Some Thoughts on Tom Lehrer

He died the other day at 97 (!)

Tom Lehrer’s song The Folk Song Army begins

We are the folk song army
Every one of us cares
We all hate poverty, war, and injustice
Unlike the rest of you squares

I think of it often, because it captures the moral arrogance of many young people today.¹ He wrote it back when Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs were defining the “protest song” genre.

Another favorite line for me comes from The MLF Lullaby.

Once all the Germans were warlike and mean

but that couldn’t happen again

We taught them a lesson in 1918

And they’ve hardly bothered us since then

My parents owned a copy of Lehrer’s most popular album, “That Was the Year that Was.” I listened to it enough that I have nearly all of the songs committed to memory.

Lehrer basically retired after that album, which came out in 1965. He continued to have a following, which I think became a source of snobbery among his fans. You assumed that only you and your most intelligent friends were onto him. The most elite members of the club were the ones who knew his pre-1960 oevre.

Another 1950s humorist with a strong intellectual following was Mort Sahl. My parents also owned a copy of Sahl’s album, “The Future Lies Ahead,” and I committed much of it to memory, also.

Sahl was on the left, and many of his zingers were aimed at President Eisenhower and Vice-President Nixon. Of the House Un-American Activities Committee, Sahl said,

Every time the Russians would put an American in jail, this committee would put an American in jail.

In his later years, Sahl’s became increasingly bitter and decreasingly funny. Unlike Lehrer, Sahl tried to continue performing in public through the late 1960s and beyond. The results confirmed the wisdom of Lehrer’s decision to retire sooner.

1. Just yesterday, I wrote “The anointed see opposition not in terms of a mere difference of opinion. It is illegitimate. Their yard signs that say “We believe” in science, justice, and so on are nothing less than an accusation that you don’t believe in such things unless you are on their team.”