Tom Lehrer
Anthony Pidgeon/Redferns)
Tom Lehrer, the influential track satirist whose darkly comedian lyrics gained a cult following many years after he stopped making music, has died on the age of 97.
Lehrer died at his dwelling in Cambridge, Massachusetts, his longtime pal David Herder informed the Associated Press. No reason for dying was offered.
The New York Metropolis-born, Harvard-educated Lehrer started making music whereas learning arithmetic in school, making use of his humor to track to sort out points starting from racism to militarism to faith to nuclear battle within the Fifties and early Sixties.
Amongst Lehrer’s best-known songs embody “Poisoning Pigeons within the Park,” “It Makes a Fellow Proud to Be a Soldier,” “The Vatican Rag,” “The Masochism Tango,” and “The Outdated Dope Peddler,” the latter of which was sampled by 2 Chainz many years later.
Whereas Lehrer solely recorded about three-dozen songs throughout his musical lifetime — he refocused on instructing arithmetic within the Seventies — his work had an unlimited influence on future generations, inspiring songwriters like Randy Newman, Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, and “Bizarre Al” Yankovic, who heard Lehrer’s songs steadily on Dr. Demento’s radio present.
“My final residing musical hero continues to be my hero however sadly not residing. RIP to the nice, nice Mr. Tom Lehrer,” Yankovic wrote on social media Sunday.
Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe was additionally an admirer of Lehrer — “the cleverest and funniest man of the twentieth century, and form of my hero,” Radcliffe stated — and as soon as delivered the satirist’s advanced “The Components” on British late-night tv; Radcliffe’s impromptu efficiency of the basic desk was partly liable for the actor later touchdown the position of “Bizarre Al” in Yankovic’s quasi-biopic.
“I used to sing that track in school at coffeehouses,” Yankovic said of “The Elements” and Radcliffe’s performance. “Singing that track is an especially nerdy factor to do. It’s off-the-charts nerdy. And I assumed, ‘OK, this man will get it. This man’s a kindred spirit. He can embody me onscreen.’”
In 2020, Lehrer positioned his complete catalog within the public area, guaranteeing future generations might freely uncover and use his music. “All copyrights to lyrics or music written or composed by me have been completely and irrevocably relinquished, and subsequently such songs at the moment are within the public area. All of my songs which have by no means been copyrighted, having been obtainable at no cost for thus lengthy, at the moment are additionally within the public area. In different phrases, I’ve deserted, surrendered and disclaimed all proper, title and curiosity in and to my work and have injected any and all copyrights into the general public area,” Lehrer wrote on a still-active website containing all his songs and lyriccs.
“Briefly, I not retain any rights to any of my songs. So assist yourselves, and don’t ship me any cash.”
From Rolling Stone US.