|
|
June 16, 2000/13 Sivan I 5760, Vol. 52, No.41
CD set shows humorist as equal opportunity offender
TOM TUGEND
Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles
"I'm spending Hanukkah, In Santa Monica," Tom Lehrer sings out.
"Amid the California flora, I'll be lighting my menorah.
"Here's to Judas Maccabeus, Boy, if he could only see us."
Yes, Tom Lehrer, the singing and piano-playing master satirist of America's social and political foibles in the 1950s and '60s, is alive and back, his cutting observations still resonating in an age when "irreverence has been subsumed by mere grossness," as the now 72-year-old Lehrer puts it.
Apparently, enough of Lehrer's original records have been passed on from the mid-century college generation to their children and children's children, to induce Rhino Records to release a 3-compact disc set, priced at $49.98, of the maestro's entire oeuvre.
Titled "The Remains of Tom Lehrer," the set includes a bound booklet featuring the alternatively straight and jocular story of his life, along with the complete lyrics to all his songs.
Lehrer, who entered Harvard at age 15 and graduated three years later, is a mathematics instructor who always considered his performing career as a temporary sideline.
Though he has not given a live performance since 1967, more than two million of his records have been sold. It took, however, 45 years to accomplish this feat.
Lehrer has always been reclusive about his private life and would not give an interview touching on his personal background. However, the book accompanying the set includes a long introduction by Barry Hansen (aka Dr. Demento), which sheds some light on Lehrer's beginnings.
"Thomas Andrew Lehrer was born April 9, 1928 in Manhattan," the introduction notes. "His parents were ethnically, but not religiously, Jewish."
At this point, Lehrer breaks into the introduction to inject: "More to do with the delicatessen than the synagogue. My brother and I went to Sunday school, but we had Christmas trees, and 'God' was primarily an expletive, usually preceded by 'oh' or 'my' or both."
Lehrer's religiosity has apparently not deepened with advancing age. A 1997 Internet chat room Q&A, which included the following exchange.
Q: Do you personally have a religious preference?
Lehrer: No. There are obviously many people who prefer one brand of bullshit to another, but I am not among them. On the other hand, I often quote James Taylor's immortal line from "Sweet Baby James": "Maybe you can believe it if it helps you to sleep."
What is impressive about Lehrer's complete works is how many of his songs, dealing with long past issues of the 1960s, still skewer prejudices of the present.
Each Lehrer fan will have his or her favorite, but few will forget the lyrics of his top hits.
In "National Brotherhood Week," Lehrer sings out, "Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics/ And the Catholics hate the Protestants/ And the Hindus hate the Muslims/ And ev'rybody hates the Jews."
Many of the same songs are repeated on each of the three compact discs in different versions-Lehrer on the piano, sometimes with comments, sometimes without-and, offensive to Lehrer purists, with orchestral backing.
Also annoying is the endless, raucous laughter following each song on disc 2.
The never-before-issued recordings of five songs conclude disc 3, including the Hanukkah ditty, which was written in the early '90s for Garrison Keillor's Saturday radio show, "The American Radio Company."
In his introduction to the song, Keillor pointed out that there just aren't any popular Hanukkah songs because no gentile songwriter ever thought about writing one, and the great Jewish songwriters were busy writing Christmas songs.
"There was thus a deplorable lacuna in the repertoire, which this song, a sort of answer to 'White Christmas.' was intended to remedy," Lehrer noted.
At this stage of his life, he observes: "He earns a precarious living peddling dope to local school children and rolling an occasional drunk. He spends his declining years with his shrunken head collection, his Nobel Prizes, and his memories."
|
