TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. Tom Lehrer, the composer and occasional performer of such satirical, often topical songs like "Pollution" and "Vatican Rag," died last week at the age of 97. Our TV critic David Bianculli notes that for the vast majority of those years, Tom Lehrer was not a performer. He was a professor teaching mathematics at Harvard and MIT. But his songs, mostly from the 1950s and '60s, were not forgotten. Here's David's remembrance.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "POLLUTION")
TOM LEHRER: (Singing) See the halibuts and the sturgeons are being wiped out by detergents. A fish got to swim, and birds got to fly. But they don't last long if they try. Pollution. Pollution. You can use the latest toothpaste and then rinse your mouth with industrial waste.
DAVID BIANCULLI, BYLINE: Tom Lehrer was born in New York City in 1928. As a youngster, he had a fondness and an aptitude for both music and math. He loved logic puzzles and also took classical piano lessons. But he preferred the comic operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan, the songs of Cole Porter and the tongue-twisting vocal performances by Danny Kaye. He attended the same summer camp as another puzzle and music enthusiast, Stephen Sondheim. But they didn't get to know each other until almost 60 years later. In a rare 1997 interview, Lehrer called Sondheim, quote, "The greatest lyricist that the English language has ever produced," unquote, and went on to add, "and that's a fact, not an opinion." Tom Lehrer, like Sondheim, was precocious at a young age, skipping enough grades to enter Harvard University at age 15. He settled on the study of mathematics but began writing songs for the amusement of his classmates, performing occasionally at school shows and at local clubs. In 1953, while still a graduate student, he paid $15 for an hour of time at a Boston recording studio. When the hour was up, he had recorded enough of his own comic compositions to fill an album.
He called it "Songs By Tom Lehrer" and printed 400 copies. Demand eventually called for a second pressing, then a third. And over the decades, Lehrer's albums have sold in the millions. Here's a taste from that first homemade record, a love song called "I Hold Your Hand In Mine."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I HOLD YOUR HAND IN MINE")
LEHRER: (Singing) I hold your hand in mine, dear. I press it to my lips. I take a healthy bite from your dainty finger tips. My joy would be complete, dear, if you were only here. But still, I keep your hand as a precious souvenir.
BIANCULLI: In the mid-'50s, Tom Lehrer booked a few appearances where he sang his old and new songs, accompanying himself on piano. But he also found time to graduate from Harvard, attend grad school, spend two years in the Army and begin teaching math courses at both Harvard and MIT. Meanwhile, "Mad" magazine started featuring and illustrating his lyrics. Six years after his first album, Tom Lehrer added to his discography, releasing both studio and live recordings of such songs as this one. "We Will All Go Together When We Go," a little ditty about the impending threat of global nuclear annihilation.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WE WILL ALL GO TOGETHER WHEN WE GO")
LEHRER: (Singing) 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 $200. And we will all go together.
BIANCULLI: Lehrer's pop culture profile and his visibility peaked in the mid-'60s. His compositions were featured on NBC's "That Was The Week That Was," the American version of a satirical British show, both of which were hosted by David Frost. But Lehrer never appeared on NBC's show to sing them himself. He just supplied them to be sung by Nancy Ames, Phyllis Newman and others. While he was recording and performing, Lehrer also was teaching. In his concerts and his recordings, he introduced each song like a teacher with a mini lecture putting it in context. That certainly has helped his song stay alive over the decades. And on the recordings, you can hear how much he values both his diction - every word, whether spoken or sung, is enunciated perfectly - and his dictionary. Here's a great example - a song he says he didn't even submit to "That Was The Week That Was" because he knew it would be rejected. And you can hear from the audience reaction, just how shocked and delighted they were by its aggressive irreverence.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LEHRER: Another big news story of the year concerned the ecumenical council in Rome, known as Vatican II.
(LAUGHTER)
LEHRER: Among the things they did in an attempt to make the church more commercial...
(LAUGHTER)
LEHRER: ...Was to introduce the vernacular into portions of the Mass to replace Latin and to widen somewhat the range of music permissible in the liturgy. But I feel that if they really want to sell the product in...
(LAUGHTER)
LEHRER: ...This secular age, what they ought to do is to redo some of the liturgical music in popular song forms. I have a modest example here.
(LAUGHTER)
LEHRER: It's called "The Vatican Rag."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE VATICAN RAG")
LEHRER: (Singing) First, you get down on your knees, fiddle with your rosaries, bow your head with great respect and genuflect, genuflect, genuflect.
(LAUGHTER)
LEHRER: (Singing) Do whatever steps you want if you have cleared them with the pontiff. Everybody say his own Kyrie Eleison doing the Vatican Rag.
BIANCULLI: He enjoyed writing and recording but not performing, and his most prominent TV appearances weren't even in America. After "That Was The Week That Was," he reteamed with David Frost for the BBC's "The Frost Report," appearing each week on the same show, whose other performers and writers included all the future British members of "Monty Python's Flying Circus." And Tom Lehrer's last TV performance was on Denmark TV - a full-length one-man show for a student association in Copenhagen. And after that 1967 concert, he retired from show business, resurfacing in the 1970s only for an occasional political fundraiser or to provide an educational song or two for "The Electric Company."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SILENT E")
LEHRER: (Singing) Who can turn a can into a cane? Who can turn a pan into a pane? It's not too hard to see, it's silent E.
BIANCULLI: But from 1970 until his death in 2025, Tom Lehrer was a math teacher, not a musical satirist. That's more than half a century, and that's how he saw himself. Yet a Rhino CD box set, "The Remains Of Tom Lehrer," collected plenty of songs to prove that Tom Lehrer was a wonderful songwriter, as well. And that's a fact, not an opinion. To close this appreciation, here's one of the last songs he wrote for one of Garrison Keillor's radio shows in 1990. Tom Lehrer didn't perform it then but recorded it later. The idea was to provide a Jewish counterpart to such Christmas classics as "White Christmas." And his title? "(I'm Spending) Hanukkah In Santa Monica."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "(I'M SPENDING) HANUKKAH IN SANTA MONICA")
LEHRER: (Singing) But in December, there's just one place for me. Amid the California flora, I'll be lighting my menorah like a baby in his cradle, I'll be playing with my dreidel. Here's to Judas Maccabeus. Boy, if he could only see us spending Hanukkah in Santa Monica by the sea.
MOSLEY: David Bianculli teaches television studies at Rowan University. Tom Lehrer died last week at the age of 97. On the next FRESH AIR, Scott Anderson chronicles the Iranian Revolution of 1979 - the upheaval that deposed the reigning monarch and transformed the country from a U.S. ally to an Islamic republic. He says blunders by American policymakers played a key role in the outcome. I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram - @nprfreshair.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MOSLEY: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Sam Briger is our managing producer. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi, Anna Bauman and John Sheehan. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Hope Wilson is our consulting visual producer. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tonya Mosley.
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