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The article is nice and interesting but doesn't answer the question of why did Tom Lehrer stop. It's possible he thought he didn't have anything more to say. B
by bambax 2y ago
The article is nice and interesting but doesn't answer the question of why did Tom Lehrer stop.
It's possible he thought he didn't have anything more to say. But I doubt that's the whole reason he stopped making songs and performing.
He lived through a time when the US defeated Nazi Germany, and then... hired prominent Nazis to work for them. This is what the Wernher von Braun song is about.
My take is, he thinks humanity as a whole doesn't deserve him — which may very well be the case.
- dekhn 2y agoSee the book "Operation Paperclip" for an in-depth writeup on the Nazi scientists who were smuggled out of Germany at the end of the war. I was not aware of, and was completely sickened by, the description of the Mittelwork factory where they worked slave laborers from nearby concentration camp to death to build V-2s.
- Analemma_ 2y agoI vaguely remember seeing that part of the reason he quit was that he felt satire had no purpose and no possibility of success in a country which elected Richard Nixon. Which may have been sort of brilliantly prescient of him, considering how popular stuff like The Daily Show / The Colbert Report was in the 2000s and yet how toothless and impotent they seem in the face of current political developments.
- bambax 2y agoThe article does address this: > we do know that he believed satire changed nothing. He quoted approvingly Peter Cook’s sarcastic remark about the Berlin cabarets of the 1930s that did so much to prevent the rise of Hitler and the second world war.
- 082349872349872 2y ago> He could just about stay detached enough to be funny about Eisenhower’s America. compare "Our Long National Nightmare": https://legacy.npr.org/assets/news/2013/onion-bush.pdf https://legacy.npr.org/assets/news/2013/onion-bush.pdf
- cess11 2y agoWhat do you mean by "the US defeated Nazi Germany"? As I understand it the US was preoccupied with Japan until the USSR had Berlin within reach. US racial policy being an inspiration for european fascists, like Hitler, kind of makes the affiliation with nazis both in the US and West Germany (and NATO) easier to understand than the USSR keeping some nazis in important positions on their side.
- davidgay 2y agoThis is just ridiculous, esp. re Berlin. I'd suggest starting with reading about D-day at the very least.
- cess11 2y agoJune 1944, something like 1.5 years after the turning point in Stalingrad on the eastern front. So, what about it? Why don't you bring up the invasion of Sicily instead?