Tom Lehrer

In Memoriam: 1928-2025

I grew up in an English cultural environment in which the old British stiff Upper Lip class ridden society was being challenged by irreverence. Imagine a pompous British society of class distinction, conformity and stiff upper lips. In the 1950s a new generation emerged of intelligent graduates challenging the system.

You can think of a whole generation of British satirists encouraged then by a very different BBC. But my idol at that time was Tom Lehrer who died recently at the age of 97. And although there have been many glowing tributes on both sides of the Atlantic, I want to add mine.

He was born in New York City. He and his family were ethnically Jewish but he never identified with the community. He once said that his ties to Judaism were “more to do with the delicatessen than the synagogue”. He was a brilliant talented undergraduate at Harvard, where he began to write comic songs to his own accompaniment.  After the army he returned to full-time mathematics studies at Harvard. He taught mathematics at MIT. In 1972, Lehrer joined the faculty of the University of California. 

Parallel to his academic work, his life as an entertainer grew, satirizing every known perversion and hypocrisy without using a single naughty phrase. But also cultural icons like the mathematician Lobachevsky, Alma Mahler and her husbands.  Slowly he acquired a cult following but for years hardly earned anything from his select performances. But slowly, during the late fifties he grew in popularity, touring in America and abroad as his iconoclasm found a response particularly from the European intelligentsia. And although not becoming a superstar, he gained recognition and became successful financially.  Princess Margaret, sister of the Queen of England was a great fan of his and helped his reputation take off in Britian.  

He made fun of everything, from religion,  the military, to political incompetence, pollution, to needless wars, challenging convention in ways that are unimaginable in our pathetically oversensitive intellectual world today with  the fear of offending any poor withering flower’s desire for safe spaces ( except of course when it comes to Jews).After all these years I still remember some of lyrics that I attach a few examples below.

He touched on antisemitism in his famous song about false ecumenism “Oh, The Protestants hate the Catholics the Catholics hate the Protestants the Hindus hate the Muslims and everybody hates the Jews.” Couldn’t say that today without being threatened with death.

But the only song of his that showed anything Jewish was “Hanukkah lights in Santa Monica” where he lived during his time in California. Supposedly a response to Chabad increasing the number of public Channukah Menorot.

“I’m spending Hanukkah, in Santa Monica,
Wearing sandals lighting candles by the sea.
I spent Shavuos, in East St. Louis,
A charming spot but clearly not the spot for me.

Those eastern winters, I can’t endure ’em,
So every year I pack my gear
And come out here to Purim.

Rosh Hashona, I spend in Arizona,
And Yom Kippa, way down in Mississippa.
But in Decemba, there’s just one place for me.
‘Mid the California flora,
I’ll be lighting my menorah.
Every California maid’ll
Find me playing with a dreidl.
Santa Monica, spending Hanukkah by the sea”

Although Lehrer was “a hero of the anti-nuclear, civil rights left”, he disliked the aesthetics of the counter culture of the 60’s   and largely stopped performing in the United States as the movement gained momentum as he would today.

When asked why he had abandoned his musical career Lehrer replied: “If an idea came to me, I’d write, and if it didn’t I wouldn’t—and, gradually, the second option prevailed over the first. Occasionally people ask ‘If you enjoyed it’—and I did—’why don’t you do it again?’ I reply, ‘I enjoyed high school but I certainly wouldn’t want to do that again.'”

In October 2020, Lehrer transferred the music and lyrics for all songs he had ever written into the public domain. He said “I no longer retain any rights to any of my songs. So help yourselves, and don’t send me any money.” Lehrer never married and died on July 26, 2025, at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts at the age of 97.

I know the lyrics have not aged well and sound silly and banal. But at the time they encouraged me to be different, to challenge propriety and conformity. So out of nostalgia for a lost world, I leave you a few selections that I still treasure in my rebellious dotage.

Jeremy Rosen

August 2025

The Vatican Rag

First you get down on your knees

Fiddle with your rosaries

Bow your head with great respect

And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!

Get in line in that processional

Step into that small confessional

There the guy who’s got religion’ll

Tell you if your sin’s original.

If it is, try playin’ it safer

Drink the wine and chew the wafer

Two, four, six, eight

Time to transubstantiate.

So get down upon your knees

Fiddle with your rosaries

Bow your head with great respect

Make a cross on your abdomen

When· in Rome do like a Roman

Ave Maria, gee it’s good to see ya

Gettin’ ecstatic an’

Sorta dramatic an’

Doin’ the Vatican Rag.

Poisoning Pigeons in the Park

All the world seems in tune

On a spring afternoon

When we’re poisoning pigeons in the park.

Every Sunday you’ll see

My sweetheart and me

As we poison the pigeons in the park

When they see us coming

The birdies all try an’ hide,

But they still go for peanuts

When coated with cyan-hide.

The sun’s shining bright,

Everything seems all right

When we’re poisoning pigeons in the park.

We’ve gained notoriety

And caused much anxiety

So, if Sunday you’re free,

Why don’t you come with me,

And we’ll poison the pigeons in the park.

And maybe we’ll do

In a squirrel or two

Oedipus Rex

From the Bible to the popular song

There’s one theme that we find right along.

Of all ideals they hail as good

The most sublime is Motherhood.

There was a man, though, who, it seems,

Once carried this ideal to extremes.

He loved his mother and she loved him,

And yet his story is rather grim:

There once was a man named Oedipus Rex.

You may have heard about his odd complex.

His name appears in Freud’s index,

‘Cause he loved his mother.

His rivals used to say quite a bit

That as a monarch he was most unfit,

But still and all they had to admit

That he loved his mother.

Yes, he loved his mother

Like no other.

WHEN WE 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 rotizerie,

Yes, we all will fry together when we fry.

‘ 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.

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
I was in no mood to trifle
I took down my trusty rifle
And went out to stalk my prey
What a haul I made that day
I tied them to my fender, and I drove them home somehow
Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a cow

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 nothin’ to it
You just stand there lookin’ 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 Guernsey cow

Yes I know it is childish. But it was MY childish. J