Loading details…
Artist
Tom Lehrer
12+ albums
comedysatirepianohumorfunny
about
Tom Lehrer (born Thomas Andrew Lehrer in Manhattan, New York City, on 9 April 1928; died 26 July 2025) was an American singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist, and mathematician remembered for his pithy and humorous, often political, songs that were immensely popular in the 1950s and 1960s. Lehrer was referred to as the "King of Satire" by fans. Beyond musical fame, he lectured on mathematics and musical theatre. Before attending college, Lehrer graduated from the Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, Connecticut. As an undergraduate student at Harvard University, he began to write comic songs to entertain his friends, including Fight Fiercely, Harvard (1945). Those songs later became (in a joking reference to a leading scientific journal, The Physical Review) The Physical Revue. Influenced mainly by musical theater, his style consisted of parodying then-current forms of popular song. For example, his appreciation of list songs led him to set the names of the chemical elements to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan's "Major-General's Song". Inspired by the success of his performances of his songs, he paid for some studio time to record an album, Songs By Tom Lehrer, which he sold by mail order. Self-published and unpromoted, the album, which included the macabre (I Hold Your Hand in Mine), the mildly risqué (Be Prepared), and the mathematical (Lobachevsky), became a success via word of mouth. With a cult hit, he embarked on a series of concert tours and released a second album, which
