“Gene Weingarten: Heh. _______________________ Spittle: Gene, I”
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Tom Lehrer
Thomas Andrew Lehrer was an American musician and mathematician. He recorded pithy, humorous, and often political songs that became popular in the 1950s and 1960s. His songs parodied popular musical forms, often with original melodies.
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science · American musician (1928–2025) · mathematician · singer · university teacher · lyricist · songwriter · satirist · theoretical physicist · musician · composer · pianist · also Tom Lehrer, Thomas Lehrer, Lehrer
Born 9 April 1928 · Died 26 July 2025 · Q369724
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1-10 When You Are Old and Gray
1-23 We Will All Go Together When We Go
3-01 National Brotherhood Week
3-19 L‐Y
En-us-Lehrer
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2026· 13 entries
“Not knowing any Swedish, I am obviously not equipped to judge, but it sounds to me as though Mr. Ekborg is perfect for the songs”
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Published video “The Wiener Schnitzel Waltz - Live in Australia”.
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Published video “Be Prepared - Live in Australia”.
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Published video “Fight Fiercely, Harvard - Live in Australia”.
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Published video “The Hunting Song - Live in Australia”.
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Published video “Introduction - Live in Australia”.
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Published video “When You Are Old and Grey - Live in Australia”.
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Published video “I Wanna Go Back to Dixie - Live in Australia”.
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Published video “My Home Town - Live in Australia”.
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Published video “The Wild West Is Where I Want to Be - Live in Australia”.
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Published video “Lobachevsky - Live in Australia”.
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Public attention spiked: 13,495 Wikipedia readers in one day, 20.7× the usual 654, with 1 article edits. Editors noted: Align link text to linked article title
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2025· 11 entries
Yahoo: Tom Lehrer, song satirist and mathematician, dies at 97
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Hollywood Life: Who Was Tom Lehrer? 5 Things to Know About the Late Musical Satirist
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NBC Chicago: Tom Lehrer, song satirist and Harvard mathematician, dies at 97
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Yahoo: Influential Song Satirist Tom Lehrer Passes Away at 97
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Vulture: Musical Satirist Tom Lehrer Dead at 97
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Los Angeles Times: Tom Lehrer, musical satirist, dies at 97
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Died 2025-07-26.
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"Lehrer's reputation matched UC Santa Cruz's creative and irreverent spirit; and his talents played perfectly into the campus's original intent to elevate the humanities and foster deeper connections between scholarship
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“I find enough mystery in mathematics to satisfy my spiritual needs. I think, for example, that pi is mysterious enough (don't get me started!) without having to worry about God. Or if pi isn't enough, how about fractals? or quantum mechanics?”
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While "several stores near the Harvard campus sold it for $3
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The Harvard Crimson recalls how Lehrer expressed his surprise that "well, I wrote 'Fight Fiercely, Harvard' in 1945" and it was still being performed in the 21st century
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2024· 2 entries
Released album “Lots of Tom Lehrer”.
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Francis Beckett wrote a play Tom Lehrer Is Teaching Math and Doesn't Want to Talk to You, which features Lehrer's music and was performed with Lehrer's tacit approval at the Upstairs at The Gatehouse theatre in Highgate,
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2023· 1 entry
Released album “The Conducted Tom Lehrer”.
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2022· 1 entry
Released album “That’s Mathematics of all”.
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2020· 1 entry
Lehrer publicly revealed that he had been assigned to the NSA; since the mere fact of the NSA's existence was classified at the time, Lehrer found himself in the position of implicitly using nuclear weapons work as a cov
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2019· 2 entries
Released album “The Best & Worst of Tom Lehrer”.
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Released album “An Evening With the Infinite Genius of Tom Lehrer”.
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2015· 1 entry
Released album “The Tom Lehrer Collection: 1953–60”.
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2013· 4 entries
Lehrer said he was "very proud" to have his song sampled "literally sixty years after I recorded it"
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Lehrer recalled the studio session for "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park", which referred to the practice of controlling pigeons in Boston with strychnine-treated corn:
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Released album “Essential Tom Lehrer, Vol. 1 (Live)”.
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Released album “Essential Tom Lehrer, Vol. 2 (Live)”.
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2012· 2 entries
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Rapper 2 Chainz sampled Lehrer's song "The Old Dope Peddler" on his debut album, Based on a T
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2011· 2 entries
Released album “Tom Lehrer: ...Discovers Australia / Stereo Songs by...”.
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Released album “The Very Best Of Tom Lehrer, Victor Borge And Flanders & Swann”.
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2010· 7 entries
Released album “Rarities, Volume 2”.
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Released album “Rarities, Volume 3”.
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Released album “Rarities, Volume 1”.
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Released album “Evenings Wasted With Tom Lehrer”.
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Released album “The Tom Lehrer Collection”.
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Released album “The Rest of Tom Lehrer”.
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The German musician-comedian Felix Janosa released an album with the title Tauben vergiften: Die bösen Lieder von Tom Lehrer ("Poisoning pigeons: The Evil Songs of Tom Lehrer"), with German versions of some of his best-k
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2009· 1 entry
Released album “Entertaining”.
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2008· 1 entry
Released album “The Very Best of Tom Lehrer”.
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2006· 1 entry
Released album “My Home Town”.
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2003· 3 entries
“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.”
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Lehrer commented that his particular brand of political satire is more difficult in the modern world: "The real issues I don't think most people touch
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Lehrer confirmed he still "h[ung] out" around UCSC
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2001· 1 entry
Lehrer taught his last mathematics class, on the topic of infinity, and retired from academia
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2000· 4 entries
Released album “The Remains of Tom Lehrer”.
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That this was only an off-hand remark and was not the actual reason for him quitting
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Lehrer commented that he doubted his songs had any real effect on those not already critical of the establishment: "I don't think this kind of thing has an impact on the unconverted, frankly
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The boxed CD set The Remains of Tom Lehrer was released by Rhino Entertainment
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1997· 1 entry
Released album “Songs & More Songs by Tom Lehrer”.
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1994· 1 entry
Released album “In Concert”.
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1993· 2 entries
As Songs of the Physical Revue – a special performance for the American Physical Society to commemorate the centenary of their journal, the Physical Review
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Wrote "That's Mathematics" for the closing credits to a Mathematical Sciences Research Institute video celebrating the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem
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1990· 1 entry
And recorded later, and "A Christmas Carol" as a seven-inch single in 2024
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1981· 2 entries
At a New York performance of Tomfoolery, he told The New York Times, "The Vietnam War is what changed it
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Released album “Tom Foolery”.
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1980· 3 entries
At the Criterion Theatre in London, where he sang "I Got It from Agnes"
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Released album “Tomfoolery: The Unoriginal Cast Album”.
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Cameron Mackintosh produced Tomfoolery, a revue of Lehrer's songs that was a hit on the London stage
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1973· 1 entry
Had said that "political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
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1972· 2 entries
Lehrer joined the faculty of the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC)
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On a fundraising tour for the anti-Vietnam War Democratic U
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1971· 1 entry
Argentinian singer Nacha Guevara sang Spanish versions of several Lehrer songs for the show/live album Este es el año que es
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1967· 2 entries
Swedish actor Lars Ekborg, known outside Sweden for his part in Ingmar Bergman's Summer with Monika, made an album called I Tom Lehrers vackra värld ("In the beautiful world of Tom Lehrer"), with 12 of Lehrer's songs tra
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Set in a fictional American wild west town and titled The Dodge Rebellion Theatre presents Ballads For '67
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1966· 4 entries
Released album “Songs by Tom Lehrer”.
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BBC TV host David Frost returned to the UK with the BBC program The Frost Report; alongside Julie Felix, Lehrer provided musical satire on the weekly subject
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Released ep “Songs by Tom Lehrer”.
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Released ep “An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer”.
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1965· 3 entries
Released ep “That Was the Year That Was”.
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Released album “That Was the Year That Was”.
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Gave up on his mathematics dissertation on modes in statistics, after working on it intermittently for 15 years
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1960· 4 entries
Released album “Revisited”.
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Lehrer returned to full-time mathematics studies at Harvard
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Lehrer essentially retired from touring in the U
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Released album “Tom Lehrer Discovers Australia (and Vice Versa)”.
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1959· 2 entries
Released album “An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer”.
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Released album “More of Tom Lehrer”.
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1958· 2 entries
Banned from broadcast 10 of the 12 songs on the album
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Without Lehrer's approval, where some of the lyrics were mistranscribed
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1957· 1 entry
When the University of London awarded a doctor of music degree honoris causa to Princess Margaret, and the public orator, Professor J
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1953· 2 entries
At the TransRadio studio on Boylston Street in Boston, Songs by Tom Lehrer
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Lehrer left Harvard to work for Baird-Atomic, which made scientific and industrial instruments, including radiation detection and spectroscopy
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1947· 1 entry
Studied at Harvard University, Master of Arts (1947).
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1946· 1 entry
Studied at Harvard University, Bachelor of Arts (1946).
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1930· 1 entry
“s Upper West Side that included attending Broadway shows with his family and walking through Central Park day or night. He and his family were ethnically Jewish, following a generally secular lifestyle that included attending Jewish Sunday school but also celebrating Christmas; he remarked that his ties to Judaism were”
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1928· 3 entries
And grew up on Manhattan's Upper East Side
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Born 1928-04-09.
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“s ban on alcoholic beverages. Despite holding a master”
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