Tom Lehrer
Mathematician / Humorist
Tom Lehrer began recording parodies and satirical songs during his years as a student at Harvard. In the 1950s and 1960s he developed parallel careers as a professor of mathematics and as the writer and performer of cheerfully satirical songs about politics and society. Some of his more famous tunes included "Fight Fiercely, Harvard," "The Old Dope Peddler," "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park," the anti-nuclear-bomb ditty "Who's Next?" and the rather controversial "The Vatican Rag." His albums included An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer and That Was the Year That Was. In 1980 his music was revived in the stage show Tomfoolery. Lehrer stopped performing publicly in the mid-1960s and spent many years as a professor of mathematics at the University of California at Santa Cruz.Extra credit: Lehrer got his B.A. from Harvard at the age of 18... His songs have often been featured on the radio show of Dr. Demento.
Another popular musical parodist is Weird Al Yankovic.
Blog posts mentioning Tom Lehrer:
Tom Lehrer Is 80!
Four Good Links
Tom Lehrer Song Lyrics
With helpful annotations for the younger set
The Elements
This comedy site has a sound file of him singing the periodic table
Wikipedia: Tom Lehrer
Extensive details from the open-source online encyclopedia
That Was the Wit That Was
Wonderful (and rare) Lehrer interview from The San Francisco Weekly of 2000
Vital Stats
Birth
Birthplace
Death
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Best Known As
Composer of the satirical tune "The Vatican Rag"
