Tom Lehrer

[Spade_Cooley 9,540]

Happy 92nd birthday to a DeathList favourite who has surely earned his own thread by now.

[msc 18,480]

We Will All Go Together is perhaps a bit cliched to post (although I do love it), so here's his other great. Who hasn't got funny looks from passersby when inadvertently singing it in public?

 

Needless to say, legend who will one day be a DL hit presumably, but hopefully not anytime soon.

 

 

[Bentrovato 1,089]

In this holy week it has to be the Vatican Rag: 

 

[Handrejka 1,904]

You frightened me when I saw this until I remember it's his birthday.

 

Always liked this quote of his .'' It is sobering to consider that when Mozart was my age he had already been dead for a year.”

[Handrejka 1,904]

Don't worry he's not dead but he has released his songs into the public domain which makes you think.   

 

https://tomlehrersongs.com/?fbclid=IwAR0jbjWMp3A2Jxi7ppsjlTRsIF1uDhPBViVMtm-pdVLvNPmlI6HUWMlUWsE

[maryportfuncity 10,657]

12 hours ago, Handrejka said:

Don't worry he's not dead but he has released his songs into the public domain which makes you think.   

 

https://tomlehrersongs.com/?fbclid=IwAR0jbjWMp3A2Jxi7ppsjlTRsIF1uDhPBViVMtm-pdVLvNPmlI6HUWMlUWsE

 

 

Makes you think he's still thinking, still has a moral compass and still has some sense of what people want from him. The free giveaway ends 31 Dec 2024 - one outcome of which could be more people learning and performing his songs and an increase in radio play and the income from recorded versions. 

 

Obviously, he's 92...

[Phantom 2,535]

20 hours ago, Handrejka said:

Don't worry he's not dead but he has released his songs into the public domain which makes you think.   

 

https://tomlehrersongs.com/?fbclid=IwAR0jbjWMp3A2Jxi7ppsjlTRsIF1uDhPBViVMtm-pdVLvNPmlI6HUWMlUWsE

Only other person I can think of that saw their songs released in to the public domain was Irving Berlin who was 101 when he died. 

[maryportfuncity 10,657]

1 hour ago, Phantom said:

Only other person I can think of that saw their songs released in to the public domain was Irving Berlin who was 101 when he died. 

 

 

By contrast there's an incalculable pile of musicians suffering collective surges in their blood pressure and other stress related conditions every time they stumble on a website giving away their work for free. 

 

If only they'd managed to organize parallel careers as esteemed academics, like Lehrer, eh?

[Phantom 2,535]

5 minutes ago, maryportfuncity said:

 

 

By contrast there's an incalculable pile of musicians suffering collective surges in their blood pressure and other stress related conditions every time they stumble on a website giving away their work for free. 

 

If only they'd managed to organize parallel careers as esteemed academics, like Lehrer, eh?

 

True,  there have been several times when I've seen music recorded by musicians I am friends with being offered for free on blogsites even when the music is available for purchase either directly through the band or their record label
You have Andy Blade (Eater), Pauline Black (Selecter) both have gone in to teaching from what I can recall. So they're not relying fully on their music to keep themselves afloat financially. 

[Bibliogryphon 9,589]

18 minutes ago, Phantom said:

 

True,  there have been several times when I've seen music recorded by musicians I am friends with being offered for free on blogsites even when the music is available for purchase either directly through the band or their record label
You have Andy Blade (Eater), Pauline Black (Selecter) both have gone in to teaching from what I can recall. So they're not relying fully on their music to keep themselves afloat financially. 

Pauline Black also did a bit of acting.

 

Ed Bazellgette who was a member of the Vapours directed a number of episodes of Doctor Who a few years back

[Toast 16,155]

8 minutes ago, Bibliogryphon said:

Pauline Black also did a bit of acting.

 

Ed Bazellgette who was a member of the Vapours directed a number of episodes of Doctor Who a few years back

 

He's done a lot more than that, including directing quite a few episodes of one of my favourite shows, The Last Kingdom.

[maryportfuncity 10,657]

5 minutes ago, Bibliogryphon said:

Pauline Black also did a bit of acting.

 

Ed Bazellgette who was a member of the Vapours directed a number of episodes of Doctor Who a few years back

 

The various dadrock magazine investigations into what various musical heroes actually do all day has been a bit of a reality check over the years. I once got work writing entries for rock reference books and when it came to ringing the older acts it was standard practice that their management etc. would just - like - give you the act's number because when it came to writing about them the management weren't doing any work or making any money and still wanted their acts promoted any old way. Most of the time you'd ring them in the middle of the day and they were in. But loads of musicians from fairly well known bands have gone on to do fairly normal jobs - painting and decorating, taxi driving etc. Must have mentioned it hereabouts before but a local case to me involved former Pretty Thing Brian Pendleton who spent way longer as an insurance underwriter than he did as a musician. When he died in 2001 he was fairly well known as a regular in a Maidstone pub where a few people knew him as a bloke who'd claimed to have been a musician once over but not everyone believed it.

 

[Bibliogryphon 9,589]

Just now, maryportfuncity said:

 

The various dadrock magazine investigations into what various musical heroes actually do all day has been a bit of a reality check over the years. I once got work writing entries for rock reference books and when it came to ringing the older acts it was standard practice that their management etc. would just - like - give you the act's number because when it came to writing about them the management weren't doing any work or making any money and still wanted their acts promoted any old way. Most of the time you'd ring them in the middle of the day and they were in. But loads of musicians from fairly well known bands have gone on to do fairly normal jobs - painting and decorating, taxi driving etc. Must have mentioned it hereabouts before but a local case to me involved former Pretty Thing Brian Pendleton who spent way longer as an insurance underwriter than he did as a musician. When he died in 2001 he was fairly well known as a regular in a Maidstone pub where a few people knew him as a bloke who'd claimed to have been a musician once over but not everyone believed it.

 

When we were buying our house 25 years ago one of the houses we looked actually had a gold disc hanging in the living room and the lady of the house reluctantly admitted that her husband had indeed been a member of Coast to Coast before becoming a stone mason. I later found out that two of the girls in the band had actually worked where I was then working before they 'hit the big time'.

 

I actually had to admit that I had bought Do The Hucklebuck as a 7" single

[maryportfuncity 10,657]

11 minutes ago, Bibliogryphon said:

When we were buying our house 25 years ago one of the houses we looked actually had a gold disc hanging in the living room and the lady of the house reluctantly admitted that her husband had indeed been a member of Coast to Coast before becoming a stone mason. I later found out that two of the girls in the band had actually worked where I was then working before they 'hit the big time'.

 

I actually had to admit that I had bought Do The Hucklebuck as a 7" single

 

I've bought loads of music that was at its height before I was aware of it or got to any gigs so I've encountered a few of my favourite musicians long after their hit careers were over. One of the more ironic was meeting Peter Hope Evans of Medicine Head. Lovely guy and I'd seen some MH comebacks but by that point he wasn't there and it was basically John Fiddler and a backing band. The irony being that Peter Hope Evans met me at one of my gigs - if you count blathering about UFOs to a convention hosted by Fortean Times as a gig. 

[Drewsky1211 4,759]

NOT DEAD

 

I managed to find a picture of him on his 93rd birthday last year:

 

[msc 18,480]

I appreciate the picture and the "not dead" disclaimer!

[I.R.Baboon 221]

While other singers and bands have sold their rights for tens or hundred of millions of dollars, Tom Lehrer put all of his lyrics and songs into public domain last month: https://tomlehrersongs.com/.

 

edit: i see this was mentioned before. So not really sure what changed in november 2022.

[I.R.Baboon 221]

Considered this pretty funny:

 

[Spade_Cooley 9,540]

On 21/10/2020 at 18:42, maryportfuncity said:

 

The various dadrock magazine investigations into what various musical heroes actually do all day has been a bit of a reality check over the years.

You yourself would know the stories about when The Beatles first went to the States, and wanted to meet all these great blues and early RnR musicians who'd inspired them, only to find out they were working as bus boys at rundown diners.

[maryportfuncity 10,657]

2 hours ago, Spade_Cooley said:

You yourself would know the stories about when The Beatles first went to the States, and wanted to meet all these great blues and early RnR musicians who'd inspired them, only to find out they were working as bus boys at rundown diners.

 

 

Aye, a real irony being that Billy Lee Riley - The Cherokee Elvis - who recorded for Sun and did his inspiration bit for British rockers was soon working in the construction industry and managed to snag a mid-60s record contract when he agreed to do an album of harmonica covers of Beatle songs.

[harrymcnallysblueandwhitearmy 1,689]

On 22/12/2022 at 13:33, I.R.Baboon said:

Considered this pretty funny:

 

 

STILL NOT DEAD, relax Han.

 

I had a bash at karaoke-singing The Elements (Tom's version, not Aristotle's), but cheated by doing it at a more leisurely pace. Seems almost impossible at Tom-speed, but I reckon I can get there. I wonder if rappers use it as practice.

 

 

[Spade_Cooley 9,540]

14 minutes ago, harrymcnallysblueandwhitearmy said:

I wonder if rappers use it as practice

 

I believe this is the only, to date, meeting point of Lehrer and the hip-hop community:

 

 

When he received a permission request from the producer to flip this sample, Lehrer responded: "As sole copyright owner of ‘The Old Dope Peddler’, I grant you motherfuckers permission to do this. Please give my regards to Mr. Chainz, or may I call him 2?"

[Evil Grimace 359]

Again, not dead!

 

Recent article covering his work and the writer's attempts to contact him regarding the play being written about him.

‘My songs spread like herpes’: why did satirical genius Tom Lehrer swap worldwide fame for obscurity? | Music | The Guardian

[Cerberus 302]

I know some smartarse is going to say this has been posted here before - probably on the Covid-19 thread, about four years ago ... but what the hell, this is bloody brilliant. And as one of the YT commenters says, he never looks at his hands once. What could he possibly have been singing about I wonder?