A Cut to Higher Education That Really Hurts

We’ve had a lot of noteworthy deaths recently (sadly, not him), but none really hit me hard. There was Ozzy Osbourne (Prince of Darkness) followed by Chuck Mangione (Prince of Flugelhorn). I liked a couple of Ozzy songs, but he wasn’t a big favorite, and that Mangione song was pretty nice, back in the 80s, so I was like, “Whatevs.” Then Hulk Hogan went and again, no big deal to me. I figure the biggest impact his passing has will be on the sales of tear-away t-shirts and spray-tan supplies.

Then today, I got word of a passing that really hurt. Many people will be like, “Whatevs,” and many more will be like, “Who?” But today, I must mourn the passing of a legend of musical satire and wordplay, Tom Lehrer.

Lehrer was a Harvard math professor who, in the 50s and 60s, became an underground musical hit, mostly in academic circles. (Full bio in the link above.) He was what you’d get if you crossed William F Buckley with Weird Al Yankovic. He played nightclubs and auditoria, and toured the world performing low-brow humor for high-brow crowds. He also wrote a couple of songs for the old kids’ show, “The Electric Company.” This is a bigger hit to academia than the destruction of the Department of Education

My parents had a Tom Lehrer record that I remember from when I was in first and second grade, simply called “Songs by Tom Lehrer.” It was just him and a piano, and I loved listening to it because it sounded like so much fun. He frequently used different accents when it suited the song, and the music could be quite rollicking. Back then, I mostly had no idea what the songs were really about, so I’d ask questions.

“Mommy, what does plagiarize mean?”

That was from a song called Lobachevski, about a Russian mathematician who encourages and celebrates the copying of others’ work. He sang it with a Russian accent, which I could identify because I often heard it from “Boris Badenov” on the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons, and it had a marvelous Russian-style rhythm to it, often punctuated with cries of “Aye!”

I learned a lot of other words that were far from standard lower-elementary vocabulary lists, and I’m sure it contributed to my lifelong pursuit of wordplay, clever turns of phrase, and tortured rhymes. But more on that in a minute.

It also began honing my appreciation for the taboo, like with the song called “Be Prepared.” If that sounds familiar, it got name-checked in the classic action movie, Speed, when Dennis Hopper tells Keanu Reeves, “Be prepared, Jack, that’s the Boy Scouts’ marching song.” That’s ripped right from the opening line of the song, which goes on to cast aspersions upon the hallowed scout troops:

“Be prepared, that’s the Boy Scout’s solemn creed,

Be prepared, and be clean in word and deed,

Don’t solicit for your sister, that’s not nice...

Unless you get a good percentage of her price!

[Snip to the big finale]

“If you’re looking for adventure of a new and different kind,

And you come across a Girl Scout who is similarly inclined,

Don’t be nervous, don’t be flustered, don’t be scared,

Be Prepared!”

I read that this was the one that got him in the most trouble. In fact, there were some markets where they wouldn’t allow him to play unless he omitted Be Prepared.

That album also contained songs about drug dealers (The Old Dope Peddler), a tribute to effete Ivy League football (Fight Fiercely Harvard) which is sung in an accent Charles Winchester III would later use on MASH, a folk song parody (An Irish Folksong) in which the main character kills everyone in her family, and one even my 6-year old self could understand, The Hunting Song.

“I always will remember, twas a year ago November

I went out to hunt some deer, on a mornin’ bright and clear.

I went and shot the maximum the game laws would allow,

Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a cow.

[snip to the bridge]

The law was very firm, it

Took away my permit,

The worst punishment I ever endured.

It turned out there was a reason,

Cows were out of season

And one of the hunters, wasn’t insured.

 

People ask me how I do it and I say there’s nothing to it.

You just stand there looking cute,

And when something moves, you shoot.

And there’s ten stuffed heads

In my trophy room right now,

Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a pure-bred Gurnsey cow!”

 Notice the “firm, it/permit” rhyme. I loved those. This guy was a master of creating rhymes out of nothing, bending and combining words into rhymes, the more tortured, the better.

One more tawdry excerpt from this album was a bit from The Weinerschnitzel Waltz, lovingly played in traditional waltz tempo.

From the mid-song interlude:

“I drank some champagne from your shoe, la la la

I was drunk by the time I was through, la la la,

For I didn’t know as I raised that cup,

It had taken two bottles to fill the thing up.

 

It was I who stepped on your dress, la la la,

The skirts all came off I confess, la la la,

Revealing for all of the others to see,

Just what it was that endeared you to me…”

I remember figuring out what he was getting at there, and being proud that I was now in on the joke like the rest of the grown-ups.

Later into my teen years, I obtained two of his other albums, both performed in front of audiences. Those were “An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer” and “That was the Year That Was.” The latter was a TV variety show called That Was the Week That Was, from 1964, in which he’d play a weekly song. While all of his songs were culturally relevant, these were right from the week’s headlines, and definitely some of his best work. A lot of people have heard his song, “Pollution.”

Pollution, pollution, you got smog and sewage and mud,

Turn on your tap, and get hot and cold running crud.”

The album opens with a tribute to “National Brotherhood Week,” talking about how once we behave for the special week, we can go back to being pricks to each other when it’s over.

“Oh the Protestants hate the Catholics,

And the Catholics, hate the Protestants,

And the Hindus hate the Muslims,

And everybody hates the Jews…

But during National Brotherhood Week

New Yorkers love the Puerto Ricans ‘cause it’s very chic,

Step up and shake the hand of someone you can’t stand,

You can tolerate him if you try.”

I was delighted to see this run in the Baltimore Sun. The quote is from the introduction to National Brotherhood Week.

There was one about how our space program was being led by ex-Nazi, Dr Werner Von Baun.

With thick German accent:

“’Vunce ze rockets are up, who cares vhere zey com down.

Zat’s not my department,’ says Werner Von Braun.”

There was one I loved, called “Alma,” about a woman whose considerable charms allowed her to marry three of the top creative men in Central Europe.

“The first one she married was Mahler,

Whose buddies all knew him as Gustav,

And each time he saw her, he’d holler, (in German accent)

“Ach, that is the Fraulein I must have.”

Alma, tell us,

All modern women are jealous.

Though you didn’t even use “Ponds,”

You got Gustav and Walter and Franz.”

I still get crossword puzzle answers based on knowing who those three guys are.

Who’s Next was about the nuclear race.

(In Egyptian music rhythm)

Egypt’s gonna get one toooo

Just to use on You Know Who

(Now in Israeli music rhythm)

So, Israel’s getting tense,

Wants one in self-defense,

The Lord’s our Shepherd, says the psalm,

But just in case… we better get a bomb!

Who’s next?”

The masterpiece on the album was “The Vatican Rag.” That one shook some people up, but it was so happy and peppy, with its ragtime beat, theycouldn’t stay offended.

I was going to reproduce the whole song’s lyrics, but hell, I might as well just link a performance of the song. It’s short though, only 2:45, half of which is introduction.

Look at the rhymes in there… see what I mean? Want if/Pontiff, religion’ll/original. Great stuff.

The other album had the classic “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park,” as well as a tribute to college life, Bright College Days:

“Soon we’ll be out, amid the cold world’s strife,

Soon we’ll be sliding down the razor blade of life!”

How’s that for post-grad pessimism?

If you watched The Big Bang Theory regularly, you might remember an episode where Sheldon gets drunk before giving a presentation and starts singing the names of all the chemical elements. He’s doing a Tom Lehrer song, which is literally the names of the elements on the periodic table, sung to the tune of The Major General’s song from Pirates of Penzance. Sheldon only goes about half-speed. The original is an almost impossible tongue twister, zipping through all those quadra-syllabic names. He concludes with:

“These are the only ones of which the news has come to Hah-vahd…

And there may be many others, but they haven‘t been discaaaavahed.”

This song is similar to another of his called, New Math, where he goes through a subtraction problem, using the new method of teaching I suffered through at the time. From the intro,

“The idea is to know what you’re doing… RATHER than to get the right answer.

He goes on to repeat the problem, this time in “base-8.”

He says, “Base 8 is just like Base 10, really… if you’re missing two fingers!”

You know, I could probably go on indefinitely, calling out favorite bits and clever rhymes, but I think I’ve gone on about it long enough.

For the longest time, I never knew what the guy looked like. None of his album art featured his picture, and he was notoriously camera-averse. Eventually, with the internet, there is a wealth of pictures, lyric sheets, conversations, and whatnot about this slice of 60s talent and wit. If he’d have continued performing into this day and age, he could have dropped the wildest rap lyrics to date. There’s nothing he couldn’t rhyme… I even heard he was able to set up a rhyme with “orange.” (The article wouldn’t play on my browser, so I have to take the word of the headline.)

Whenever I’m in a crowd of unfamiliar people, at a party or whatnot, I can often find a like mind by dropping a line from either Monty Python, or Tom Lehrer. Whoever responded, I knew those were my people.

This is a guy who reveled in taking shots at the upper crust and the status quo, and always with a twinkle and an impish tone. His erudite lyrics padded my childhood vocabulary far beyond what the sisters at St. Euthenasius were teaching. Even though he hasn’t performed in decades, I can’t help but feel that the world is a dimmer place without him. From the halls of academia to the stalls in beer halls, he will be forever missed.

RIP, Professor. Play us out…

We Will All Go Together When We Go, about a nuclear war to end all wars. Check these wicked rhymes.

When you attend a funeral,

It is sad to think that sooner or'l

Later those you love will do the same for you.

And you may have thought it tragic,

Not to mention other adjec-

Tives, to think of all the weeping they will do.

(But don't you worry.)

 

No more ashes, no more sackcloth,

And an arm band made of black cloth

Will someday nevermore adorn a sleeve.

For if the bomb that drops on you

Gets your friends and neighbors too,

There'll be nobody left behind to grieve.

 

And we will all go together when we go.

What a comforting fact that is to know.

Universal bereavement,

An inspiring achievement,

Yes, we will all go together when we go.

 

We will all go together when we go.

All suffused with an incandescent glow.

No one will have the endurance

To collect on his insurance,

Lloyd's of London will be loaded when they go.

 

Oh we will all fry together when we fry.

We'll be French-fried potatoes by and by.

There will be no more misery

When the world is our rotisserie,

Yes, we will all fry together when we fry.

 

Down by the old maelstrom,

There'll be a storm before the calm.

 

And we will all bake together when we bake.

There'll be nobody present at the wake.

With complete participation

In that grand incineration,

Nearly three billion hunks of well-done steak.

 

Oh we will all char together when we char.

And let there be no moaning of the bar.

Just sing out a Te Deum

When you see that I.C.B.M.,*

And the party will be come-as-you-are.

 

Oh, we will all burn together when we burn.

There'll be no need to stand and wait your turn.

When it's time for the fallout

And Saint Peter calls us all out,

We'll just drop our agendas and adjourn.

 

You will all go directly to your respective Valhallas.

Go directly, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollahs.

 

And we will all go together when we go.

Every Hottentot and every Eskimo.

When the air becomes uranious,

We will all go simultaneous.

Yes, we all will go together

When we all go together,

Yes we all will go together when we go.

Very late addition

I have to include this incredible three-way rhyme from So Long Mom, his rally song for the anticipated World War III, name dropping the famed Chet Huntley- David Brinkley evening news show.

"So long Mom, I'm off to drop The Bomb, 

So don't wait up for me.

But while you swelter, down there in your shelter,

You can see me... On your TV.

While we're attacking frontaly, 

Watch Brink-el-ly and Hunt-a-ly,

Desribing contrapuntally

The cities we have lost.

No need for you

to miss a minute 

of the agonizing holocaust. Yeah!"