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My favorite Tom Lehrer song is probably New Math. https://youtube.com/watch?v=UIKGV2cTgqA https://youtube.com/watch?v=UIKGV2cTgqA With its clever lyrics and r
by MrMember 9y ago
My favorite Tom Lehrer song is probably New Math.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=UIKGV2cTgqA https://youtube.com/watch?v=UIKGV2cTgqA
With its clever lyrics and rapid fire delivery it sounds like it could have come out last year and not fifty years ago.
- pizza 9y agoI love his song "Who's Next?", about nuclear war: especially how it starts and ends, haha > First we got the bomb and that was good > Cause we love peace and motherhood > Then Russia got the bomb, but that's O.K > Cause the balance of power's maintained that way! ... > ...We'll try to stay serene and calm > When Alabama gets the bomb! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRLON3ddZIw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRLON3ddZIw
- acqq 9y agoAnd to stay in the mood: the "uplifting end": "We Will All Go Together When We Go" and "So Long, Mom (A Song for World War III)" And since he wrote the "Who's next" the list did grow longer, I wasn't completely aware of, for example, "NATO nuclear weapons sharing states": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_we... Designated nuclear weapon states: China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States Other states with nuclear weapons: India, North Korea, Pakistan Presumed to have nuclear weapons: Israel NATO nuclear weapons sharing states: Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Turkey Formerly possessing nuclear weapons: Belarus, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Ukraine (Lehrer mentioned South Africa in the song). "(Mommy,) I'll look for you when the (WW III) war is over, an hour and a half from now!"
- andrepd 9y ago"MLF Lullaby" is another absolute gem.
- lb1lf 9y agoEee-eegypt wants to get one, too - just to use on you-know-who. So Israel’s getting one for self defense - «The Lord’s our shepherd, says the psalm - but just in case - we’d better get a bomb!» Tom Lehrer still makes me laugh until I cry after more than twenty years of exposure.
- shimon 9y agoThis is probably my favorite line in all of Tom Lehrer's work. It's so sharp, the rhyme is surprising but phonetically perfect. And it's delivered right at the most musically interesting part of the song. I probably laughed for minutes the first several times I heard the song.
- lb1lf 9y agoSpeaking of rhyme, I mutilated it, didn’t I? It should be «So Israel’s getting tense, wants one for self defense...» I haven’t listened to that song in months; think I’ll put it on now. (My absolute Lehrer favourite, together with Wernher von Braun, National Brotherhood Week and New Math)
- eli_gottlieb 9y agoTsk, tsk! So Israel's getting tense. Wants one in self-defense. "The Lord's our shepherd," says the psalm, but just in case, we'd better get a bomb!
- bradleyjg 9y agoOnce all the Germans were war-like and mean. But that couldn’t happen again. We taught them a lesson in 1918 and they’ve hardly bothered us since then!
- jedimastert 9y agoI'm actually getting a pretty solid Sondheim "Into the Woods" vibe. I do enjoy the fact that now that common core is catching on, people are whining in almost the exact same way that people did 50 years ago.
- ohjeez 9y agoMy favorite Lehrer story is... every one of them, really.
- ghaff 9y agoAnd, as Common Core shows, even if the past doesn't quite repeat itself it certainly rhymes.
- tim333 9y ago>sounds like it could have come out last year Except the 'new math' is now quite old math. 1960s math maybe.
- jhbadger 9y agoWe were still doing "new math" in the 1970s when I was in grade school, though. It is interesting how much of the "common core" seems inspired by it.