| An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer | ||||
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| Live album by Tom Lehrer | ||||
| Released | 1959 | |||
| Recorded | March, 1959 | |||
| Genre | Satire | |||
| Length | 42:23 | |||
| Label | Lehrer Records Reprise/Warner Bros. Records |
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| Producer | ? | |||
| Tom Lehrer chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | [1] |
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 |
The lyrics parody springtime songs.
As is common with Lehrer's songs, the self-described "corncrake-voiced" delivery is accompanied by a series of contrived rhymes. The poison names produce rhymes such as "try an' hide" with "cyanide", and "quickenin'" with "strychnine".
This song was also part of the studio-recorded album, More of Tom Lehrer, and had its moments. Before the first orchestra rehearsal, the pianist had seen the sheet music. It had only the notes, but no title or lyrics. At first glance, he recognized the style ("Oh, it's a waltz"). However, when the conductor announced the title, saying, "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, take one," the pianist shouted "WHAT?!" and fell off his bench. Observing this, Lehrer remarked, "I had never seen anything like that."
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 118.) It can be found on his albums Songs & 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:
Indeed, since that time, 16 more have been discovered (or synthesized, technically), and 10 of those have been named. Those 10 are lawrencium, rutherfordium, dubnium, seaborgium, bohrium, hassium, meitnerium, darmstadtium, roentgenium, and copernicium.
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.
Clementine is a parody of how the old folk song, Oh 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" (suggestive of Thelonious Monk's "52nd Street Theme"); 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."
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:
To somewhat exaggerated:
And even a little violent:
But all the while keeps its mocking tone common to the works of Tom Lehrer: