Tom Lehrer

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The songs of one of my heroes, Tom Lehrer, as sung on a little 1967 broadcast in Oslo, Norway, is now out on video.  The first song is about National Brotherhood Week.  The words are utterly non-PC, as the saying goes.  (The Politically Correct lobby has no humor at all; evidently the butts of all sixties jokes are deeply hurt by them.  So those of you who live among potential victims, wear headphones, please.)   The link above gives you a sequence of three or four video clips from the new DVD.

The funniest song of all, is Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.  Also see Pollution, and The Vatican Rag.

I was stunned to learn that he had sung lots of songs for Electric Company, the PBS program for older kids.  Here's him singing Silent E.

Probably one of the jolliest ones is the Chemical Elements Song, in which he lists all the elements know at that time --the middle sixties.  The tune was borrowed from Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan (well, Sullivan, anyway, since Gilbert's lyrics were substituted with Lehrer's words).  In this clip, the enterprising poster has indicated each element in its spot in the Periodic Table.  (The Periodic Table is a listing of the elements in order of number of electrons in the atom, beginning with Hydrogen --one electron.)

aIt strikes me that you might find it handy to have at your fingertips a Periodic Table, to follow along.  Bear in mind that some elements are represented by unexpected symbols; for instance Iodine is represented by I, which makes sense, and Phosphorus with P.  But Lead, to give an example, is represented by Pb, for the Latin word for lead: Plumbum.  Sodium is represented with Na (for Natrium) and Potassium with K (for Kalium).  The very first element in the song is Antimony, which is represented by Sb (evidently the Latin word for Antimony was Stibium.)


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