Happy 97th birthday, Tom Lehrer!
And happy 60th birthday to "Smut."
Mathematician/satirist/songwriter Tom Lehrer turns 97 today1, and his delightful anthem “Smut” turns 60 this year. I’ve written a tribute in honor of this double anniversary; check it out on Strong Language, the sweary blog about swearing.
And here’s a fun naming fact: The surname Lehrer means “teacher” (or sometimes “rabbi”) in German and Yiddish. In addition to his other accomplishments, Tom Lehrer lived up to his name, teaching “The Nature of Mathematics” — a course for liberal-arts majors he liked to call “math for tenors” — at the University of California, Santa Cruz.2 (He got the job despite his lack of a PhD.) He also taught classes in American musical theater, covering the years between Pal Joey and Fiddler on the Roof.
Lehrer still lives in Santa Cruz, but he stopped writing his satirical songs many years ago; as he famously put it, “Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.” More on Lehrer in this July 2024 Lookout Santa Cruz profile.
In a previous post I mistakenly subtracted a year from his age. My apologies! I’ve corrected the error.
Fight fiercely, Banana Slugs!
At 10 or 11 I memorized the lyrics to "Smut." My mother heard me singing it and threatend to wash my mouth out with soap. So I frantically switched to "Wernher von Braun" and she grounded me instead. Thanks, Tom Lehrer!
Last week while out on a walk (forced march, more like it) with my teenager, we came upon a fresh pigeon cadaver with no external signs of injury. I started in on “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park,” much to the bewilderment of the Swiss boyman— and was ashamed that I let him grow up this far with no knowledge of Tom Lehrer. We now have a spring break project.