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That Was The Year That Was (1965) is a live album recorded at the hungry i in San Francisco, containing performances by Tom Lehrer of satiric topical songs he originally wrote for the NBC television series That Was The Week That Was, known informally as TW3 (1964-65). All of the songs related to items then in the news
[edit] Track listing
- "National Brotherhood Week" – 2:35
- "MLF Lullaby" – 2:25
- "George Murphy" – 2:08
- "The Folk Song Army" – 2:12
- "Smut" – 3:15
- "Send the Marines" – 1:46
- "Pollution" – 2:17
- "So Long, Mom (A Song for World War III) – 2:23
- "Whatever Became of Hubert?" – 2:13
- "New Math" – 4:28
- "Alma" – 5:27
- "Who's Next?" – 2:00
- "Wernher Von Braun" – 1:46
- "The Vatican Rag" – 2:14
[edit] Topics of songs
- "National Brotherhood Week"—National Brotherhood Week.
- "MLF Lullaby"—An ultimately failed U.S. proposal for a multilateral nuclear force as part of NATO.
- "George Murphy"—George Murphy, dancer, actor, U.S. Senator from California, and Robert F. Kennedy (D, NY), the putative third senator from Massachusetts
- "The Folk Song Army"—Topical songs as part of the folk revival of the 1960s; also alludes to songs of the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, especially "Venga Jaleo" which it excerpts musically.
- "Smut"—Censorship of obscenity, and the 1957 U.S. Supreme Court case Roth v. United States, which coined the expression "redeeming social importance".
- "Send the Marines"—Militarism in United States foreign policy.
- "Pollution"—Pollution of the environment.
- "So Long, Mom (A Song for World War III)"—Nuclear war, Mutually Assured Destruction, nostalgia over past wars, and television news coverage.
- "Whatever Became of Hubert?"—Hubert Horatio Humphrey, then U.S. vice president under Lyndon B. Johnson.
- "New Math"—New Math, a trend at the time in the teaching of mathematics.
- "Who's Next?"—Nuclear proliferation.
- "Alma"—Alma Mahler, who had recently died. Composer and painter; wife, successively, of Gustav Mahler, Walter Gropius, and Franz Werfel.
- "Wernher Von Braun"—Rocket scientist Wernher von Braun.
- "The Vatican Rag"—The Second Vatican Council and the reform of Roman Catholic liturgy.
[edit] External links