santa Cruz in June, 2007.

Subject: RE: Tom Lehrer?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 09:43 PM

Ken-

I don't suppose we could entice him to post on Mudcat?

I know I would like to thank him for his creative work.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Tom Lehrer?
From: GUEST,Ken Brock
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 09:47 PM

He was aware of my posts at:

Tom Lehrer forum

so I expects he checks it occasionally, but don't expect him to post there.

Subject: RE: Tom Lehrer?
From: GUEST,Ken Brock
Date: 30 Mar 10 - 10:22 PM

Besides his own songs, Tom Lehrer had a hand in popularizing (and in one case improving) at least two of the other satirical songs of the late 1950's. He performed Sheldon Harnick's "Merry Little Minuet" at a bill shared with The Kingston Trio in 1958 and they went on to include it on their second album (it had previously been only on Charlotte Rae's Songs I Taught My Mother lp.) Somewhere along the way, it lost the "Little" in the title, an introduction, and mention of Siberia and Switzerland, all of which are on Harnick's recording on DRG.

Tom Lehrer also performer the Pober-Freeman "Gunslinger" in a bill shared with the Limeliters, and they went on to record it. It originally (as on Katie Lee's Songs of Couch and Consultation) had a repeated line. Lehrer improved the song by changing the second (repeated) line to "Did you come from a broken...home on the range?"

Subject: RE: Tom Lehrer?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 30 Apr 10 - 04:40 PM

A review on NPR'S Fresh Air of "The Tom Lehrer Collection", produced by Shout Factory, which describes it in the following way:

"The Tom Lehrer Collection is Tom Lehrer's first-ever hits collection, containing highlights from across his 40-year-long recording career. Fans are treated to material from his live albums for Reprise (An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer and Revisited), That Was the Year That Was, early-'70s material recorded for The Electric Company, radio performances, a rare 1960 single and more. This collection also contains his first-ever DVD, featuring a slew of unreleased performances, including a complete 1967 Oslo concert, animated clips from The Electric Company, and other TV performances."

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Tom Lehrer?
From: EBarnacle
Date: 30 Apr 10 - 06:47 PM

Speak of people while they live. They cannot respond after they're gone.

Subject: RE: Tom Lehrer?
From: mousethief
Date: 30 Apr 10 - 09:37 PM

This sucks. I have the box set and it contains 2/3 of this stuff -- so I'll have to buy this new collection to get the 1/3 I don't already have, paying the extra price to get the 2/3 I already do. I hate record companies.

Subject: RE: Tom Lehrer?
From: GUEST,LaMarca'sOM
Date: 30 Apr 10 - 10:38 PM

I was introduced to Lehrer at age 8(?) in 195? when my brother brought home "An Evening Wasted..." from Harvard. I knew I had to marry Mary when she sang "The Elements" at a FSGW open sing. (I subsequently learned and sang Steve Goodman's "The Dying Cub Fan's Last Request". -- George

Subject: RE: Tom Lehrer?
From: Andrez
Date: 01 May 10 - 09:02 AM

I love Tom Lehrer's songs, poetry and rhyme like the posters above too and have done so ever since I heard my first Tom Lehrer song Vatican Rag. So in the spirit of that song I thought I'd pass on one of my favourite ecumenical jokes along with a couple of afterthoughts that are also loosley in the tradition of Toms humour.

> A rabbi and a Catholic priest are having lunch in a restaurant. The priest's food arrives, a scrumptious-looking ham entrée. The priest attacks his lunch, savouring every bite of the ham. Noticing the rabbi eyeing him, he asks, "So tell me, Rabbi Goldblum, have you ever had any pork before?" The rabbi hesitates. "Well, it's not for me to say..." The priest pushes on. "Oh, c'mon, Rabbi. We're both men of God here. We can tell each other our sins. Nothing to it." "Umm... well, yes, as a matter of fact, I did have pork once." Smugly the priest teases him, "And a fine meat it was, wasn't it? Heheh." "Yeah, I'll say." A few moments pass. The rabbi asks the priest: "Tell me Father, have you ever had sex with a woman before?" "Why of course... well, before I took holy orders, that is." The rabbi smirks, "Sure beat the taste of pork, didn't it?"

or

> A boy comes home from school and tells his mother he got a part in the school play. "That's wonderful!" says the mother, "Which part?" "The part of a Jewish husband," says the boy, proudly. Frowning, the mother says, "Go back and tell them you want a speaking role!"

or

> Is one Nobel Prize so much to ask from a child after all I've done?

or

> "Sarah, how's that boy of yours?"
    "David? Ach, don't ask - he's living in Hawaii with a man named Miguel"
    "That's terrible!"
    "I know - why couldn't he find a nice Jewish boy?

Cheers,

Andrez