Tom Lehrer, Jewish-American satirical comedic songwriter, dies at 97

Jewish-American satirical songwriter Tom Lehrer, who despite a relatively short entertainment career established a cult following with fans as wide-ranging as the late Princess Margaret and Weird Al Yankovic, has passed away at the age of 97.

Born in 1928 in New York to Jewish parents, Lehrer was a mathematical prodigy, entering Harvard at the age of 15 and leaving America’s foremost higher academic institution with a masters degree by the age of 19. While he began to write and perform during his time at university, his musical career began to take off in the early 50’s, with his records selling hundreds of thousands of copies, and a sell-out concert at Carnegie Hall towards the end of the decade. He would also serve in the US army from 1955-1957 – later claiming he had invented jello-shots as a way to circumvent military bans on bringing alcohol onto bases.

His most famous work was most likely The Elements Song, which took all the known elements in the periodic table at the time and out them to the tune of Gilbert & Sullivan’s Major-General’s Song. However, other hits included songs about race (National Brotherhood Week), war (So long Mom, Send the Marines and MLF Lullaby) and climate (Pollution). In 1959, Princess Margaret said that her musical taste ranged “from Mozart to Tom Lehrer”. In 1965, Lehrer would tell audiences: “it is a sobering thought that by the time Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.”

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His period of significant public success, however, was followed by six decades where he stayed largely out of the public eye. Despite the rumour that he had explained his decision by saying that “political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel peace prize”, his significant retirement from the genre happened a number of years before the then-US Secretary of State received the honour, in 1973. He wrote small number of comedic educational songs for America’s Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) network in the 1970’s, and a late, specifically Jewish addition to his oeuvre (I’m Spending Hannukah in Santa Monica) came in 1990. As a main focus, however, Lehrer, who had sung about Mathematics in songs such as New Math and Lobachevsky, returned to teaching it, with stints at Harvard, MIT, Wellesley College and the University of California, Santa Cruz – also teaching a musical theatre course at the latter.

In 2022, Lehrer announced that he was placing everything he had written – both the lyrics and the sheet music – in the public domain, meaning that anyone was now able to use it without paying royalties. A previous rumour – that he had been sued by Dr Werner von Braun over a song which focused on the NASA scientist’s previous life as a senior part of the Nazi’s V-rocket programme – was firmly denied by Lehrer in a 2003 interview.

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Lehrer led an extremely private life – he encouraged fans to believe he was dead, telling the Harvard Crimson in 1981, “I was hoping the rumours would cut down on the junk mail.” When a fan managed to track down his number for a school assignment, Lehrer told him: “Rather than talk to me for very long, just make up anything you want and I won’t deny it”.

He is not believed to have married or had any children – when once asked about this, he replied “not guilty on both counts”.

In a message yesterday, Weird Al Yankovic, the well known musician and comedy actor, posted: “My last living musical hero is still my hero but unfortunately no longer living. RIP to the great, great Mr. Tom Lehrer.”

Lehrer’s  satirical outlook extended to his own work – in the liner notes for his records, he included scathing reviews from papers, including: “More desperate than amusing” – New York Herald Tribune – and “Mr Lehrer’s muse (is) not fettered by such inhibiting factors as taste.” – The New York Times. His final word on the subject – which suggests that his comedic career may not have lasted very long if launched in more recent times – was “If, after hearing my songs, just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend, or perhaps to strike a loved one, it will all have been worth the while.”