TOMFOOLERY
Lehrer, Tom
VIEWS REVIEWS TOMFOOLERY Every evening, an hour or so before midnight, a young mathematician out of Harvard used to sit down at the piano in a New York club called the Blue Angel and pound out...
...I have often felt like a resident of Pompeii who has been asked for some humorous comments on lava...
...Years passed, and his following grew as he poked pins into the powerful ("Do whatever steps you want if/ You have cleared them with the Pontiff/ . . . Doin' the Vatican Rag") and shed some good-humored light onto the dark sides of the human heart ("All the world seems in tune/ On a spring afternoon/ When we're poisoning pigeons in the park...
...The city streets are really quite a thrill...
...Just go out for a breath of air, And you'll be ready for Medicare...
...Since then, he has published fifty books, including collaborations, most recently The Situation Is Hopeless...
...Here is a sample from Too Many Songs...
...The lyrics and music from that show will be published in October in a collection also featuring the fittingly mordant drawings of British caricaturist Ronald Searle...
...he says, "I regarded them as fugacious ephemera which by now should have been of arti-factual interest only to scholars (although in what field I can't imagine...
...Lehrer returned to academia himself in the 1960s, teaching variously at Harvard, Wellesley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of California...
...The songs in this book were written between World Wars II and III," writes Lehrer in a foreword to Too Many Songs by Tom Lehrer with Not Enough Drawings by Ronald Searle...
...Since so many of them comment on events current some years ago...
...Reprinted by permission of Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc...
...But stay away from the kitchen sink...
...Where the scenery's attractive And the air is radioactive Oh, the wild west is where I want to be...
...Mid the yuccas and the thistles I'll watch the guided missiles While the old F.B.I, watches me...
...Admirers try to entice him back to song-writing by suggesting "hilarious subject matter, such as the Vietnam war, the gradual destruction of the environment, our recent Presidents, etc.," he says...
...Then you can breathe, long as you don't inhale...
...I will seek the desert's hush Where the scenery is lush How I long to see the mush-Room clouds...
...Last year, a revue of Tom Lehrer's songs, entitled "Tomfoolery," opened in London...
...I'll have on my sombrero And of course I'll wear a pair o' Levis over my lead B.V.D.s...
...Illustrations Copyright © 1981 by Ronald Searle...
...So go to the city, see the crazy people there, Like lambs to the slaughter, They're drinking the water and breathing the air...
...Yes, I'll soon make my appearance (Soon as I can get my clearance), 'Cause the wild west is where I want to be...
...Copyright © 1981 by Tom Lehrer...
...It was 1953, and this was Tom Lehrer's first professional engagement as a musician...
...Throw out your breakfast and I've got a hunch That the folks downstream will drink it for lunch...
...Pollution, Pollution, you can use the latest toothpaste, And then rinse your mouth with industrial waste...
...See the halibuts and see the sturgeons Being wiped out by detergeons...
...Lots of things there that you can drink...
...Just two things of which you must beware: Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air...
...If the hoods don't get you the monoxide will...
...Pollution If you visit American city, You will find it very pretty...
...Searle, who became well known in this country for his drawings in Holiday magazine, first achieved prominence just after World War II for an exhibition at the Cambridge School of Art of 300 drawings he made while a prisoner of war of the Japanese...
...Fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly, But they don't last long if they try...
...VIEWS REVIEWS TOMFOOLERY Every evening, an hour or so before midnight, a young mathematician out of Harvard used to sit down at the piano in a New York club called the Blue Angel and pound out his own peculiar program—tunes from a wide range of musical styles, wandering from subject to subject, but held together by a strong seam of irreverence...
...Mid the sagebrush and the cactus I'll watch the fellers practice Dropping bombs through the clean desert breeze...
...From the forthcoming book "Too Many Songs by Tom Lehrer with Not Enough Drawings by Ronald Searle...
...I will leave the city's rush, Leave the fancy and the plush, Leave the snow and leave the slush And the crowds...
...Pollution, pollution, they got smog and sewage and mud, Turn on your tap and get hot and cold running crud...
...The Wild West Is Where I Want to Be Along the trail you'll find me lopin' Where the spaces are wide open In the land of the old A.E.C...
...Pollution, pollution, wear a gas mask and a veil...
Vol. 45 • October 1981 • No. 10
