In the nineteen fifties, the world of comedic entertainment underwent a stirring alteration for the better. In the mind of a little man in thick glasses and razor-thin tie from Harvard University’s mathematical institute, sounds of strikingly intelligent humor, raw satire and a noteworthy beauty shaped themselves into songs of social commentary and outrageous wit.
Tom Lehrer, mathematician, satirist and musician set out, unknowingly, to establish himself as a legend of entertainment history. With his debut album, Songs by Tom Lehrer (recorded January 22, 1953 in a one-hour session on 10” LP format) Lehrer took his first step into a performance career that, though brief, shines on and remains both controversial and relevant to this day.
Perhaps best known for his fun, list-song of the Periodic Table, today, the three albums of Lehrer are easy enough to find. As they were in their original days, the words of Lehrer are intricate, difficult to describe. At one point, the listener finds himself enraptured in scenes of the grotesque: of murders rampages and small towns riddled with psychosis and the Poe-like murder of a lover whose hand is kept as a treasure to hold forever. At other points, playful scenarios of hunting for humans and poisoning pigeons in the park, to the inevitable apocalypse that awaits us all through nuclear war and onward to his personal disdain for racism, his love for free-speech and freedom of expression through America’s arguably favorite pass times: pornography.
Yet the body of work he has left us with contains a mixture of emotion: a free, innocent spirit matching wits with the dark, educated eye of the misanthropist. The works of Tom Lehrer are highly recommended, essential listening to both the casual observer and the die-hard fan of comedic entertainment.
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