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| 1928-2025 |
I would listen to the radio and think, 'I can write a song as good as that,' and the problem is, they already have people who can write songs 'as good as that' so what do they need one more for? What is necessary is somebody that can write something different.
--Tom Lehrer
Nice sense of humor :D
ReplyDeleteHe did have that, Kinga.
DeleteA great humorous talent. We could use his biting wit today.
ReplyDeleteDavid, I can think of one biting wit, but that wit got in the way of a media merger (as well as the White House.)
DeleteI loved watching him and listening to him way back and I still do.
ReplyDeleteIt's good that people still remember him, Mitchell.
DeleteAs I wrote somewhere else, I heard a Lehrer quote that said he used to follow Billy Graham around the world, undoing the damage Graham had done.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, here's the quote:
Delete"I wanted to thank you for your response and attention to this evening. This has been particularly rewarding to me because I have always regarded it as part of my mission in life to follow around after Billy Graham and try and undo some of the work he has done.”
According to my sources, Andrew, he said it during a 1960 tour of your own homeland, Australia, as the intro to a song about necrophilia!
He was unique alright! RIP
ReplyDeleteHis uniqueness will be missed, Debra. Actually, it was missed even before he died, as decades ago he left show biz behind to become a math teacher.
DeleteI am not familiar with him Kirk but saw it in headlines here. A fair age. RIP.
ReplyDeleteI used to think so, Ananka, but having made friends in the last few years with people within the same age group, I now there think there is no such thing as a fair age. We need immortality and we need it now!
DeleteHello Kirk, When I saw the news about Tom Lehrer, I was thinking of posting my own Kirk-style memorial, but then I thought that Lehrer was the kind of performer that would tick all of your criteria--quirky, talented, and old-fashioned in an odd way. Plus, he punctures all pretension with humor instead of vitriol. I love Lehrer's work. I have all the original LP's, and when the CD set came out, I got a few extra copies to give away.
ReplyDelete--Jim
Thank you, Jim, but there's no blogging rule that says two people can't have posts about the same thing. Happens all the time. Anyway, glad that you're a fan of the late Mr. Lehrer.
DeleteFrom wikipedia... "Lehrer was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1955. He served until 1957, working at the National Security Agency (NSA). ... Despite holding a master's degree in an era when American conscripts often lacked high school diplomas, Lehrer served as an enlisted soldier, achieving the rank of specialist third class,"
ReplyDeleteAt least the army seems to have used his education in a productive way. I had a friend that was working on his PhD in Nuclear Engineering when he got drafted (vietnam). His job was to pull the string on a cannon. He said they had nuclear shells for the cannon. He said if they thought I was going to fire a nuclear shell that would go off 5 miles away from where I was at they were sadly mistaken.
Mike, at least his PhD training made him know what to look out for.
ReplyDelete