He was born on April 9 1928 in New York City. He grew up in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He was only seven years old when he began taking piano lessons. Not only did he prove to be adapt at music from an early age, but mathematics as well. He studied mathematic at Harvard when he was only 15 and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1946. He earned a master's degree in 1947. He began work on earning a doctorate, but he never did. Even while he was in school he was writing songs. /His song ""Fight Fiercely, Harvard" was written even as he was attending the university.
Tom :Lehrer began performing his songs at night clubs. In his book In Joy Still Felt, Issac Asimov described a Tom Lehrer performance in a Boston nightclub on October 9 1954. Mr. Asimov described a song performed by Tom Lehrer about venereal disease that is obviously "I Got It from Agnes." Given its subject matter, it would not be released for years.
Tom Lehrer paid $15 ro record his first album, Songs by Tom Lehrer, at the TransRadio studio on Boylston Street in Boston on January 22 1953. Initially, only 400 copies were pressed. The controversial nature of some of the songs, such as "I Hold Your Hand in Mine" and 'The Old Dope Peddler," kept Tom Lehrer off the radio, but it proved to be a hit on the Harvard campus. Through word of mouth, interest in the album began to spread to the rest of the country,. Mad magazine printed two of Tom Lehrer's songs in 1957, "The Wild West Is Where I Want to Be" in Mad no. 32 (April 1957) and "he Hunting Song'" in Mad no. 35 (October 1957).
In 1959 he released his second studio album, More of Tom Lehrer, and his first live album, An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer. They would be followed in 1960 by a second live album, Revisited. In the Sixties Tom Lehrer composed songs for the American version of That Was the Week That Was. Mr. Lehrer did not appear on the show itself, its vocalist Nancy Ames instead performing the songs. Tom Lehrer would later preform songs from That Was the Week That Was at the hungry i nightclub in San Francisco. The performance was recorded and released as the 1965 album That Was the Week That Was. In 1966 Tom Lehrer composed musical satire for The Frost Report in the UK. Tom Lehrer also composed song for a Dodge industrial film that was shown to dealers in early 1967.
In the early Seventies, Tom Lehrer composed songs for the educational children's show The Electric Company. During most of the Seventies, Tom Lehrer did not perform live or record new music and continued his career teaching mathematics. His song would often be played on deejay Doctor Demento's show, which started in 1977. It was in 1980 that theatrical producer Cameron Mackintosh produced Tomfoolery, a music revue using the songs of Tom Lehrer. Mr. Lehrer served as a consultant on the revue. It was because of Tomfoolery that Tom Lehrer appeared on the British show Parkinson in 1980.
In 1993 he wrote the song "That's Mathematics" for a video of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute. On June 7 and 8 1998 he performed as part of Hey, Mr. Producer, a tribute to producer Cameron Mackinstosh, at the Lyceum Theatre in London. In 2000 Rhino Entertainment released the box set The Remains of Tom Lehrer, which included his previous albums as well as unreleased material.
It was in 2020 that Tom Lehrer placed every song he had written in the public remain. He made this official in November 2022.
Tom Lehrer was a genius. He wrote songs that were witty, at times darkly satirical, and always hilarious. And while he is always described as a musical satirist, he covered a wide number of subjects in his songs. Many of his songs were parodies of established musical genres, such as "Fight Fiercely Harvard,"which sent up college fight songs.Some were educational, such as 'The Elements (a list of the elements set to Gilbert and Sullivans' "Major-General's Song"). Many of his songs were very darkly humorous, including the aforementioned "I Got It From Agnes" and "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park (inspired by the the United States Fish and Wildlife Service's use of strychnine to kill pigeons in Boston public areas in the 1950). Many also commented on society and politics. "The Vatican Rag" dealt with the Second Vatican Council. "Who's Next?" dealt with the escalation of nuclear weapons. Tom Lehrer Not only were Tom Lehrer's songs witty and savage as far as satire goes, but they were also catchy and very listenable. What is more, Tom Lehrer took a darker, very nonconformist view of society at a time, the Fifties, when conformity was counted as a virtue. He would have a lasting influence not only on musicians and satirists, but everyone from comedians to filmmakers.
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