| Product: |
Tom Lehrer in general |
| Date: |
10.01.08 (51 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Funny, brilliant, god like
Disadvantages: Short musical career
Around 80 years ago Thomas Andrew Lehrer was born (April 9, 1928), known now to many as Tom Lehrer, the man has done it all since.
Usually a person stays in one form or another of work, but Lehrer has managed to mix all of his together at times, which has seen not only a cynical look at the army, a satire based look at education and just a few fun songs based on music we might already recognise.
Much like contemporary Allan Sherman (best known for "Camp Granada") Lehrer's music was fun to listen (I admit thats what I'm sticking to mainly here in this article). Songs like "The Elements" (based on putting the elements of the periodic table to the tune of "Major Generals song", the Gilbert and Sullivan favourite from Pirates of Penzance), "New Maths", a comedic look at maths using base 8 and others.
As well as his music career (detailed in more erm...detail? below), he was also a lecturer of both music and maths (...could that be where the maths songs started?), a gradute of MIT (american College), and spent time in the Army. Also the lead song writer for the TV show "That was the week that was", which is often forgot about.
Although barely more than a cult figure and with a music career that he was all to happy to point out was alarmingly short with "109 shows and written 37 songs over 20 years". The songs that he did write caught the eye of one royal, which helped lead to his popularity over here, Princess Margaret said "catholic, ranging from Mozart to Tom Lehrer", about her musical tastes. Which may have been a slightly large compliment to Mozart (ho ho ho he tried to crack a funny).
This lead to Lehrer's music being played on the BBC (rare for an american musician at the time).
As alluded to early Lehrer's satire ranged from target to target, so here's a slightly more in depth list:
Race relations
Education
War
Army
Polotics
Pollution
O nly from only 37 or so recorded songs, he did keep each of these categories quite thin, the ones based on the army are said to be about his own experiences in the force (most notably "Does it make a fellow proud to be a soldier".
As with Sherman he was later copied, most obviously by the most famous comedy song writer, Weird "al" Yankovich, who states that Lehrer was one of his major influences (and occasionally ask's Tom to help), as well as British medical comedy band Amateur Transplants, who'se own "Drug song" is based on "The Elements" and "Menstrual rag" based on "The Vatican Rag". A satirist being satired...oh noes.
Although Lehrer is barely more than a cult figure in society's ignorance filled world his music had lead to so much more than people will be happy to aknowledge. With Dr Demento labelling Lehrer "best musical satirist of the 20th Century." Not a bad compliment at all for those who know the nice Dr's standing in the world of Satire.
Tom Lehrer, a man of many talents, best known for his under-utilised musical ones.
Summary: Brilliant but short lasting, like many of his songs
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Last comment:
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Stroody - 10.01.08 Fascinating and interesting read - I was educated today and so thanks for that :) |
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