Tom Lehrer

July 26, 2001 10:09 PM

Tom Lehrer Retires – Tom Lehrer has finally hung it up as a math lecturer at my alma mater, UC Santa Cruz. I couldn't find a web link specifically about that, but thought it was OK to use a link about the man himself. My Banana Slug Bulletin said he retired so it must be true.
posted by Kafkaesque (10 comments total)

Uh oh, you know all the pigeons in the park are getting nervous.
posted by alan at 10:28 PM on July 26, 2001

yeah because the old dope peddler is coming! ;-)
posted by muppetboy at 10:59 PM on July 26, 2001

my favorite was probably the song about the bomb.

israel's getting tense. wants one in self defense
the lord's our shepard says the psalm
but just in case...
we better get a bomb!
who's next?

us kids just about wore that darn record out!
posted by muppetboy at 11:02 PM on July 26, 2001

Any relation to Jim?
posted by tamim at 1:10 AM on July 27, 2001

Sorry no relation to Jim.

As a kid I just about wore out my parents Lehrer albums too. He must have been imprinted on my consciousness with his "LY" song on Electic Company....or was it Sesame Street?
posted by Kafkaesque at 9:29 AM on July 27, 2001

*cues up "The Masochism Tango"*

Never woulda heard his stuff if it hadn't been for the Sunday evening programming ("Dr. Demento") on D.C.'s late, long-lamented WJOK-AM. ("On the Monday after the 1983 Superbowl, Bob Cobbins put 1150 back on the air as WJOK with an all comedy format. Great idea, wrong station. After losing money for a couple years, Cobbins sold the station to Jim Swartz, who also owned an AM in Belair, MD.")
posted by allaboutgeorge at 9:50 AM on July 27, 2001

I loved Tom Lehrer growing up and was thrilled to find out that I graduated from the same high school he did. Because of one of his songs, I used to be able to not only name, but sing, all of the elements on the periodic table.
posted by miss-lapin at 3:08 PM on July 27, 2001

I love the one called "So Long Mom" (..I'm off to drop the bomb...) especially this lyric:

While we're attacking frontally
Watch Brinkeley and Hunteley
Describing contrapuntally
The cities we have lost....

that and the Periodic Table Song are simply genius.

(for those of you under 35, this is who he is talking about....)
posted by briank at 5:29 PM on July 27, 2001

Electric Company
posted by indigo at 11:38 PM on July 27, 2001

May we have the next slide please?
posted by feelinglistless at 4:02 PM on July 28, 2001