(…as a precious souvenir…)
We lost the great Tom Lehrer earlier this year. Although he was a grand 97 years old when he passed, his entire musical career happened during his 20s and 30s. He was a brilliant parody songwriter and performer, and after writing 37 memorable and very oddball songs about nuclear war, venereal diseases, Harvard, masochism (and more!), he retired from music-ing and spent the rest of his days teaching math.
I can’t exactly remember when I came across Lehrer’s music for the first time, but I did find an anthology of all of his music at a Half Price Books around 2014 and knew enough to spend the $7.99 on it - overpriced for the quality of the printed copy but far too cheap for the wit. The pages were yellowed, ripped and falling out (clearly someone else had loved this same sheet music before me), and 15 or more of the songs are so specific in their references to the news of 50s or to Ivy League sports (as are all good parodies) that they just don’t make all that much sense in today’s world. But tunes like ‘Poisoning Pigeons in the Park’, ‘Hanukkah in Santa Monica’, and ‘When You Are Old and Gray’ are fantastic audience pleasers in any decade, and luckily there are live recordings of Mr. Lehrer himself singing at the piano, his completely dry and deadpan delivery making even a recitation of the elements (to the tune of The Very Model of a Modern Major General, what else?) thrilling musical cabaret.
While not the perfect fit on any concert program (although I love to see you try), there’s a handful that are must-haves for Halloweentime. Enjoy a grainy iPhone video of one of my favorites here, which I performed at the Carnegie in 2024 on Queen City Cabaret’s ‘I Put A Spell on You: A Creepy Cabaret’. I also love the mix of groan/laughs right at the beginning of the video, the best combo, indicating the truly terrible joke I had just recited: “What do vampires and false teeth have in common? They both come out at night!”