Tom Lehrer
Tom Lehrer
Thomas Andrew "Tom" Lehreris an American singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist, and mathematician. He has lectured on mathematics and musical theater. He is best known for the pithy, humorous songs he recorded in the 1950s and '60s...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSongwriter
Date of Birth9 April 1928
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
thinking hard
Everything is so weird in politics that it's very hard to be funny about it, I think.
song thinking want
Once you've heard the joke, it's not funny anymore, but it's the way it's told. And I think that's the same with the music: The reason some of my songs have lasted longer is there's a lot of stuff packed in there. You want to hear them more than once.
thinking people shut-up
I think that if people are having trouble communicating with one another, the least they can do is SHUT UP.
spiritual thinking worry
I find enough mystery in mathematics to satisfy my spiritual needs. I think, for example, that pi is mysterious enough (don't get me started!) without having to worry about God. Or if pi isn't enough, how about fractals? or quantum mechanics?
fun stupid thinking
You can make fun with Saddam Hussein jokes ... but you can't make fun of, say, the concentration camps. I think my target was not so much evil, but benign stupidity people doing stupid things without realising or, instead, thinking they were doing good.
atheist thinking arrogant
No one is more dangerous than someone who thinks he has The Truth. To be an atheist is almost as arrogant as to be a fundamentalist. But then again, I can get pretty arrogant.
thinking worry funeral
When you attend a funeral, It is sad to think that sooner o' Later those you love will do the same for you. And you may have thought it tragic, Not to mention other adjec- Tives, to think of all the weeping they will do. (But don't you worry.
song writing thinking
Things are much more complicated. Feminism versus pornography, for example. There are a lot of feminists who think it is bad, but others think it's good. I have become, you might call it mature - I would call it senile - and I can see both sides. But you can't write a satirical song with 'but on the other hand' in it, or 'however'. It's got to be one-sided.
thinking facts satire
The audiences like to think that satire is doing something. But, in fact, it is mostly to leave themselves satisfied. Satisfied rather than angry, which is what they should be.
positive-thinking life-is-like trying
Life is like a sewer what you get out of it depends on what you put into it." It's always seemed to me that this is precisely the sort of dynamic, positive thinking that we so desperately need today in these trying times of crisis and universal brouhaha.
anyone deny oath prepared quite retract
If anyone disagrees with anything I say, I am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also to deny under oath that I ever said it
best brush industrial mouth teeth
Brush your teeth with the best toothpaste,Then rinse your mouth with industrial waste".
fellow proud soldier
It makes a fellow proud to be a soldier
cabinet found people picked records
The people who were in college in the '50s were my first real audience, and their kids, the people who found my records in the cabinet during their 'Mad 'magazine years picked me up also.