SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Perhaps the world's most influential part-time musical satirist has died. Tom Lehrer was 97. He had a career that spanned decades. He was known for his whimsical lyrics. Former NPR producer Art Silverman has this appreciation.
ART SILVERMAN: When Tom Lehrer wanted to ridicule or attack something, he did it from the inside. He would falsely embrace what he detested.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SMUT")
TOM LEHRER: (Singing) Smut. Give me smut and nothing but, a dirty novel I can't shut. If it's uncut and unsut-tle (ph)...
SILVERMAN: His upbeat words and music only seem to glorify his targets.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SEND THE MARINES")
LEHRER: (Singing) When someone makes a move of which we don't approve, who is it that always intervenes? U.N. and OAS, they have their place, I guess. But first, send the Marines.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
LEHRER: I never really sat down to write a funny song. I never could sit down and say, today, I will write a funny song. If I had an idea for a funny song, I would write it, and if I didn't, I didn't.
SILVERMAN: Tom Lehrer said that in a 1997 interview with NPR. He actually had no need to write funny songs or any songs. He was fully employed as a math professor. His success on stage and with records was just a side gig. And eventually, he retired from academia, too. Then in his 90s, he put all of his music in the public domain.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "POISONING PIGEONS IN THE PARK")
LEHRER: (Singing) The sun's shining bright. Everything seems all right when we're poisoning pigeons in the park. (Vocalizing).
SILVERMAN: Lehrer began singing songs at parties when he attended Harvard University. He eventually paid $15 to get them put on a record.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FIGHT FIERECLY, HARVARD")
LEHRER: (Singing) Fight fiercely, Harvard. A fight, a fight, a fight, demonstrate to them our skill. Albeit they possess the might, nonetheless, we have the will.
SILVERMAN: The record made its way well beyond campus to become an underground sensation in the 1950s. In the 1960s, NBC had a satirical program called "That Was The Week That Was." The producers turned to Lehrer for some material. The cast members sang them, but later, Lehrer himself would perform them and put them on record, this time with intentionally wide distribution.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHO'S NEXT")
LEHRER: (Singing) First, we got the bomb, and that was good 'cause we love peace and motherhood. Then Russia got the bomb, but that's OK 'cause the balance of power is maintained that way. Who's next?
RACHEL BLOOM: He established this genre of comedy songwriting.
SILVERMAN: That's Rachel Bloom. She's a musical satirist and star of TV's "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend." Although she's several generations younger than Lehrer, she says she learned a lot from him.
BLOOM: When you're doing comedy songs, you want to take established genres of music, and then you flip it on its head.
SILVERMAN: Another musical satirist, Jonathan Coulton, feels that way, too.
JONATHAN COULTON: To have the voice of your song, the character of your song talk about something terrible as if it's something wonderful, that angle in particular has stuck with me.
SILVERMAN: Greater praise comes from Molly Lewis, a musical performer who thinks Tom Lehrer's music should be taken seriously.
MOLLY LEWIS: I put Tom Lehrer in kind of the same pantheon as, like, Stephen Sondheim.
(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.
SILVERMAN: That one's called "The Vatican Rag." In his introduction to the song, Lehrer says it's just a logical extension of the Ecumenical Council in Rome, known as Vatican II.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE VATICAN RAG")
LEHRER: (Singing) 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 playing it safer. Drink the wine and chew the wafer. Two, four, six, eight, time to transubstantiate.
LEWIS: "The Vatican Rag," I think, is my favorite as a recovering Catholic. And using all the terms correctly, it was like a satirical Catholic church song that I could sing in front of my mom.
SILVERMAN: Lehrer may have been a Jewish kid from the Upper East Side of Manhattan, but he sure knew his catechism. Like all his work, "Vatican Rag" was subversive and funny and smart. Then there's the case where Lehrer was ahead of when the general public had fully engaged on the environmental damage being done to the world. He wrote this.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "POLLUTION")
LEHRER: (Singing) Pollution, pollution. They got smog and sewage and mud. Turn on your tap and get hot and cold running crud.
SILVERMAN: Eventually, Lehrer devoted all of his time to teaching. His fans kept listening to his records, playing them and making new fans of their offspring. One of them was Rachel Bloom.
BLOOM: He's cutting but not gratuitously mean, and so there is a real charm and sweetness there despite some of the things he sang.
SILVERMAN: In his 1997 interview with NPR, Lehrer revealed why he stopped turning out new songs.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
LEHRER: I used to laugh more, and now I get angry. And it's very hard to be funny, let's say, and angry at the same time.
SILVERMAN: You didn't hear much from Tom Lehrer for years and years until his surprise October 2020 announcement that he was making all his lyrics and tunes available to anyone to perform without paying copyright fees. It was a really unusual move, but Tom Lehrer always defied expectations in his career path and even in the way he looked at worldwide nuclear annihilation.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WE WILL ALL GO TOGETHER WHEN WE GO")
LEHRER: (Singing) There'll be nobody left behind to grieve. And we will all go together when we go. Oh, what a comforting fact that is to know. Universal bereavement, an inspiring achievement. Yes, we all will go together when we go.
SILVERMAN: Art Silverman, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WE WILL ALL GO TOGETHER WHEN WE GO")
LEHRER: (Singing) 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 rotisserie, as we all will fry together when we fry. Down by the old maelstrom, there'll be a storm before the calm. 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 3 billion hunks of well-done steak. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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