Remembering Tom Lehrer And His Unforgettable Satirical Songs

Extremely inappropriate for this day and age, and terribly funny. Part of my misspent youth has passed away at the age of 97. When I was in grade school, my parents liked to buy comedy recordings and one of them w So.as by a very unusual man by the name of Tom Lehrer.  

With tongue in cheek song titles like National Brotherhood Week, The Masochism Tango, Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, The Vatican Rag, and Verner Von Braun. Even in the 1950s and 1960s, his songs were considered profoundly inappropriate, and extremely funny. 

My parents had a Tom Lehrer album. I listened to it, I thought it was hilarious and then memorized as many of the songs as I possibly could so I could sing them on the playground. 

So, when I heard of his recent passing, (7/26/25) it made me sad, and also made me smile as I thought back to those songs that I heard when I was so young. 

According to npr.org,
‘Tom Lehrer, a popular musical satirist who rose to fame in the 1950s and '60s before returning to a career teaching math, has died at age 97.
Lehrer died on Saturday at his home in Cambridge, Mass., his friend David Herder confirmed to NPR.’ 

People across the entertainment industry mourned his passing, including Weird Al Yankovic who Professed to be Tom Lehrer's biggest fan. Actor Daniel Radcliffe, who played Weird Al in his biopic movie had to learn a Tom Lehrer song for his part in the movie and still remembers it to this day. 

Tom Lehrer stopped performing publicly in 1970 and then went to teaching mathematics at the University of California, Santa Cruz as well as teaching at Cambridge 

Tom Lehrer, gone at the age of 97.
Tom Lehrer, Influential Song Satirist With a Cult Following, Dead at 97
Satiric songwriter Tom Lehrer has died at age 97 : NPR