THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => BAND => Topic started by: KharBevNor on 15 Jun 2006, 18:03
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Who here is a fan of Tom Lehrer?
For those who do not know, Tom Lehrer was basically an extremely awesome dude from the 50's who wrote and performed jaunty, broadway-style songs about brutal murder, incest, rape, arson, pimping, sadomasochism, pornography, STDs, nuclear war and many other diverse subjects, most in the guise of vicious parodies of various aspects of American culture and music, linked together with witty comic repartee.
He's basically an extremely overlooked standup comic with a piano. He's also amazingly funny. He would never have been able to get away with some of this shit otherwise.
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We'll all go together when we go. Every hottentot and every eskimo.
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Not only is this guy one of the funniest damn songwriters you'll ever hear - and ridiculously cheeky and rude for his time. I doubt anyone else was singing stuff like Be Prepared in the fifties.. - but he's an insanely good piano player. Seriously, I've flicked through a book of his songs trying to learn a few of them to try and amuse people, and DAYUM, the guy can play.
My brother knows the entirety of the Elements Song, which is now outdated, there having been some new elements discovered since.
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Last year my best friend got me a Tom Lehrer boxed set. It was the greatest gift that year.
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Tom Lehrer is amazing.
Well the white folk hate the black folk
and the black folk hate the white folk
and the Hindus hate the Muslims
and everybody hates the Jews!
But during National Brotherhood Week
National Brotherhood Week
The New Yorkers love the Puerto Ricans 'cause it's very chic
Go up and shake the hand
of someone you can't stand
You can tolerate them if you try!
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Did they paroody this guy in an old episode of the simpsons? Or was that some other wacky pianoman?
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Tom Lehrer is truly amazing. He's simply brilliant. He taught at UC Santa Cruz in the 70's and I believe continued there for a while. Used to sing his songs around the campfire when my extend family would go camping. We might be a bit crazy...
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Tom Lehrer is amazing.
Well the white folk hate the black folk
and the black folk hate the white folk
and the Hindus hate the Muslims
and everybody hates the Jews!
Dude, that's the 'The Protestans hate the Catholics/The Catholics hate the protestants' for the first line. You muddled it up with the verse that goes.
"Oh, the white folks hate the black folks,
And the black folks hate the white folks.
To hate all but the right folks
Is an old established rule."
</pedant>
You're not that odd Mizaktik, My family used to, indeed still does, sing Tom Lehrer songs on long car journeys, in between rousing renditions of Green Grow the Rushes O and our special version of On Ilkley Moor Baht 'At, which is much improved by the insertion of phrases such as 'Without my trousers on' and 'where the ducks play football' at any possible juncture.
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The first Lehrer song I heard was The Elements, which got played on a radio station when I was in high school. I called in and asked who it was, and ended up getting Songs and More Songs for Christmas.
I got a lot of mileage out of The Elements. I memorized it before long and used it to impress all my friends in high school and win a pair of bike shoes and clipless pedals through a talent show on a bike tour.
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I have never heard of him, but checking him out shortly.
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Sorry Khar, I was doing that from memory. I haven't heard the song in a while, I'm afraid.
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SMUT!
Oh, give me smut and nothing but!
A dirty novel I can't shut
If it's uncut
And unsubt
.... tle.
I've never quibbled, if it was ribald
I always devour, where others merely nibble
As the judge remarked the day that he aquitted my Aunt Hortense
To be smut, it must be ut, terly without redeeming social importance!
Poooorrrr, nographic pictures I adoorrrrre,
Indecent magazines galore, I like them more,
If they're hardcore!
Bring on the obscene movies, murals, postcards, neckties, stained-glass windows, anything! More, more, I'm still not satisfied!
Stories of tortures, used by debauchers, lurid, licencious, and vile ...
Make me smile.
Novels that pander to my taste for candor give me a pleasure sublime
Let's face it, I love slime
All books can be indecent books but recent books are bolder,
For filth (I'm glad to say) is in the mind of the beholder
When correctly viewed, anything is lewd
I could tell you things about Peter Pan
And the Wizard of Oz (there's a dirty old man!)
I thrill
To any book like Fanny Hill
And I suppose I always will
If it is swill
And really fil
.... thy.
Who needs a hobby, like tennis, or philately?
I've got a hobby, rereading Lady Chatterly
But now they're trying to take it all away from us unless
We take a stand and hand in hand we fight for freedom of the press
In other words, smut, I love it.
Ah, the adventures of a slut!
Oh I'm a market they can't glut
I don't know what
Compares with smut
Hip hip hooray, let's hear it for the Supreme Court lads
Don't let them taaaake it, awaaaaay!
I haven't heard that song in a while. I'm so glad I remember so much of it. I think I might've missed one or two things, maybe in the spoken section where he's listing all the smutty things (postcards, neckties, stained-glass windows, etc.)
Tom Lehrer is the fucking man.
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Being a scientific type, I rather like Lobachevsky:
Plagiarize!
Let no one elses work evade your eyes!
Remember why the good lord made your eyes,
So dont shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize! -
Only be sure always to call it please research.
He was a math professor, wasn't he? Makes that song even better!
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Tom Lehrer rocks. Oedipus Rex is my favourite, "One thing 'pon which you can depend is, he sure knew who a boy's best friend is". Often the introductions are as good as the song itself: "One of the reasons most folk music is so atrocious, is that it was written by the people".
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My favourite is still Two Game Wardens, Seven Hunters And A Cow. I used to know it front to back.
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Aside from the title, apparently, which is "The Hunting Song."
zing!
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I've read it being called both in many places.