An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer (1959) [Reprise 6199-2]

In 1959, when the so-called "sick humor" of Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, and Shelley Berman was the new rage among America's hipsters (and would-be hipsters), the acid-penned musical satire of Tom Lehrer doubtless seemed to be daring indeed, as he worked his audiences for laughs with tunes like "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park," "Oedipus Rex," and "The Masochism Tango." Thankfully Lehrer's humor still works well thanks to its considerable skill and its charm, even if its ability to shock isn't what it once was. Recorded before an enthusiastic audience at a concert at Harvard University (where Lehrer spent his days teaching mathematics), An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer finds him in superb form as a performer, able to dissect various musical forms for their comic potential with the skill of a surgeon and displaying not merely dead-on comic timing in his vocals but a easy élan as a pianist; for a guy who picked musical comedy as a part-time job, he sure had a knack for the trade. And while Lehrer's songs no longer shock, that's not to say they've entirely lost their sting, as the bitter twists of "Bright College Days," "It Makes a Fellow Proud to Be a Soldier," and "A Christmas Carol" hit their target just as well as ever, while inspiring no small amount of laughter. And it's worth noting that the album's final punch line, "We Will All Go Together When We Go," is just as apt today as it was in 1959, for good or ill. While the work of many of his contemporaries today sound like the products of their time and place, Lehrer's best songs are still slyly funny and corrosively charming, and An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer ranks with his finest work on record.


1 Poisoning Pigeons in the Park
2 Bright College Days
3 A Christmas Carol
4 The Elements
5 Oedipus Rex
6 In Old Mexico
7 Clementine
8 It Makes a Fellow Proud to Be a Soldier
9 She's My Girl
10 The Masochism Tango
11 We Will All Go Together When We Go


[This recording was made in March of 1959 in Sanders Theater, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was originally released on Mr. Lehrer's own lable. It was reissued in 1966 on the Reprise label. The following is quoted, with slight emendations, from the notes of the original lp.]

This recording was made in Tom Lehrer's living room one evening when a few friends had dropped in and conversation was becoming strained. In a desperate attempt to save the evening (an attempt which failed, by the way), Mr. Lehrer rushed to the piano and performed the program heard here, making up the songs as he went along. Thanks to a quick-thinking engineer, who had happened by with his pockets full of recording tape, the whole fiasco has been preserved for posterity (if any).

In the hope of making the record slightly less wearisome, a certain number of coughs, hisses, snores, impacts etc., have been edited out (together with some applause and laughter, which were deleted over Mr. Lehrer's dead body). If the demand should warrant it, all this excised matter may some day be issued separately.

Presumably the spoken commentary on the record itself precludes the need for footnotes here, but one remark is perhaps in order, namely, that the tune of The Elements is that of the Major-General's song from The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan, and that the words of its last line were true a of the date of the recording, but are so no longer.







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