8 ms·

Tom Lehrer has died

639 points by detaro 1y ago

https://archive.ph/gY3Xa https://archive.ph/gY3Xa Also: https://apnews.com/article/tom-lehrer-son-satirist-mathematician-dies-9caa7ee01faf4fbfb793d7ba984c179d https://apnews.com/article/tom-lehrer-son-satirist-mathemati...

rimbo789 1y ago
“ Who needs a hobby like tennis or philately? I've got a hobby: rereading Lady Chatterley” I first heard him when I was 13: it was mind blowing. Can’t wait to show my kids
detaro 1y ago
(reminder that he published all his lyrics and music as public domain a few years ago: https://tomlehrersongs.com/ https://tomlehrersongs.com/ )
- ahazred8ta 1y ago
  lyrics and sheet music on archive.org https://archive.org/details/tomlehrersongs https://archive.org/details/tomlehrersongs
dlcarrier 1y ago
I never would have thought that he was still alive. Until reading the article, I don't think I ever saw a picture of him in color.
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  Same. I would have guessed he died years ago. Loved his satire.
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sitkack 1y ago
What a wonderful soul. > Reflecting on his bicoastal life in a 1981 interview for Newsday, he said he planned to keep his Massachusetts home “until my brain turns completely to Jell-O, at which time I will of course move to California full time.” To think he is only a couple years younger than Mel Brooks.
- nocoiner 1y ago
  Speaking of Jell-O: I have heard, and perhaps this is apocryphal, that Tom Lehrer was the inventor of the Jell-O shot.
  - kragen 1y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer > Lehrer once stated that he invented the Jello shot during this time, as a means of circumventing the base's ban on alcoholic beverages.[18] 18. Boulware, Jack (April 19, 2000). "That Was the Wit That Was". SF Weekly. Archived from the original on November 28, 2018. Retrieved November 27, 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20181128164739/https://archives.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/that-was-the-wit-that-was/Content?oid=2138455 https://web.archive.org/web/20181128164739/https://archives.... Full text at https://web.archive.org/web/20211025111743/https://archives.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/that-was-the-wit-that-was/Content?oid=2138455&showFullText=true https://web.archive.org/web/20211025111743/https://archives.... for the time being. Save your copy while the Archive still exists!
  - finaard 1y ago
    Today is probably a good day to make Jell-O without alcohol, for the kids, though I might have some explaining to do. Some years ago they asked me to have Jell-O, and - thinking of Lehrer - I replied that it's adult only, as you make it with alcohol. Much to my surprise that explanation stuck - and they never had Jell-O so far.
- andrepd 1y ago
  He's a great guy, his wikiquote page is a treasure https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer
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toomuchtodo 1y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer
serf 1y ago
Some of the most clever songs i've ever heard, and a good person too. RIP.
wslh 1y ago
https://archive.is/89a1G https://archive.is/89a1G
ForOldHack 1y ago
He is now flying with the pigeons he poisoned. Brilliant lyricist I learned in grade school. Brilliant.
42772827 1y ago
Lehrer taught me, at a young age, that the “division” between music and mathematics was completely arbitrary, that you can be interested in both, and indeed there is significant overlap. Truly a gift of a person, we were fortunate to have him for nearly a century.
- jebarker 1y ago
  When I did my maths degree in the UK in the early 00s it was quite popular to do a “Maths and Music” degree that was equally split between the two. I’ve also been a musician all my life so one more sample point!
ComplexSystems 1y ago
Always liked his "Werner Von Braun": https://youtu.be/QEJ9HrZq7Ro?si=RDu536cWahc2Oct7 https://youtu.be/QEJ9HrZq7Ro?si=RDu536cWahc2Oct7
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nmca 1y ago
I feel the AI safety community has not made enough of Lehrer’s masterpiece on the topic: https://youtu.be/frAEmhqdLFs?si=DYsY5Juco-kJ5eWD https://youtu.be/frAEmhqdLFs?si=DYsY5Juco-kJ5eWD
- MBlume 1y ago
  I assure you we sing it sometimes!
- yuppiemephisto 1y ago
  We sung it at solstice
dosinga 1y ago
"In German, oder Englisch, I know how to count down Und I'm learning Chinese!" - as relevant as ever. Maybe less so German and more matrix multiplication
- andrepd 1y ago
  "'Nazi Schmazi' says Werner von Braun" is an amazing joke
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    It had me in stitches when I first heard and I really wondered how big a fraction of his audience got that one.
    - tesseract 1y ago
      A fairly intellectual audience, in the 50s and 60s when the space race was big news and von Braun's Nazi past was recent history? I'd guess a majority.
  - pimlottc 1y ago
    Is there a specific joke in "Nazi Schmazi" besides the general idea that he wasn't picky about what regime he worked for?
    - mhh__ 1y ago
      Yiddish
      - pimlottc 1y ago
        Ah, I am so used to that as a general wordplay pattern that I didn't think about the origin, good point!
      - cywick 1y ago
        Do you mean it sounds like it could be a Yiddish word? Because it doesn't seem to be an actual Yiddish (or German) word, as far as I can tell.
seunosewa 1y ago
I loved his wacky songs. He made poisoning pigeons in the park and nuclear proliferation funny.
philodeon 1y ago
He gave a lovely little performance in the late 1990s to celebrate one of his fellow mathematicians: https://youtu.be/zxFCQplZgKI https://youtu.be/zxFCQplZgKI
dekhn 1y ago
I loved Lehrer growing up- my parents had his record "That Was the Week That Was" which I think is his finest work. Anyway, when I went to college (UCSC), I took his 'Nature of Math' course, which was quite enjoyable. He was a great presenter, I learned all sorts of neat stuff like the the quartic factoring challenge and the pigeonhole principle/birthday paradox (at the time, I didn't know much about hash tables and didn't make the connection). I almost ended up TA'ing his class the next year but I had to focus on my undergraduate thesis instead. I would have loved to get to know him better, as his sense of humor was incredible. I also had Ralph Abraham- a chaos theory guy and psychonaut who taught hist class (Nature of Math) in a natural amphitheater- at points, I could almost picture him wearing a toga, lecturing us on greek math.
- zahlman 1y ago
  > the pigeonhole principle/birthday paradox (at the time, I didn't know much about hash tables and didn't make the connection). I wouldn't say there's a ton to connect. Hash collisions are expected and you don't rehash as soon as the first one occurs.
  - mauricioc 1y ago
    > I wouldn't say there's a ton to connect. What's the point of your rude post? OP already knows this. In fact, they learned it from Tom Lehrer.
shiandow 1y ago
Is it to much to ask for a black bar? For reasons I can't articulate I've always considered him a hacker in spirit.
- kragen 1y ago
  He was a math professor, a secret government cryptographer, a comedian in technically challenging musical-theater forms, and reportedly the inventor of the Jell-O shot. Stallman says in https://stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html https://stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html: > Playfully doing something difficult, whether useful or not, that is hacking. (...) It is hard to write a simple definition of something as varied as hacking, but I think what these activities have in common is playfulness, cleverness, and exploration. Thus, hacking means exploring the limits of what is possible, in a spirit of playful cleverness. Activities that display playful cleverness have "hack value". However: > The concept of hacking excludes wit and art as such. The people who began to speak of their activities as "hacking" were familiar with wit and art, and with the names of the various fields of those; they were also doing something else, something different, for which they came up with the name "hacking". Thus, composing a funny joke or a beautiful piece of music may well involve playful cleverness, but a joke as such and a piece of music as such are not hacks, however funny or beautiful they may be. However, if the piece is a palindrome, we can say it is a hack as well as music; if the piece is vacuous, we can say it is a hack on music. (So I think The Elements qualifies, if barely.) And with respect to > Hackers typically had little respect for the silly rules that administrators like to impose, so they looked for ways around. perhaps we should mention mention the origin story of the Jell-O shot from https://web.archive.org/web/20211025111743/https://archives.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/that-was-the-wit-that-was/Content?oid=2138455&showFullText=true https://web.archive.org/web/20211025111743/https://archives....: > A rumor has circulated for years that in the 1950s, Lehrer invented the Jell-O shot, a cup of flavored gelatin infused with booze, which has now become a frat-house favorite. He throws his head back and laughs. > "That's amazing how that got around! What happened was, I was in the Army for two years, and we were having a Christmas party on the naval base where I was working in Washington, D.C. The rules said no alcoholic beverages were allowed. And we wanted to have a little party, so this friend and I spent an evening experimenting with Jell-O. It wasn't a beverage," he says with a shrug. > "And we finally decided that orange Jell-O and vodka was the best. We tried gin and vodka and various flavors and stuff -- of course you can't sample too much. So we went over to her apartment and we made all these little cups and we thought I would bring them in, hoping that the Marine guard would say, 'OK, what's in there?' And we'd say, 'Jell-O.' and then he'd say, 'Oh, OK.' But no, he didn't even ask. So it worked. I recommend it. Orange Jell-O." So, yeah. Definitely a hacker.
etrautmann 1y ago
I grew up with a tape of Tom Leher songs and memorized the periodic table of elements song in middle school, which has mostly stuck with me. I loved his sense of humor - what a wonderful soul.
- myself248 1y ago
  Of course so many more have subsequently been discaaaaavered. But most were done at Berkeley so I hope they then told Haaarvard.
philodeon 1y ago
As sad as today is, the one ray of sunshine here is that Tom Lehrer’s obit was written so long ago (and saved for the day it would be needed), that no one updated it with the subsequent revelation that his work at the Atomic Energy Commission was actually a cover story for his far more sensitive work at the fledgling National Security Agency. Seeing the New York Times publish wrong out-of-date information has been funny since Judith Miller.
- walterbell 1y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40439810#40460118 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40439810#40460118 GEO: As a mathematician did you ever make any brilliant discoveries? TOM LEHRER: Oh,nonono. I have no desire to extend the frontier of human knowledge; retract them, if anything. I like to teach it and I like to think about it, but that's about it.
- Talanes 1y ago
  It was written so long ago that the primary author himself died two years ago.
  - intuitionist 1y ago
    I like to think Lehrer would have appreciated the irony of being predeceased by his obituary’s author.
- justjonathan 1y ago
  Source?
jakedata 1y ago
https://tomlehrersongs.com/ https://tomlehrersongs.com/ I, Tom Lehrer, individually and as trustee of the Tom Lehrer Trust 2007, hereby grant the following permissions: All copyrights to lyrics or music written or composed by me have been permanently and irrevocably relinquished, and therefore such songs are now in the public domain. All of my songs that have never been copyrighted, having been available for free for so long, are now also in the public domain. In other words, I have abandoned, surrendered and disclaimed all right, title and interest in and to my work and have injected any and all copyrights into the public domain. The permission granted includes all lyrics which I have written to music by others, although the music to such parodies, if copyrighted by their composers, are of course not included without permission of their copyright owners. The translated songs on this website may be found on YouTube in their original languages. Performing and recording rights to all of my songs are included in this permission. Translation rights are also included. In particular, permission is hereby granted to anyone to set any of these lyrics to their own music, or to set any of this music to their own lyrics, and to publish or perform their parodies or distortions of these songs without payment or fear of legal action. Some recording, movie, and television rights to songs written by me are merely licensed non-exclusively by me to recording, movie, or TV companies. All such rights are now released herewith and therefore do not require any permission from me or from Maelstrom Music, which is merely me in another hat, nor from the recording, movie, or TV companies involved. In short, I no longer retain any rights to any of my songs. So help yourselves, and don’t send me any money. NOTICE: THIS WEBSITE WILL BE SHUT DOWN AT SOME DATE IN THE NOT TOO DISTANT FUTURE, SO IF YOU WANT TO DOWNLOAD ANYTHING, DON’T WAIT TOO LONG. Tom Lehrer November 26, 2022
- jcalvinowens 1y ago
  I made a git archive of everything a little over a year ago: https://github.com/jcalvinowens/tomlehrer-archive https://github.com/jcalvinowens/tomlehrer-archive You can help out by hosting a copy somewhere!
  - reactordev 1y ago
    Doing the lords work… It’s sad that these things will eventually be lost to centralization and digital aging. Make physical copies as well. How long does the USB standard last? Think about the music that has been lost to time/death/natural disaster/RIAA
jgrahamc 1y ago
In "An Evening Waster With Tom Lehrer" he chats a little between songs and tells a short story about someone who becomes a doctor: "He soon became a specialist, specializing in diseases of the rich. He was therefore able to retire at an early age". "Diseases of the rich" has always seemed like a useful metaphor for one way to decide on what product you are going to build. Does it heal a "disease" of the "rich"?
- robertlagrant 1y ago
  For a software person, you should heal a "disease" of the many if you want to maximise money, as they scale better than almost anything else. But for a doctor, who can only treat a limited number of patients, you should spend your time treating rich patients if you want to maximise money.
  - reverendsteveii 1y ago
    idk, in the age of social media I'd argue that most of the money being made on the internet is being made inducing diseases of the many
  - wmanley 1y ago
    Depends on willingness to pay - Even if your cost per customer is 0 maximising profit would mean that it’s better (for you) to sell 10 licences for £1,000,000 a pop to rich customers who really need the service rather than 500,000 licences for £1. It’s a shame because those 500,000 miss out on your product even though it would cost you nothing if they were to use it. This is where price segmentation comes into play - maybe you can still charge those 10 big customers the full whack, while providing benefit to the 500,000.
    - robertlagrant 1y ago
      I don't think this fits the context. An example: Angry Birds 2 made hundreds of millions by selling at 79p to hundreds of millions of people. Think what it takes to make an app to sell to 10 rich people to make the same amount of money. I'm not saying it's impossible to make money selling to rich people. It's just in no way the only way. Many ways of making money involve selling to many people.
MichaelZuo 1y ago
Darn… RIP.
HarHarVeryFunny 1y ago
RIP Mr. Lehrer. I'd only heard of him from a song of his, "Poisoning pigeons in the park", that has been available on DECtalk since way back. Searching for this, I just found another of his, "I got it from Agnes", that has also been adapted for DECtalk. Similar dark humor! https://chordify.net/chords/i-got-it-from-agnes-by-tom-lehrer-sung-by-dectalk-aka-moonbase-alpha-jesse-gulbranson https://chordify.net/chords/i-got-it-from-agnes-by-tom-lehre...
- philodeon 1y ago
  Lehrer performed it charmingly on Parkinson: https://youtu.be/R6qFG0uop9k https://youtu.be/R6qFG0uop9k
kolinko 1y ago
97 years, wow! I guess he waited to go together with everyone else, and just couldn’t wait any more :)
- NooneAtAll3 1y ago
  I was hoping for him to survive TWO deaths of political satire
lb1lf 1y ago
Tom Lehrer has been my go-to source of acerbic wit and brilliant satire since I first encountered him when attending the Norwegian University of Tecnology and Science; a group I joined there held Lehrer in high esteem and I, too, was blown away by how timeless a lot of his songs were; a lot of satire ages very quickly, but chances are my unborn grandchildren will laugh hysterically to 'Who's Next?' or 'Wernher von Braun' after doing the mid-21st century equivalent of googling to find out who WvB was, of course. Godspeed, Tom. This has been a rough week - three of the heroes of my formative years have checked out of existence - Lehrer, Ozzy and author Ingvar Ambjørnsen. Sigh. Who's next?
- philodeon 1y ago
  One wonders how seriously this tribute should be taken given that the educational institution referenced has the acronym NUTS.
  - selimthegrim 1y ago
    Wait until you hear about what the institute is called in the translation of Monday Begins on Saturday
  - meling 1y ago
    Ha, that’s funny! I got my PhD from NTNU, but never actually noticed that in English it becomes NUTS… NTNU is a Norwegian acronym for Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet.
  - lb1lf 1y ago
    Back in the day when the Internet was still full of whimsy, the computer club at my alma mater had acquired nuts.edu. I still have a T-shirt somewhere proudly sporting the domain name under the NTNU (Norwegian abbreviation for Norwegian University of Tecnology and Science) logo, slightly modified - the real logo is a circle bounded by a rounded square; the T-shirt has a hazelnut standing in for the circle.
  - fastasucan 1y ago
    They have officially nade their acronym NUST to avoid the nutty one. E.g https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2014/may-britt-moser/facts/ https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2014/may-britt-mo...
howard941 1y ago
We will all go together when we go https://youtu.be/frAEmhqdLFs?si=iJqkfAUqkHHkkwP2 https://youtu.be/frAEmhqdLFs?si=iJqkfAUqkHHkkwP2
wisemang 1y ago
“Played piano acceptably.”
- wisemang 1y ago
  To the downvoter — this is a quote from the liner notes of one of his albums, where he published middling to damning reviews of his concert lol.
walterbell 1y ago
"Why did Tom Lehrer swap fame for obscurity?" (2024), 170 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40439810 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40439810 "Tom Lehrer releases song lyrics to public domain" (2020), 130 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24833683 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24833683 "Tom Lehrer at 90: a life of scientific satire" (2018), 80 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16774608 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16774608
- dang 1y ago
  Thanks! Macroexpanded: Tom Lehrer and Santa Cruz: the trail of one of America's premier satirists - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40986181 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40986181 - July 2024 (26 comments) Why did Tom Lehrer swap fame for obscurity? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40439810 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40439810 - May 2024 (170 comments) Tom Lehrer DAT Recordings - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38778749 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38778749 - Dec 2023 (2 comments) That's Mathematics – Tom Lehrer Songs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38471908 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38471908 - Nov 2023 (1 comment) Tom Lehrer puts all music and lyrics in public domain - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34038206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34038206 - Dec 2022 (1 comment) Looking for Tom Lehrer, Comedy's Mysterious Genius - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34034896 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34034896 - Dec 2022 (1 comment) Tom Lehrer has released all of his songs into the public domain - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34024968 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34024968 - Dec 2022 (130 comments) Tom Lehrer – We Will All Go Together When We Go - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30509279 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30509279 - March 2022 (2 comments) Tom Lehrer – So Long, Mom (A Song for World War III, 1967) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30496103 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30496103 - Feb 2022 (1 comment) Tom Lehrer Puts His Music into the Public Domain - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24882384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24882384 - Oct 2020 (1 comment) Tom Lehrer releases song lyrics to public domain - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24833683 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24833683 - Oct 2020 (132 comments) Tom Lehrer's Mathematical Songs (1951) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24279151 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24279151 - Aug 2020 (44 comments) Tom Lehrer’s memorable “Revue” session - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18036813 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18036813 - Sept 2018 (6 comments) Tom Lehrer at 90: a life of scientific satire - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16774608 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16774608 - April 2018 (83 comments) Looking for Tom Lehrer, Comedy's Mysterious Genius - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10684409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10684409 - Dec 2015 (3 comments) Tom Lehrer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10675682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10675682 - Dec 2015 (32 comments) Tom Lehrer's last (math) class (2001) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1914399 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1914399 - Nov 2010 (1 comment)
cormorant 1y ago
Richard Severo, the author of this obituary, died two years ago!
wolfi1 1y ago
Does anyone know if there exist videos of his tv shows?
AndrewStephens 1y ago
I used his songs as examples in a web audio project a few months ago - as others have mentioned Lehrer generously put all his music in the public domain making it perfect for use in other projects. Originally I was going to use one of his albums but I found that his humor still hits hard after all these years, to the extent that I thought the songs would detract from my project. In the end I just used my three favorite song: The Elements, We Will All Go Together When We Go, and the absolutely brutal takedown of Werher Von Braun.
- jacquesm 1y ago
  That wasn't just a takedown of Werner von Bruan but of every scientist that checked their ethics at the door of the laboratory.
  - WalterBright 1y ago
    Ironically, the V2 program was a net detriment to the Reich. It consumed vast resources that would have been far better spent on conventional weapons. The V2's problem was it was hopelessly inaccurate (the guidance system was a clock and a gyroscope) and did only insignificant damage to the Allied war machine. The V1 was more cost effective - not because the V1 did much damage, but because it diverted a great deal of British effort at trying to shoot them down and blow up their launch sites. The Germans eventually figured the latter out, and built lots of fake launch sites for the RAF to uselessly destroy. Missiles only became effective due to better targeting or nuclear warheads.
    - jacquesm 1y ago
      Intentions matter.
      - WalterBright 1y ago
        Yes. Interestingly, Willy Messerschmidt was imprisoned for a couple years after the war, Ernst Heinkel was tried but not imprisoned. Von Braun was not because Russia had also captured a number of rocket scientists, the US rocket technology was way behind, and von Braun was needed to get the US rocket program going. Modern liquid fuel rocket engines can directly trace their evolution back to the V2.
deleted 1y ago
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nickdothutton 1y ago
We need Tom Lehrer more now, in these times, that ever!
- justin66 1y ago
  He somewhat famously observed that his work as a political satirist became obsolete when Kissinger received the Nobel Peace Prize.
mark_l_watson 1y ago
When I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, my father loved Tom Lehrer - had all his records. My brother and I joked about the “sliding down the razor blade of life” lyric a lot.
archagon 1y ago
May he rest in peace. In memoriam, this hourlong recording of a concert in Copenhagen is a joy to watch: https://youtu.be/QHPmRJIoc2k https://youtu.be/QHPmRJIoc2k
comrade1234 1y ago
Did he have a song "when you're dead" about when you learn that someone is alive that you thought was dead? Because google ai thinks that he did but I can't find it...
- booleandilemma 1y ago
  If he were still with us maybe he'd write a song about LLM hallucinations.
bitlax 1y ago
I'll always remember him for playing the piano acceptably.
ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
That is sad, but he lived a long, rich life. I was raised on his music. Much of it would not fly, these days.
too_root 1y ago
I recall listening fondly to his music as a child. The Elements and New Math stand out in particular. A few days ago I played them for my children on a whim. The universe is weird some times.
ludicity 1y ago
One of my favourite musicians of all times. All I can say is that I can't wait to introduce my children to his work one day.
jacquesm 1y ago
The world just became a lot poorer.
gsinclair 1y ago
Such a unique and wonderful contribution to the culture. RIP
vmlinuz 1y ago
We all know the Daniel Radcliffe story, right? (He performed The Elements from memory on a UK talk show, which was allegedly what got him hired to play Weird Al in his 'biopic' - https://youtu.be/rSAaiYKF0cs?si=MRbiCH20VMCCcnuz https://youtu.be/rSAaiYKF0cs?si=MRbiCH20VMCCcnuz )
- cperciva 1y ago
  As a scientist, I appreciate his attempt; but as a musician I can't help thinking that he has a horrible sense of pitch.
_ss3r 1y ago
"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." RIP
xiphmont 1y ago
Rest in Peace, Bittersweet Prince.
phendrenad2 1y ago
A hacker favorite, for sure. Between him, Gilbert and Sullivan, and Douglas Adams, and many others, the nerd soul was satisfied. RIP
ohjeez 1y ago
> With Tom Lehrer's passing, I suppose this is a moment to share the story of the prank he played on the National Security Agency, and how it went undiscovered for nearly 60 years.... https://bsky.app/profile/opalescentopal.bsky.social/post/3luxxx27nos23 https://bsky.app/profile/opalescentopal.bsky.social/post/3lu...
- pdonis 1y ago
  I hadn't known about this. Priceless!
methou 1y ago
RIP His songs helped me through so many difficult times.
ctenb 1y ago
I find that his bodily gestures and facial expressions greatly add to his performance, yet I can find most of his songs in audio format only? Does anyone know if there are more recordings available, apart from the concert in denmark?
rurban 1y ago
I like this tribute page if him https://www.casualhacker.net/tom.lehrer/ https://www.casualhacker.net/tom.lehrer/ And I actually knew the Austrian counterpart Georg Kreisler in person.
pinerd3 1y ago
"Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize."
kat529770 1y ago
[dead]
j13k 1y ago
Interview from year 2000, replayed on ABC Radio National in Australia (listen from 22m:35s): https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/musicshow/tom-lehrer-dame-cleo-laine/105551672 https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/musicshow/tom-lehrer-...
dinkelberg 1y ago
Rest in peace, Professor Lehrer. Your witty lyrics combined with virtuoso piano play have not yet been surpassed, to my or your knowledge, which you might have found sad; it might alternatively be seen as testament to talents that may appear less than once in 100 years. Your departure saddens me greatly.

Tom Lehrer has died

639 points by detaro 1y ago

rimbo789 1y ago

“ Who needs a hobby like tennis or philately? I've got a hobby: rereading Lady Chatterley” I first heard him when I was 13: it was mind blowing. Can’t wait to show my kids

detaro 1y ago

(reminder that he published all his lyrics and music as public domain a few years ago: https://tomlehrersongs.com/ https://tomlehrersongs.com/ )

ahazred8ta 1y ago
lyrics and sheet music on archive.org https://archive.org/details/tomlehrersongs https://archive.org/details/tomlehrersongs

dlcarrier 1y ago

I never would have thought that he was still alive. Until reading the article, I don't think I ever saw a picture of him in color.

SoftTalker 1y ago
Same. I would have guessed he died years ago. Loved his satire.

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sitkack 1y ago

What a wonderful soul. > Reflecting on his bicoastal life in a 1981 interview for Newsday, he said he planned to keep his Massachusetts home “until my brain turns completely to Jell-O, at which time I will of course move to California full time.” To think he is only a couple years younger than Mel Brooks.

nocoiner 1y ago
Speaking of Jell-O: I have heard, and perhaps this is apocryphal, that Tom Lehrer was the inventor of the Jell-O shot.
- kragen 1y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer > Lehrer once stated that he invented the Jello shot during this time, as a means of circumventing the base's ban on alcoholic beverages.[18] 18. Boulware, Jack (April 19, 2000). "That Was the Wit That Was". SF Weekly. Archived from the original on November 28, 2018. Retrieved November 27, 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20181128164739/https://archives.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/that-was-the-wit-that-was/Content?oid=2138455 https://web.archive.org/web/20181128164739/https://archives.... Full text at https://web.archive.org/web/20211025111743/https://archives.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/that-was-the-wit-that-was/Content?oid=2138455&showFullText=true https://web.archive.org/web/20211025111743/https://archives.... for the time being. Save your copy while the Archive still exists!
- finaard 1y ago
  Today is probably a good day to make Jell-O without alcohol, for the kids, though I might have some explaining to do. Some years ago they asked me to have Jell-O, and - thinking of Lehrer - I replied that it's adult only, as you make it with alcohol. Much to my surprise that explanation stuck - and they never had Jell-O so far.
andrepd 1y ago
He's a great guy, his wikiquote page is a treasure https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer

deleted 1y ago

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toomuchtodo 1y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer

serf 1y ago

Some of the most clever songs i've ever heard, and a good person too. RIP.

wslh 1y ago

https://archive.is/89a1G https://archive.is/89a1G

ForOldHack 1y ago

He is now flying with the pigeons he poisoned. Brilliant lyricist I learned in grade school. Brilliant.

42772827 1y ago

Lehrer taught me, at a young age, that the “division” between music and mathematics was completely arbitrary, that you can be interested in both, and indeed there is significant overlap. Truly a gift of a person, we were fortunate to have him for nearly a century.

jebarker 1y ago
When I did my maths degree in the UK in the early 00s it was quite popular to do a “Maths and Music” degree that was equally split between the two. I’ve also been a musician all my life so one more sample point!

ComplexSystems 1y ago

Always liked his "Werner Von Braun": https://youtu.be/QEJ9HrZq7Ro?si=RDu536cWahc2Oct7 https://youtu.be/QEJ9HrZq7Ro?si=RDu536cWahc2Oct7

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nmca 1y ago

I feel the AI safety community has not made enough of Lehrer’s masterpiece on the topic: https://youtu.be/frAEmhqdLFs?si=DYsY5Juco-kJ5eWD https://youtu.be/frAEmhqdLFs?si=DYsY5Juco-kJ5eWD

MBlume 1y ago
I assure you we sing it sometimes!
yuppiemephisto 1y ago
We sung it at solstice

dosinga 1y ago

"In German, oder Englisch, I know how to count down Und I'm learning Chinese!" - as relevant as ever. Maybe less so German and more matrix multiplication

andrepd 1y ago
"'Nazi Schmazi' says Werner von Braun" is an amazing joke
- jacquesm 1y ago
  It had me in stitches when I first heard and I really wondered how big a fraction of his audience got that one.
  - tesseract 1y ago
    A fairly intellectual audience, in the 50s and 60s when the space race was big news and von Braun's Nazi past was recent history? I'd guess a majority.
- pimlottc 1y ago
  Is there a specific joke in "Nazi Schmazi" besides the general idea that he wasn't picky about what regime he worked for?
  - mhh__ 1y ago
    Yiddish
    - pimlottc 1y ago
      Ah, I am so used to that as a general wordplay pattern that I didn't think about the origin, good point!
    - cywick 1y ago
      Do you mean it sounds like it could be a Yiddish word? Because it doesn't seem to be an actual Yiddish (or German) word, as far as I can tell.

seunosewa 1y ago

I loved his wacky songs. He made poisoning pigeons in the park and nuclear proliferation funny.

philodeon 1y ago

He gave a lovely little performance in the late 1990s to celebrate one of his fellow mathematicians: https://youtu.be/zxFCQplZgKI https://youtu.be/zxFCQplZgKI

dekhn 1y ago

I loved Lehrer growing up- my parents had his record "That Was the Week That Was" which I think is his finest work. Anyway, when I went to college (UCSC), I took his 'Nature of Math' course, which was quite enjoyable. He was a great presenter, I learned all sorts of neat stuff like the the quartic factoring challenge and the pigeonhole principle/birthday paradox (at the time, I didn't know much about hash tables and didn't make the connection). I almost ended up TA'ing his class the next year but I had to focus on my undergraduate thesis instead. I would have loved to get to know him better, as his sense of humor was incredible. I also had Ralph Abraham- a chaos theory guy and psychonaut who taught hist class (Nature of Math) in a natural amphitheater- at points, I could almost picture him wearing a toga, lecturing us on greek math.

zahlman 1y ago
> the pigeonhole principle/birthday paradox (at the time, I didn't know much about hash tables and didn't make the connection). I wouldn't say there's a ton to connect. Hash collisions are expected and you don't rehash as soon as the first one occurs.
- mauricioc 1y ago
  > I wouldn't say there's a ton to connect. What's the point of your rude post? OP already knows this. In fact, they learned it from Tom Lehrer.

shiandow 1y ago

Is it to much to ask for a black bar? For reasons I can't articulate I've always considered him a hacker in spirit.

kragen 1y ago
He was a math professor, a secret government cryptographer, a comedian in technically challenging musical-theater forms, and reportedly the inventor of the Jell-O shot. Stallman says in https://stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html https://stallman.org/articles/on-hacking.html: > Playfully doing something difficult, whether useful or not, that is hacking. (...) It is hard to write a simple definition of something as varied as hacking, but I think what these activities have in common is playfulness, cleverness, and exploration. Thus, hacking means exploring the limits of what is possible, in a spirit of playful cleverness. Activities that display playful cleverness have "hack value". However: > The concept of hacking excludes wit and art as such. The people who began to speak of their activities as "hacking" were familiar with wit and art, and with the names of the various fields of those; they were also doing something else, something different, for which they came up with the name "hacking". Thus, composing a funny joke or a beautiful piece of music may well involve playful cleverness, but a joke as such and a piece of music as such are not hacks, however funny or beautiful they may be. However, if the piece is a palindrome, we can say it is a hack as well as music; if the piece is vacuous, we can say it is a hack on music. (So I think The Elements qualifies, if barely.) And with respect to > Hackers typically had little respect for the silly rules that administrators like to impose, so they looked for ways around. perhaps we should mention mention the origin story of the Jell-O shot from https://web.archive.org/web/20211025111743/https://archives.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/that-was-the-wit-that-was/Content?oid=2138455&showFullText=true https://web.archive.org/web/20211025111743/https://archives....: > A rumor has circulated for years that in the 1950s, Lehrer invented the Jell-O shot, a cup of flavored gelatin infused with booze, which has now become a frat-house favorite. He throws his head back and laughs. > "That's amazing how that got around! What happened was, I was in the Army for two years, and we were having a Christmas party on the naval base where I was working in Washington, D.C. The rules said no alcoholic beverages were allowed. And we wanted to have a little party, so this friend and I spent an evening experimenting with Jell-O. It wasn't a beverage," he says with a shrug. > "And we finally decided that orange Jell-O and vodka was the best. We tried gin and vodka and various flavors and stuff -- of course you can't sample too much. So we went over to her apartment and we made all these little cups and we thought I would bring them in, hoping that the Marine guard would say, 'OK, what's in there?' And we'd say, 'Jell-O.' and then he'd say, 'Oh, OK.' But no, he didn't even ask. So it worked. I recommend it. Orange Jell-O." So, yeah. Definitely a hacker.

etrautmann 1y ago

I grew up with a tape of Tom Leher songs and memorized the periodic table of elements song in middle school, which has mostly stuck with me. I loved his sense of humor - what a wonderful soul.

myself248 1y ago
Of course so many more have subsequently been discaaaaavered. But most were done at Berkeley so I hope they then told Haaarvard.

philodeon 1y ago

As sad as today is, the one ray of sunshine here is that Tom Lehrer’s obit was written so long ago (and saved for the day it would be needed), that no one updated it with the subsequent revelation that his work at the Atomic Energy Commission was actually a cover story for his far more sensitive work at the fledgling National Security Agency. Seeing the New York Times publish wrong out-of-date information has been funny since Judith Miller.

walterbell 1y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40439810#40460118 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40439810#40460118 GEO: As a mathematician did you ever make any brilliant discoveries? TOM LEHRER: Oh,nonono. I have no desire to extend the frontier of human knowledge; retract them, if anything. I like to teach it and I like to think about it, but that's about it.
Talanes 1y ago
It was written so long ago that the primary author himself died two years ago.
- intuitionist 1y ago
  I like to think Lehrer would have appreciated the irony of being predeceased by his obituary’s author.
justjonathan 1y ago
Source?

jakedata 1y ago

https://tomlehrersongs.com/ https://tomlehrersongs.com/ I, Tom Lehrer, individually and as trustee of the Tom Lehrer Trust 2007, hereby grant the following permissions: All copyrights to lyrics or music written or composed by me have been permanently and irrevocably relinquished, and therefore such songs are now in the public domain. All of my songs that have never been copyrighted, having been available for free for so long, are now also in the public domain. In other words, I have abandoned, surrendered and disclaimed all right, title and interest in and to my work and have injected any and all copyrights into the public domain. The permission granted includes all lyrics which I have written to music by others, although the music to such parodies, if copyrighted by their composers, are of course not included without permission of their copyright owners. The translated songs on this website may be found on YouTube in their original languages. Performing and recording rights to all of my songs are included in this permission. Translation rights are also included. In particular, permission is hereby granted to anyone to set any of these lyrics to their own music, or to set any of this music to their own lyrics, and to publish or perform their parodies or distortions of these songs without payment or fear of legal action. Some recording, movie, and television rights to songs written by me are merely licensed non-exclusively by me to recording, movie, or TV companies. All such rights are now released herewith and therefore do not require any permission from me or from Maelstrom Music, which is merely me in another hat, nor from the recording, movie, or TV companies involved. In short, I no longer retain any rights to any of my songs. So help yourselves, and don’t send me any money. NOTICE: THIS WEBSITE WILL BE SHUT DOWN AT SOME DATE IN THE NOT TOO DISTANT FUTURE, SO IF YOU WANT TO DOWNLOAD ANYTHING, DON’T WAIT TOO LONG. Tom Lehrer November 26, 2022

jcalvinowens 1y ago
I made a git archive of everything a little over a year ago: https://github.com/jcalvinowens/tomlehrer-archive https://github.com/jcalvinowens/tomlehrer-archive You can help out by hosting a copy somewhere!
- reactordev 1y ago
  Doing the lords work… It’s sad that these things will eventually be lost to centralization and digital aging. Make physical copies as well. How long does the USB standard last? Think about the music that has been lost to time/death/natural disaster/RIAA

jgrahamc 1y ago

In "An Evening Waster With Tom Lehrer" he chats a little between songs and tells a short story about someone who becomes a doctor: "He soon became a specialist, specializing in diseases of the rich. He was therefore able to retire at an early age". "Diseases of the rich" has always seemed like a useful metaphor for one way to decide on what product you are going to build. Does it heal a "disease" of the "rich"?

robertlagrant 1y ago
For a software person, you should heal a "disease" of the many if you want to maximise money, as they scale better than almost anything else. But for a doctor, who can only treat a limited number of patients, you should spend your time treating rich patients if you want to maximise money.
- reverendsteveii 1y ago
  idk, in the age of social media I'd argue that most of the money being made on the internet is being made inducing diseases of the many
- wmanley 1y ago
  Depends on willingness to pay - Even if your cost per customer is 0 maximising profit would mean that it’s better (for you) to sell 10 licences for £1,000,000 a pop to rich customers who really need the service rather than 500,000 licences for £1. It’s a shame because those 500,000 miss out on your product even though it would cost you nothing if they were to use it. This is where price segmentation comes into play - maybe you can still charge those 10 big customers the full whack, while providing benefit to the 500,000.
  - robertlagrant 1y ago
    I don't think this fits the context. An example: Angry Birds 2 made hundreds of millions by selling at 79p to hundreds of millions of people. Think what it takes to make an app to sell to 10 rich people to make the same amount of money. I'm not saying it's impossible to make money selling to rich people. It's just in no way the only way. Many ways of making money involve selling to many people.

MichaelZuo 1y ago

Darn… RIP.

HarHarVeryFunny 1y ago

RIP Mr. Lehrer. I'd only heard of him from a song of his, "Poisoning pigeons in the park", that has been available on DECtalk since way back. Searching for this, I just found another of his, "I got it from Agnes", that has also been adapted for DECtalk. Similar dark humor! https://chordify.net/chords/i-got-it-from-agnes-by-tom-lehrer-sung-by-dectalk-aka-moonbase-alpha-jesse-gulbranson https://chordify.net/chords/i-got-it-from-agnes-by-tom-lehre...

philodeon 1y ago
Lehrer performed it charmingly on Parkinson: https://youtu.be/R6qFG0uop9k https://youtu.be/R6qFG0uop9k

kolinko 1y ago

97 years, wow! I guess he waited to go together with everyone else, and just couldn’t wait any more :)

NooneAtAll3 1y ago
I was hoping for him to survive TWO deaths of political satire

lb1lf 1y ago

Tom Lehrer has been my go-to source of acerbic wit and brilliant satire since I first encountered him when attending the Norwegian University of Tecnology and Science; a group I joined there held Lehrer in high esteem and I, too, was blown away by how timeless a lot of his songs were; a lot of satire ages very quickly, but chances are my unborn grandchildren will laugh hysterically to 'Who's Next?' or 'Wernher von Braun' after doing the mid-21st century equivalent of googling to find out who WvB was, of course. Godspeed, Tom. This has been a rough week - three of the heroes of my formative years have checked out of existence - Lehrer, Ozzy and author Ingvar Ambjørnsen. Sigh. Who's next?

philodeon 1y ago
One wonders how seriously this tribute should be taken given that the educational institution referenced has the acronym NUTS.
- selimthegrim 1y ago
  Wait until you hear about what the institute is called in the translation of Monday Begins on Saturday
- meling 1y ago
  Ha, that’s funny! I got my PhD from NTNU, but never actually noticed that in English it becomes NUTS… NTNU is a Norwegian acronym for Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet.
- lb1lf 1y ago
  Back in the day when the Internet was still full of whimsy, the computer club at my alma mater had acquired nuts.edu. I still have a T-shirt somewhere proudly sporting the domain name under the NTNU (Norwegian abbreviation for Norwegian University of Tecnology and Science) logo, slightly modified - the real logo is a circle bounded by a rounded square; the T-shirt has a hazelnut standing in for the circle.
- fastasucan 1y ago
  They have officially nade their acronym NUST to avoid the nutty one. E.g https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2014/may-britt-moser/facts/ https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2014/may-britt-mo...

howard941 1y ago

We will all go together when we go https://youtu.be/frAEmhqdLFs?si=iJqkfAUqkHHkkwP2 https://youtu.be/frAEmhqdLFs?si=iJqkfAUqkHHkkwP2

wisemang 1y ago

“Played piano acceptably.”

wisemang 1y ago
To the downvoter — this is a quote from the liner notes of one of his albums, where he published middling to damning reviews of his concert lol.

walterbell 1y ago

"Why did Tom Lehrer swap fame for obscurity?" (2024), 170 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40439810 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40439810 "Tom Lehrer releases song lyrics to public domain" (2020), 130 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24833683 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24833683 "Tom Lehrer at 90: a life of scientific satire" (2018), 80 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16774608 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16774608

dang 1y ago
Thanks! Macroexpanded: Tom Lehrer and Santa Cruz: the trail of one of America's premier satirists - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40986181 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40986181 - July 2024 (26 comments) Why did Tom Lehrer swap fame for obscurity? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40439810 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40439810 - May 2024 (170 comments) Tom Lehrer DAT Recordings - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38778749 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38778749 - Dec 2023 (2 comments) That's Mathematics – Tom Lehrer Songs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38471908 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38471908 - Nov 2023 (1 comment) Tom Lehrer puts all music and lyrics in public domain - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34038206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34038206 - Dec 2022 (1 comment) Looking for Tom Lehrer, Comedy's Mysterious Genius - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34034896 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34034896 - Dec 2022 (1 comment) Tom Lehrer has released all of his songs into the public domain - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34024968 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34024968 - Dec 2022 (130 comments) Tom Lehrer – We Will All Go Together When We Go - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30509279 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30509279 - March 2022 (2 comments) Tom Lehrer – So Long, Mom (A Song for World War III, 1967) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30496103 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30496103 - Feb 2022 (1 comment) Tom Lehrer Puts His Music into the Public Domain - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24882384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24882384 - Oct 2020 (1 comment) Tom Lehrer releases song lyrics to public domain - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24833683 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24833683 - Oct 2020 (132 comments) Tom Lehrer's Mathematical Songs (1951) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24279151 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24279151 - Aug 2020 (44 comments) Tom Lehrer’s memorable “Revue” session - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18036813 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18036813 - Sept 2018 (6 comments) Tom Lehrer at 90: a life of scientific satire - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16774608 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16774608 - April 2018 (83 comments) Looking for Tom Lehrer, Comedy's Mysterious Genius - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10684409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10684409 - Dec 2015 (3 comments) Tom Lehrer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10675682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10675682 - Dec 2015 (32 comments) Tom Lehrer's last (math) class (2001) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1914399 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1914399 - Nov 2010 (1 comment)

cormorant 1y ago

Richard Severo, the author of this obituary, died two years ago!

wolfi1 1y ago

Does anyone know if there exist videos of his tv shows?

AndrewStephens 1y ago

I used his songs as examples in a web audio project a few months ago - as others have mentioned Lehrer generously put all his music in the public domain making it perfect for use in other projects. Originally I was going to use one of his albums but I found that his humor still hits hard after all these years, to the extent that I thought the songs would detract from my project. In the end I just used my three favorite song: The Elements, We Will All Go Together When We Go, and the absolutely brutal takedown of Werher Von Braun.

jacquesm 1y ago
That wasn't just a takedown of Werner von Bruan but of every scientist that checked their ethics at the door of the laboratory.
- WalterBright 1y ago
  Ironically, the V2 program was a net detriment to the Reich. It consumed vast resources that would have been far better spent on conventional weapons. The V2's problem was it was hopelessly inaccurate (the guidance system was a clock and a gyroscope) and did only insignificant damage to the Allied war machine. The V1 was more cost effective - not because the V1 did much damage, but because it diverted a great deal of British effort at trying to shoot them down and blow up their launch sites. The Germans eventually figured the latter out, and built lots of fake launch sites for the RAF to uselessly destroy. Missiles only became effective due to better targeting or nuclear warheads.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    Intentions matter.
    - WalterBright 1y ago
      Yes. Interestingly, Willy Messerschmidt was imprisoned for a couple years after the war, Ernst Heinkel was tried but not imprisoned. Von Braun was not because Russia had also captured a number of rocket scientists, the US rocket technology was way behind, and von Braun was needed to get the US rocket program going. Modern liquid fuel rocket engines can directly trace their evolution back to the V2.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

nickdothutton 1y ago

We need Tom Lehrer more now, in these times, that ever!

justin66 1y ago
He somewhat famously observed that his work as a political satirist became obsolete when Kissinger received the Nobel Peace Prize.

mark_l_watson 1y ago

When I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, my father loved Tom Lehrer - had all his records. My brother and I joked about the “sliding down the razor blade of life” lyric a lot.

archagon 1y ago

May he rest in peace. In memoriam, this hourlong recording of a concert in Copenhagen is a joy to watch: https://youtu.be/QHPmRJIoc2k https://youtu.be/QHPmRJIoc2k

comrade1234 1y ago

Did he have a song "when you're dead" about when you learn that someone is alive that you thought was dead? Because google ai thinks that he did but I can't find it...

booleandilemma 1y ago
If he were still with us maybe he'd write a song about LLM hallucinations.

bitlax 1y ago

I'll always remember him for playing the piano acceptably.

ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago

That is sad, but he lived a long, rich life. I was raised on his music. Much of it would not fly, these days.

too_root 1y ago

I recall listening fondly to his music as a child. The Elements and New Math stand out in particular. A few days ago I played them for my children on a whim. The universe is weird some times.

ludicity 1y ago

One of my favourite musicians of all times. All I can say is that I can't wait to introduce my children to his work one day.

jacquesm 1y ago

The world just became a lot poorer.

gsinclair 1y ago

Such a unique and wonderful contribution to the culture. RIP

vmlinuz 1y ago

We all know the Daniel Radcliffe story, right? (He performed The Elements from memory on a UK talk show, which was allegedly what got him hired to play Weird Al in his 'biopic' - https://youtu.be/rSAaiYKF0cs?si=MRbiCH20VMCCcnuz https://youtu.be/rSAaiYKF0cs?si=MRbiCH20VMCCcnuz )

cperciva 1y ago
As a scientist, I appreciate his attempt; but as a musician I can't help thinking that he has a horrible sense of pitch.

_ss3r 1y ago

"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." RIP

xiphmont 1y ago

Rest in Peace, Bittersweet Prince.

phendrenad2 1y ago

A hacker favorite, for sure. Between him, Gilbert and Sullivan, and Douglas Adams, and many others, the nerd soul was satisfied. RIP

ohjeez 1y ago

> With Tom Lehrer's passing, I suppose this is a moment to share the story of the prank he played on the National Security Agency, and how it went undiscovered for nearly 60 years.... https://bsky.app/profile/opalescentopal.bsky.social/post/3luxxx27nos23 https://bsky.app/profile/opalescentopal.bsky.social/post/3lu...

pdonis 1y ago
I hadn't known about this. Priceless!

methou 1y ago

RIP His songs helped me through so many difficult times.

ctenb 1y ago

I find that his bodily gestures and facial expressions greatly add to his performance, yet I can find most of his songs in audio format only? Does anyone know if there are more recordings available, apart from the concert in denmark?

rurban 1y ago

I like this tribute page if him https://www.casualhacker.net/tom.lehrer/ https://www.casualhacker.net/tom.lehrer/ And I actually knew the Austrian counterpart Georg Kreisler in person.

pinerd3 1y ago

"Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize."

kat529770 1y ago

[dead]

j13k 1y ago

Interview from year 2000, replayed on ABC Radio National in Australia (listen from 22m:35s): https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/musicshow/tom-lehrer-dame-cleo-laine/105551672 https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/musicshow/tom-lehrer-...

dinkelberg 1y ago

Rest in peace, Professor Lehrer. Your witty lyrics combined with virtuoso piano play have not yet been surpassed, to my or your knowledge, which you might have found sad; it might alternatively be seen as testament to talents that may appear less than once in 100 years. Your departure saddens me greatly.