Happy 95th birthday to Tom Lehrer!
So I first learned of Tom Lehrer when I was in high school and a radio DJ out of Los Angeles named Barret Eugene Hansen – better known to the world as Dr. Demento – would play his songs on his Sunday night show that aired on then-KLSX (the station is now something entirely different).
Dr. Demento mostly played Poisoning Pigeons in the Park and Masochism Tango – which are funny tunes but fairly inoffensive and were really the only Lehrer songs about which I knew. It wasn’t until quite a few years later, when I was in Madison, WI for a radio conference, that I found the album That Was The Year That Was on vinyl and learned about some of the more politically subversive tendencies of Mr. Lehrer. I’ve been a huge fan ever since.
So if you’re a Tom Lehrer fan like me, then I have a few treats for you.
The first is a full live performance by Tom Lehrer in Copenhagen – which includes 17 songs from his repertoire (this performance is available on DVD):
The second video is Tom Lehrer performing some original songs at the retirement festivities for a colleague – I believe this is at UC Santa Cruz but I am not 100% certain – and one of the targets of his satire is the field of Sociology (note that my better half is a Sociology Professor at LIU Post):
These are great videos and absolutely worth your time, so please enjoy. And happy birthday, Tom Lehrer!
