Tom Lehrer talks - interview - a CD/DVD is out in the U.S.
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- Опубліковано 20 сер 2024
- Tom Lehrer on public domain (2020):
tomlehrersongs...
www.amazon.com...
Use the above link and get the uninterrupted Lehrer TV-performance and The Tom Lehrer Collection from Amazon.com.
After spending the last hour or so aquanting myself with this mans work, i'm left awestruck. What a satirist, and all this 50-60 years ago! Just about every lyric is still as current as it ever was. And most of it is STILL considered dark humour, i can't even imagine how it was viewed in the 50's. What a brilliant man!
I'm glad you've found Tom. He will be with you forever.
@@user-rk6xt7ue8y Without a doubt. 8 years later I'm still a huge fan of his work and I've since spread the word to all my friends as well.
I think his first album or 2 were produced in the 50s. The 50s had plenty of satirists. Political music goes back to the 40s and earlier, with the Almanac Singers, for example.
@@Jesse-gr2xo In the 10 years that have passed since I first made that comment and found Tom Lehrers work I have expanded my knowledge of him a lot. A great man.
But haven't made a deep dive into other artists doing similar work, certainly not back then, and I greatly appreciate the suggestion! Time to dive down the Almanac Singers rabbit hole!
For a guy who didn't love being onstage, he was an amazingly expressive and creative performer. Every lyric and note delivered with perfect timing and flair.
I remember seeing Tom Lehrer at Harvard house gigs in the early 50's, never knowing whether to laugh or slither under the table lest my date see me laughing. Now my grandchildren have heard his records that I bought a slightly later, and gaze at me with new respect. I was looking for "Alma" recently in connection with a discussion I was in about bad boys, long-haired blond rock gods, and girls' love for them. So Tom's forever on target.
Truth be told, I haven´t updated much on UA-cam since 2008/2009, because there is not much to update. All Lehrer´s stuff on UA-cam is HISTORICAL material. He is not going to record more songs or anything like that, because he is 85 and -- in his own words -- he is not going to perform because -- quote -- “I’d just be doing an impression of myself. I don’t want to become like people who have lost it, like Carol Channing.” Lehrer has explained his reason for leaving the entertainment industry several times. Please use the attached video (link).
would he atleast be able to release something that resembles his own thoughts about subjects, doesnt have to be entertainment.
Tom is alive and well (2023) but I don't believe that he will release more material or speak his mind in public.
Twice in my life I'm played "new math" for friend who were actual mathematicians. Both of them corrected his math before he did it his self. I first heard him when I was maybe 12? His first album had just come out. Loved him always. He always cheers me up. Bizarre? Maybe, but he does.
My kids love listening to "Silent E". Almost as much as they love "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park". (The song, not the pastime.)
I’ve been listening to Lehrer since 1954, when I was 4. Thank God my parents shared him with me. His songs were THE songs of my childhood, and I had them memorized. “The Old Dope Peddler” terrified me, though. Maybe Tom Lehrer saved me from experimenting with drugs in the 1960s and 1970s. I would have loved to have met him. I grew up to have mathematicians for friends and married someone who did math logic with his PhD. Notably, I never ceased loving Lehrer!
Your life looks like a Tom Lehrer tribute 😂
I first heard his music in the early 60s as a high school student. As a Boy Scout, I loved his "Be Prepared" song. Inspired by his Lobachevsky song, in HS I wrote a book review on Lobachevsky's non-euclidean geometry for my senior math class and subsequently majored in math in college. His brilliant satire is (unfortunately) still relevant today as we face pollution, nuclear proliferation, and hypocrisy.
109 concerts... taking a generous estimate of around 100 people per concert... If we assume a few people went more than once (especially in his Harvard times), that's around 10 000 lucky people who witnessed a Tom Lehrer concert first-hand. ...How I envy them.
Not such a generous estimate. Sanders Theatre, Harvard (where "An Evening Wasted With..." was recorded) can seat over 1,100 people. I'd say that 1000 people is a fairly standard size for a concert hall. Looking at some of his tour venues here dmdb.org/lehrer/concert.html many of them have capacities of over 2,000 people. I'd guess that at least 100,000 people saw Tom Lehrer live, possibly more.
I’m adding this to my previous remark: Thank you Tom Lehrer for making my childhood a thoughtful one. You prepared me for Sondheim🤗
Happy Birthday, Mr Lehrer. Loved your songs growing up, and re-discovered that joy about 2 years ago.
In 1970s high school one of my teachers played "Pollution" in class and I was in tears it was so funny. I might have found his albums earlier except my teacher pronounced his name as Tom Lear. It took until the Internet age before I finally was able to see a picture of him. Not only are his songs catchy and funny, his patter between songs is just as clever.
Happy birthday Tom!!!
I know the lyrics to many of your songs--I am not sure how? Now, 55 years later, I am still amused! I am passing your work onto my children--ages 31 to 51. Annotated of course :-)
I used to play TL's songs for my high school English students the day before what used to be called "Christmas Vacation". Most kids had some idea that the songs were funny but you could always tell a very smart kid from particular responses and not infrequently these were NOT the kids with the best grades. And on a few occasions they were the kids with the worst grades. Wit is the great leveler.
TL famously said re: why he stopped writing songs: "Satire died the day Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize."
Oh god, Tom Lehrer and Sondheim. Two of my favorite composers. It's interesting to see what Lehrer thought of Sondheim, but I wonder what Sondheim thought of Lehrer?
I wish there was a DVD of the revue of his work, Tomfoolery.
As far as I know there isn't, but there is an abridged version of *Tomfoolery* on UA-cam that was done for South African television in 1981.
That is what I calll good satire, when it still rings true decades later. Ever try Gilbert and Sullivan? More music and satire, and just as funny now as in the 1800s.
P. S. I discovered them through "The Elements".
@TEMPmichaelhansen, thanks for commenting. Please open and read the WHOLE video description for this video. After that, click on my (stupid) username to get the rest. And after having visited the channel: Spread the word!
Along with Groucho and Spike Jones, Tom pioneered the Anarchist Songwriting Movement which gave us Weird Al and many more
i cant decide if this guy was hillarious or crazed.
TL is an outstanding cynic interpreter - brings everything to the point!
Thx for posting this i love his music :D
@casinobowling, yes, as a matter of fact I knew that it was the intro to that Leif Juster song, and of course I knew that it wasn't one of Tom Lehrer's songs :-)
Me and Mr Lehrer share the same birthday
@jakesonlinevlog, yes, I knew that, but I didn´t include it in the video.
Where can I hear the complete interview??
This is great.
I wish the DVD was in PAL... :(
Can you tell me where and when this interview was made? I'd like to cite it in one of my papers.
@TEMPmichaelhansen, heh heh, you never know. I'm the one telling people to spread the word here, so that the songs (and the TV performance) will be preserved. But of course I'm just the enthusiast hacker (not to be trusted ;D
This channel is very inactive but I thought to ask here regardless if anyone knew the date this interview occurred? Is it the same year as the CD release detailed in the description?
did you ever get an answer to this? Curator of this channel, can you give us some back story?
I believe this is a recording from 2013 (approx). Lehrer was 85, but he sounds younger than that. The recording was from a radio show. I never imagined that this dubious channel would generate this kind of interest and a flow of messages sent to poor old me. This content answers a lot of the questions people wanted me to answer.
Well the answer only took 2 years or less to be sent, at least it was sent though -
@Frogiful A little bit of both.
@nanbarberable I don't know if they can handle hearing this from Tom after what happened with Lebron....
I disagree with Lehrer on some points. First of all, I have written a novel (not published: too good, too little violence, and no sex). And I would not hesitate to read and re-read my own stories again and again, because I'm always looking for ways to improve my writing skills. (I still haven't worked out the ideal balance between narrative and dialogue.) I might also think of a new idea to springboard from the older material. Secondly, Lehrer hinted that something would have to be terrifically compelling to be heard or read more than once. In my opinion, that is only partly true. Yes, the material should have some level of interest (which is why I've always had a terrible time memorizing math); but...! If I have a need to study a particular subject, I would definitely read or hear it, ad infinitum, until I was certain that I'd gotten as much out of it as I possibly could. (Even then, I might read it again, to try to think of something new I hadn't thought of earlier.) Lehrer hinted that he wouldn't do this; but that is not surprising, given that he has (had?) a photographic memory. I don't. (My memory is above average, but highly selective.) I have always been fascinated with etymology, word-history and proper applications thereof. As a kid, I always had a dictionary handy. No matter what I was reading, if I came across a word I found interesting (or didn't know), I would look it up, and meditate on each of its meanings and applications, for about 30 to 60 minutes, until I was satisfied that I got the concept. I would then resume reading. Lehrer was the polar-opposite, able to read something once, and know it, word for word. (This is how he could get straight-A's in poetry, despite having no clue or interest in it.) Because of that ability, Lehrer seemed born to be a student and a teacher. School is structured for cramming, and Lehrer was wired for it. I hated cramming, and any deadline imposed upon me like a two-ton boulder on my head. But that just underscores the challenge of teaching: every individual has his or her own way of assimilating knowledge, and it is up to the teacher to plug into all of those individual minds, and bring them all up to the same level of understanding.
@nanbarberable Atleast their not Detroit XD