Tom Lehrer (a propos of nothing)

[Robert Cohen <rlcm17...>]

Music: The Soul of Satire (Tom Lehrer)

August 11, 2000

by Leonard J. Lehrman


[passages in brackets were cut by the editor]

Tom Lehrer (Nearly) Complete In New Boxed Set

"I know there are people in this world who do not love their fellow human 
beings, and I HATE people like that!"

Only a Jew with a penchant for logic, ethics and total irreverence could 
have come up with a conundrum like that, and that's Tom Lehrer: 
mathematician, teacher and creative musical satirist par excellence. 
Formerly a faculty member at Harvard, MIT and Wellesley, now 72, he "hangs 
out" in Cambridge, Mass, half the year, teaching the other half in Santa 
Cruz, California.

"I'm Spending Hanukkah in Santa Monica" is thus only quasi-autobiographical. 
[("Those Eastern winters, I can't endure 'em, /So ev'ry year/I pack my 
gear/And come out here/Till Purim.")] That song, one of half a dozen 
released for the very first time in Rhino Records' new $50 half-century 
retrospective 3-CD collection, "The Remains of Tom Lehrer," is a virtual 
catalog aria on the Jewish holidays. Written for and premiered on Garrison 
Keillor's radio show in 1990 and 1992, it was conceived as "a sort of answer 
to 'White Christmas,'" since, as Keillor pointed out, "there just aren't any 
popular Hanukkah songs, because no Gentile songwriter ever thought about 
writing one, and the great Jewish songwriters were busy writing Christmas 
songs."

Unfortunately, it doesn't cover all the Jewish holidays. As Lehrer pointed 
out in a letter to this writer, Pesach is particularly rhyme-resistant, and 
"All I could think of was 'I always get my ass over/To Tel Aviv for 
Passover'"-- and then of course it wouldn't be a family song....

[Perhaps Jewish Week would be interested in publishing the sequel by this 
writer, approved by Tom Lehrer, filling in the other holidays-- maybe around 
Chanukah???]

Since Tom Lehrer stopped performing publicly a quarter of a century ago, no 
one has come close to replacing him, in terms of craft, construction, and 
care in the realm of original musical satire. And, with few exceptions, no 
one performs his works as well as he does. This despite over 200 productions 
of the Cameron Mackintosh revue, Tomfoolery, whose original cast recordings 
from England and Canada have been released, though not the off-Broadway cast 
recording.

Listen to how he gets away with the self-mocking "Everybody hates the Jews" 
in the song "National Brotherhood Week," and recall his statement (not 
included in the album) that "political satire became obsolete when Henry 
Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize." Raised as a secular Jew, he 
carefully covers all bases: "If anyone objects to any statement I make, I am 
quite prepared not only to retract it, but also to deny under oath that I 
ever made it."

[May we all live to see the day that, like Leonard Bernstein's Mass, which 
was also once deemed "sacrilegious," Tom Lehrer's hysterical "Vatican Rag" 
may be performed (as it was at last week's Eastern Naturist Gathering--au 
naturel) for the Pope!]





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