I just heard Tom Lehrer died yesterday at the age of 97. I first heard of Tom Lehrer reading the lyrics to The Hunting Song in one of my Dad’s old Mad Magazines, though like many of my generation I didn’t realize he was the same guy who sang Silent E, L-Y and a bunch of other songs I had probably already heard on The Electric Company. I still remember learning all the lyrics to The Masochism Tango long before I had any idea what the word meant, subjecting all my friends to my rendition of The Irish Ballad, and lying in the way-back of a station wagon coming back from a high-school chess tournament while listening to a bootleg tape of of Tom Lehrer, Revisited (or perhaps Tom Lehrer Discovers Australia).
Tom Lehrer wasn’t just a brilliant musical satirist, he was also a mensch: a few years ago he signed over literally his entire catalog to the public domain and put the whole thing — including a music files, sheet music and lyrics — on his website at https://tomlehrersongs.com/. So download and stream to your heart’s content. Just take note of the warning at the end of Lehrer’s personal note: “THIS WEBSITE WILL BE SHUT DOWN AT SOME DATE IN THE NOT TOO DISTANT FUTURE, SO IF YOU WANT TO DOWNLOAD ANYTHING, DON’T WAIT TOO LONG.”