Sunday, July 27, 2025

Tom Lehrer, Sardonic Musical Satirist, Dies

Tom Lehrer, the Harvard-trained mathematician whose wickedly iconoclastic songs made him a favorite satirist in the 1950s and '60s on college campuses and in all the Greenwich Villages of the country, died on Saturday at his home in Cambridge, Mass. He was 97.

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My last living musical hero is still my hero but unfortunately no longer living. RIP to the great, great Mr. Tom Lehrer.

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-- Al Yankovic (@alyankovic.bsky.social) Jul 27, 2025 at 1:33 PM

Comments

A Dr. Demento staple. Rest in Pigeons.

#1 | Posted by LegallyYourDead at 2025-07-27 03:56 PM

Tom Lehrer gave away his songs, relinquishing all copyrights, claims, anything (tomlehrersongs.com).

I've been listening to Tom Lehrer's recordings since his first album was a sort of underground sensation - a very savvy older sister-in-law involved in the entertainment industry on both coasts loved playing those wickedly subversive songs so much - and over the years I came to "get" the songs. Thanks, Professor, you done good.

I cheered at the banderilleros' display
As they stuck the bull in their own clever way
For I hadn't had so much fun since the day
My brother's dog Rover
Got run over

(Spoken)
Rover was killed by a Pontiac. And it was done with such grace and artistry that the witnesses awarded the driver both ears and the tail " but I digress...

#2 | Posted by Doc_Sarvis at 2025-07-27 03:57 PM

The passing of a national treasure.

Here's one of my favorites (amongst SO MANY!):

m.youtube.com

#3 | Posted by TrueBlue at 2025-07-27 08:59 PM

@#3 ... The passing of a national treasure. ...

100% agreement.

I remember listening to his songs back in the day.

They gave me pause.

But, I learned to be curious from them.

R.I.P. Thomas Andrew Lehrer.

#4 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-07-27 09:21 PM

I was lucky to have an opportunity to see him perform live in the 90's. Dude was super talented, RIP.

#5 | Posted by chuffy at 2025-07-27 09:32 PM

My brother mentioned that his last name (Lehrer) translates from the Deutsch into "teacher". He definitely was true to his namesake.

#6 | Posted by TrueBlue at 2025-07-27 09:33 PM

@#6 ... My brother mentioned that his last name (Lehrer) translates from the Deutsch into "teacher". ...

Your brother is correct.


#7 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-07-27 09:39 PM

My folks had the live album and "That Was The Year That Was". I expect I had "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" down by age 8.
Definitely colored my outlook on life.
Regrettably, I found out about his last performance in Santa Cruz too late to get out of work that night.
RIP, Maestro.

#8 | Posted by morris at 2025-07-28 04:11 AM

From the obit in The Times (UK):

Lehrer claimed that he stopped writing satire partly because "things I once thought were funny are scary now. I often feel like a resident of Pompeii who has been asked for some humorous comments on lava." Indeed, he famously said a year after he retired from performing that "political satire became obsolete when Kissinger was awarded the Nobel peace prize".

#9 | Posted by Doc_Sarvis at 2025-07-28 05:20 AM

RIP... loved listening to him during the Dr. Demento years...

#10 | Posted by RightisTrite at 2025-07-28 05:46 AM

" he famously said a year after he retired from performing that "political satire became obsolete when Kissinger was awarded the Nobel peace prize"

You mean napalming grass hut villages full of women, children, babies, Grandmas, etc, should have been a disqualifier? Folks should stop and consider that in those days MAGA was The Moral Majority and they called opponents of that war traitors. To have been called a traitor back then was a badge of honor just as being steadfastly "woke" today despite the ignorant racists and other despicable Neanderthals demonizing the word but then I remember when the same ignorant part of America did the same to the word "liberal." There will always be those who oppose progress because it threatens the priveleged status of those whose biggest accomplishments in life were to be born in America to white parents.

#11 | Posted by danni at 2025-07-28 06:29 AM

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