In the Dark

I just heard that the great musical satirist Tom Lehrer has passed away at the age of 97. I was trying to pick one of his songs to post as a tribute but I couldn’t decide which one to choose. I was going to go with “The Elements” but that would be lost on an audience of astronomers for whom there are only Hydrogen, Helium and Metals…

So instead of picking one tune I thought I’d share an entire concert of his, recorded in 1967 in Denmark, that contains no fewer than 17 of his songs including such favourites such “The Elements” and “The Vatican Rag” but also some less familiar numbers. There are even Danish subtitles to help you.

The Sixties were a hot time for satire, and it’s amazing how well some of Tom Lehrer’s songs stand up sixty years later, even today when satire is mostly impossible. Tom Lehrer”s irreverent, and sometimes rather dark, humour brought laughter into the lives of so many people.

It’s worth mentioning that, having decided  that he’d made quite enough money,  Tom Lehrer released all his songs into the public domain. Class.

R.I.P. Tom Lehrer (1928-2025)

This entry was posted on July 27, 2025 at 7:41 pm and is filed under Music, R.I.P. with tags Satire, Tom Lehrer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.