Tom Lehrer, the First DIY Star

In 2020, satirist Tom Lehrer put his 95 songs into the public domain and noted on his website, “So help yourselves and don’t send me any money.” But in 2012, the humorist allowed rapper 2 Chainz to partially poach his 1953 song, “The Old Dope Peddler.”  In a letter to the lawyers, Tom wrote: “I grant you motherf_ _ _ers permission to do this. Please give my regards to Mr. Chainz, or may I call him 2?”

Lehrer, who died recently at the age of 97, admitted he was “very proud” that his work was still in vogue.  But even though Lehrer invented arguably the darkest lyrics ever to appear on a record about nuclear war (“We will all bake together when we bake, There’ll be nobody present at the wake”), his best invention was perhaps the Jell-O shot. In a 2000 interview with SF Weekly, Lehrer explained how, in 1956,  he invented a novel way to kill brain cells. “I was in the Army for two years, and we were having a Christmas party on the naval base where I was working in Washington, D.C. The rules said no alcoholic beverages were allowed.  So this friend and I spent an evening experimenting with Jell-O.  We finally decided that orange Jell-O and vodka was the best. We tried gin and vodka, and various flavors. Of course, you can’t sample too much. We made all these little cups, and we thought I would bring them in, hoping that the Marine guard would say, ‘Okay, what’s in there?’ And we’d say, ‘Jell-O.’  And then he’d say, ‘Oh, okay.’ But no, he didn’t even ask. So it worked.”

Before actor Daniel Radcliffe called Lehrer “the cleverest and funniest man of the 20th century and my hero,” Lehrer had a mission.  At the age of fourteen (!?), he decided to attend the legendary Ivy.  Its admissions department asked the boy genius to provide an example of his writing.  Tom replied:

“I will leave movie thrillers,

And watch caterpillars,

Get born and pupated and larve’d,

And I’ll work like a slave,

And always behave,

And maybe I’ll get into Hava’d.”

While working on his Master’s degree in Math, Lehrer had a side hustle: composing and selling sardonic songs.  He self-financed the start of his career by paying $15 to record 22 minutes worth of songs in a studio. San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen heard one of the 400 records Lehrer had pressed and gave it a rave review. That got the attention of RCA Records.  To Tom’s surprise, RCA’s Songs by Tom Lehrer sold 350,000 copies.  He later noted, “My songs spread slowly, like herpes, rather than Ebola.”

His career was off and running, releasing such toe-tappers as “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park,” (“When they see us coming, The birdies all try and hide, But they still go for peanuts, When coated with cyanide”) and “The Masochism Tango” (“I ache for the touch of your lips, dear, But much more for the touch of your whips, dear”).

Admirers of his wordplay include Donald Fagen, Weird Al Yankovic, and Randy Newman.

By 1973, Tom found that reality had evolved into satire, stating, “Political satire became obsolete after Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize.” He had no use for rock ‘n’ roll (calling it “children’s music”), the early 1960s folk music revival (“idiocy of the intellectual fringe”), and despised touring, confessing: “I didn’t relish doing the same thing night after night. And I don’t have the need for anonymous affection.”

His last appearance onstage was in 1998 when he performed in London as part of Hey, Mr. Producer!, a benefit concert. Stephen Sondheim, who Lehrer met when both were teens, introduced his fellow legendary wordsmith at the concert.

Offers to tour poured in, which only made the native New Yorker turn a cold shoulder to the attempts to make him a hot commodity again.  Tom’s reasoning? “It would just be an impersonation, like Yul Brynner 25 years later doing The King and I. He can barely stand up, and people scream and yell because there he is. Also, it would require so much preparation, rehearsing, and relearning things. So no, I can’t imagine anything that would get me back to doing that. It’s like, I liked high school, but I wouldn’t want to do it again.”

He wrote five songs for the 1970’s children show The Electric Company, but was content to teach Math and live in Cambridge, MA, during temperate months and Santa Cruz in the winter.

Looking back at his recording career, he acknowledged, “I think I could get away with that stuff because I was this clean-cut college kid in a bow-tie and horn-rimmed glasses, being kind of innocent and smart. Obviously educated, using three-syllable words, and being almost surprised that the audience thought it was funny. And, if, after hearing my songs, just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend, or perhaps to strike a loved one, it will all have been worth the while.”

-Mark Daponte

Photo: Tom Lehrer, 1960 (public domain)