An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer
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| An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer | |||||
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| Studio album by Tom Lehrer | |||||
| Released | 1959 | ||||
| Recorded | March, 1959 | ||||
| Genre | Satire | ||||
| Length | 42:23 | ||||
| Label | Lehrer Records | ||||
| Producer | ? | ||||
| Professional reviews | |||||
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All Music Guide (5/5) link |
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| Tom Lehrer chronology | |||||
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An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer is an album recorded by Tom Lehrer, the well-known satirist and Harvard lecturer. The recording was made on March 20-21, 1959 in Sanders Theater at Harvard.
Contents |
[edit] Track listing
- "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" – 2:38
- "Bright College Days" – 3:03
- "A Christmas Carol" – 2:54
- "The Elements" – 2:16
- "Oedipus Rex" – 3:41
- "In Old Mexico" – 6:26
- "Clementine" – 4:40
- "It Makes a Fellow Proud to Be a Soldier" – 4:50
- "She's My Girl" – 2:53
- "The Masochism Tango" – 3:30
- "We Will All Go Together When We Go" – 5:32
[edit] Song Highlights
[edit] "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park"
The lyrics parody springtime songs.
- Spring is here, a-suh-puh-ring is here.
- Life is skittles and life is beer.
- I think the loveliest time of the year
- Is the spring! I do - Don't you? 'Course you do.
He then goes on to describe his favorite Spring pastime:
- All the world seems in tune
- On a spring afternoon
- When we're poisoning pigeons in the park ...
And the criticism that it has attracted:
- We've gained notoriety
- And caused much anxiety
- In the Audubon Society with our games ...
- They call it impiety,
- And lack of propriety, and
- qui-ite a variety of unpleasant names.
- But it's not against any religion
- To want to dispose of a pigeon ...
As is common with Lehrer's songs, the self-described "corncrake-voiced" delivery is accompanied by a series of dire rhymes. The poison names produce rhymes such as "try an' hide" with "cyanide", and "quickenin'" with "strychnine".
[edit] "The Elements"
The lyrics are a recitation of the names of all the chemical elements that were known at the time of writing, up to number 102, nobelium. (There are now 117.) It can be found on his albums More Songs by Tom Lehrer as well as An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer. The song is sung to the tune of Sir Arthur Sullivan's "Major General's Song" ("I am the very model of a modern major-general...") from The Pirates of Penzance. Here are the opening and closing lines:
- ....
- These are the only ones of which the news has come to Ha'vard,
- And there may be many others, but they haven't been discovered.
- [Piano coda: Shave and a haircut, two bits]
Indeed, since that time, 15 more have been discovered (or synthesized, technically), and 9 of those have been named. Those 9 are lawrencium, rutherfordium, dubnium, seaborgium, bohrium, hassium, meitnerium, darmstadtium, and roentgenium.
At some concerts he also played a version he claims is based on Aristotle's elements, which goes like this:
There's earth and air and fire and water.
As a note, the final rhyme of "Harvard" and "discovered" is delivered in an exaggerated parody of a Boston accent.
[edit] "Clementine"
Clementine is a parody of how the old folk song, My Darling Clementine, might have turned out if it had been written by various composers in widely different styles of music. The first verse was in the style of Cole Porter (suggestive of "Night and Day"); the second verse in the style of Mozart "or one of that crowd"; the third verse in the style of the Beatnik "Cool School"; and the rousing finale that was, in Lehrer's paraphrase of Shakespeare, "full of words and music, and signifying nothing," in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan (suggestive of "John Wellington Wells" or other patter songs).
Lehrer's argument for rewriting the song is that folk songs in general are "so atrocious, because they're written 'by the people'," and that the original Clementine has "no recognizable merit whatsoever."
[edit] "The Masochism Tango"
To the tune of a traditional tango, that generally asks the singer's dancing partner to "consume you in a kiss of fire", the lyrics form a love note to the sadistic inflicter of such glorious pain.
The song ranges from comical:
- I ache for the touch of your lips, dear,
- But much more for the touch of your whips, dear.
- You can raise welts
- Like nobody else,
- As we dance to the Masochism Tango.
To somewhat exaggerated:
- Take your cigarette from its holder
- And burn your initials on my shoulder
- Fracture my spine
- And swear that you're mine
- As we dance to the Masochism Tango.
And even a little violent:
- Bash in my brain,
- And make me scream with pain,
- Then kick me once again,
- And say we'll never part.
But all the while keeps its mocking tone common of the works of Tom Lehrer:
- Before you here I stand,
- My heart is in my hand... eccch!
