When Humor Wasn’t A Dirty Word 1950 and 60’s
Tom Lehrer, Best known for the pithy, humorous songs he recorded in the 1950s and 1960s. Lehrer’s work often parodied popular song forms, though he usually created original melodies when doing so.
Tom Lehrer was probably one of the musical giants of the '60s..Lehrer often had a message he wanted to bring to his audiences. In the mold of a political folk musician, his music was shunned by mass media. But quite unlike contemporaries such as Dylan and Phil Ochs, who rose to fame on the wings of the New Left, Lehrer's song writing career was stifled by the changes of that era.
He was born in 1928, and began taking classical piano lessons 8 years later. His personal preference, however, was for the popular music of the day. His parents graciously allowed him to change to a piano teacher who was willing to indulge his desire for show tunes. In future years, Lehrer's songs would draw heavily from this early exposure. "Having a popular music teacher worked out very well for me. I began writing tunes when I was seven or eight. But I was in college when I began writing parodies of popular songs," recalled Lehrer in an article in American Scholar [4]. His later satirical songs evolved from these simple parodies.
Lehrer’s work often parodied popular song forms, though he usually created original melodies when doing so.
His Musical Career
Lehrer began his serious efforts at song writing in his undergraduate days, parodying in both lyrics and style the popular music of the day. According to Lehrer, "The only one of those songs that eventually made it into my repertoire was 'Fight Fiercely , Harvard,' which was written in 1945 and shows it. I started singing these songs at parties, but never with the intention of their becoming commercial." In 1950, he began performing at Harvard functions, but his renown quickly spread to the Cambridge community, where he began singing at "dance intermissions and smokers and things like that."] After several years of this, he began to tire of performing the same songs over and over again. Polling his concert audiences, he figured that he could find 300 customers for a Tom Lehrer record, and so in 1953 recorded The Songs of Tom Lehrer. "It was a case of the right technology at the right time. By then there were LPs that you could ship yourself. With the old 78s this would have been impossible," recalled Lehrer.
As his songs were considered too crude too play on the radio, Lehrer had to rely on the record to spread his music. After several months of local sales, he began receiving orders from around the county as Cambridge college students brought the album home with them to share with their friends. With his renown somewhat on the rise, Lehrer began performing more often. In short order, however, he succumbed to the draft board, serving two years using his mathematical skills on various classified projects.
He left the army in 1957, just as the concept of a touring popular music concert was emerging. "There was no real concert circuit; the Kingston Trio started all that. The idea of a George Carlin or a David Steinberg giving a concert just didn't exist.". Finding that he was still in demand, Lehrer gave his first concert that year at Hunter College, and spent the next 3 years touring most of the English speaking world, including Australia and New Zealand. Even in the prime of his performing career, however, Lehrer knew that live entertainment was not his cup of tea. In a 1957 article in Newsweek , he quite bluntly said "I wouldn't want to do this all my life. It's okay while I'm still an adolescent," a sentiment he would later expand on.
By 1959, he was getting tired of the concert circuit. As a farewell, he recorded a second album, An Evening (Wasted) With Tom Lehrer, during a concert at Harvard. "I didn't want to put the record out until I was ready to retire...
