Tom Lehrer
BORN: April 9, 1928, New York, NY
Tom Lehrer was one of comedy's great paradoxes -- a respected Harvard mathematics
professor by day, he also ranked among the foremost song satirists of the
postwar era, recording vicious, twisted parodies of popular musical trends
which proved highly influential on the "sick comedy" revolution of the 1960s.
Despite an aversion to the press and a relatively small recorded output,
Lehrer became a star, although he remained an enigma to even his most ardent
fans; he rarely toured, never allowed his photo to adorn album jackets, and
essentially retired from performing in 1965, leaving behind a cult following
which only continued to grow in his absence from the limelight.
Lehrer was born April 9, 1928; even as a child, he frequently parodied popular
songs of the day, and also learned to play piano. In 1944, he left New York
City to study math at Harvard, earning his master's degree within three years
and remaining as a graduate student through 1953. During his student years
Lehrer wrote The Physical Revue, a collection of academic song satires staged
on campus in January, 1951; an updated performance followed in May of the
next year. He also sang his parodies at coffeehouses and student gatherings
throughout the Cambridge, Massachusetts area; as demand for an album of his
songs increased, he spent $15 on studio time to cut Songs by Tom Lehrer,
a ten-inch record privately pressed in an edition of 400 copies.
The record sold out its entire run, and as the Harvard student body dispersed
across the country for Christmas vacation, the disc spread ("like herpes,"
Lehrer joked) far beyond its intended local audience. Soon Lehrer was inundated
with requests for copies from across the nation; after several re-pressings,
Songs by Tom Lehrer sold an astounding 350,000 copies on the strength of
tracks like "I Hold Your Hand in Mine" (about a man who cut off his girlfriend's
hand in order to nibble on her fingertips), "Irish Ballad" (a buoyant romp
about a killing spree), and "My Home Town" (concerning a place where murderers
teach school and old perverts operate the candy store).
In 1955, Lehrer was inducted to serve in the Army, and was honorably discharged
two years later. Finally, in 1959 he recorded a follow-up, More of Tom Lehrer,
featuring "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" and "The Masochism Tango"; the
same collection of songs were also recorded during a live performance at
Harvard, and issued simultaneously as An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer.
A tour of Europe followed, resulting in another concert collection, Tom Lehrer
Revisited, which constituted live renditions of the tracks from the debut
LP. However, controversial reactions to his "sick" comedy during a series
of Australian performances prompted Lehrer to retire, and he returned full-time
to his first love, teaching.
In early 1964, he resurfaced as a songwriter for the NBC news satire That
Was the Week That Was. After the show's demise a year later, Lehrer recorded
the material written for the program on an LP also titled That Was the Week
That Was; the album, which featured his controversial "Vatican Rag," was
the first in his contract with the Reprise label, which also agreed to reissue
his earlier, self-released records. After re-recording Songs by Tom Lehrer
to improve on the original master's poor fidelity, he again retired from
show business to return to academia; however, his songs were played regularly
on the Dr. Demento radio show beginning in the 1970s, and he became the program's
second most requested artist of all time (behind Weird Al Yankovic). Lehrer's
subsequent returns to show business were brief -- in 1972 he wrote a dozen
tunes for the children's program The Electric Company, updated older material
for a 1980 musical stage show dubbed Tomfoolery (produced by Cameron Mackintosh
of Cats fame), and some years later agreed to write occasionally for Garrison
Keillor. Lehrer continued to teach mathematics at the University of California
at Santa Cruz, and at age 72 witnessed Rhino Records' 2000 reissue of his
complete recorded works in the form of a three-CD box set titled The Remains
of Tom Lehrer. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide