I am always thrilled to discover new rarities on YouTube and, in line with my earlier posts on Allan Sherman and the immaculately hip Lord Buckley, I was delighted to see that some helpful folks (pre-eminently a Swedish Lehrer-head) have put up a bucketload of clips featuring the elusive Tom Lehrer in his prime performing his warped little ditties and timeless political tunes.
Let me first introduce a song that never, ever ages, “National Brotherhood Week” (dig the lyric about Cassius Clay and “Mrs. Wallace”):
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Maybe a little “Send the Marines.” Again, these comments on U.S. foreign policy may date in their particulars, but their message — much like that of Dr. Strangleove and other lampoons of American stupidity and militarism — never, ever age:
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One last political chanson, another item that has remained pungent as we still confront the question of which nations we can invade without impunity, occupy, take over, overthrow the government, etc. The ones with the nuclear arms, those ones we avoid…. Thus, “Who’s Next?”
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Oh yeah, so everybody’s “green” these days. Well, Lehrer put his ideas about pollution into song:
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And, on the non-political side of things, I must acknowledge that one of the foremost advocates of the genius that is Lehrer was and is Funhouse favorite Doctor Demento. When I was able to catch the dear doctor on a regular basis back in the 1970s, he often gave a spin to Lehrer’s wonderful 45 recording of “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park”:
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and its even more romantic flip-side, “The Masochism Tango”:
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Another helpful British gentleman has uploaded his own, homemade documentary on Lehrer music and his career as a math professor. Included are some clips from the Man himself (this segment starts out with a valid comment on the art of satire from the god that was Peter Cook):
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It’s good to know that Lehrer’s inspiration didn’t end with the ‘60s. Here’s a clip that is from the UK talk show Parkinson in 1970, some color footage of Tom singing a song about VD:
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To blow my mind even further, some other helpful soul put up Lehrer in what seems to be the late 1990s performing at some academic gathering a collection of his brainer ditties. Here is the first segment, in which he performs two math songs (the only thing that could draw me to this dreaded subject is the work of the great TL).
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And I would not be the proud ex-Catholic that I am (stress that ex, willya folks?) if I did not close out with this live TV performance of the pristinely perfect “Vatican Rag.” Tom, we will never forget you! (and thanks so much to “6funswede”)
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