RIP Tom Lehrer (1928-2025)

Tom Lehrer has passed away at the age of 97. As inevitable as this was, it’s still huge bummer.

I am not terribly good at eulogizing but I feel some obligation to try given just how big of a fan I am of Tom Lehrer and his work.

Part of my high school years were spent listening to the radio on Sunday evenings with the dial tuned into Dr. Demento – which, at the time, was broadcast on 97.1 KLSX out of Los Angeles. Regularly appearing in Dr. Demento’s Weekly Top 10 were a few songs – “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park”, “Masochism Tango” and “The Old Dope Peddler”. This was my first introduction to the work of Tom Lehrer.

About a decade later, I was in Madison WI for a Grassroots Radio Conference and I picked on an album called “That Was The Year That Was” which is a recording of a live performance of songs Lehrer had written for the television show “That Was the Week That Was“. This was my first real introduction to the political satire side of Tom Lehrer. While I was a fan prior, this is the album that really cemented by fondness for his work. And since then, every radio show I’ve hosted has ended with a track by Tom Lehrer.

In 2022, Lehrer put the bulk of his output – sheet music and audio recordings – into the public domain.

And there’s this live performance in Copenhagen:

And one in Oslo, Norway:

Anyway, as I said – I am not terribly good at eulogizing so I’ll just leave it with this – Goodbye, Tom Lehrer, and thank you.