WIST Quotations

Lehrer, Tom -- “Alma,” Afterword, That Was the Year That Was (1965)

Dave — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 16:09:55 +0000

Speaking of love, one problem that recurs more and more frequently these days, in books and plays and movies, is the inability of people to communicate with the people they love: husbands and wives who can’t communicate, children who can’t communicate with their parents, and so on. And the characters in these books and plays and so on, and in real life, I might add, spend hours bemoaning the fact that they can’t communicate. I feel that if a person can’t communicate, the very least he can do is to shut up.

Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American mathematician, satirist, songwriter
“Alma,” Afterword, That Was the Year That Was (1965)
(Source)

Lehrer, Tom -- “Bright College Days,” An Evening (Wasted) with Tom Lehrer (1959)

Dave — Thu, 18 Feb 2016 14:56:11 +0000

Oh, soon we’ll be out amid the cold world’s strife.
Soon we’ll be sliding down the razor blade of life.

Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American mathematician, satirist, songwriter
“Bright College Days,” An Evening (Wasted) with Tom Lehrer (1959)

Lehrer, Tom -- “Bright College Days,” An Evening (Wasted) with Tom Lehrer (1959)

Dave — Thu, 26 May 2016 14:02:18 +0000

Hearts full of youth!
Hearts full of truth!
Six parts gin to
One part vermouth!

Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American mathematician, satirist, songwriter
“Bright College Days,” An Evening (Wasted) with Tom Lehrer (1959)

Lehrer, Tom -- “Bright College Days”

Dave — Thu, 21 Apr 2016 14:39:37 +0000

Bright college days, oh, carefree days that fly,
To thee we sing with our glasses raised on high.
Let’s drink a toast as each of us recalls
Ivy-covered professors in ivy-covered halls.

Turn on the spigot,
Pour the beer and swig it,
And gaudeamus igit-
-ur.

Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American mathematician, satirist, songwriter
“Bright College Days”

Lehrer, Tom -- “In His Own Words: On Life, Lyrics and Liberals,” Washington Post (3 Jan 1982)

Dave — Fri, 04 Nov 2016 03:09:26 +0000

As for language, almost everything goes now. That is not to say that verbal taboos have disappeared, but merely that they have shifted somewhat. In my youth, for example, there were certain words you couldn’t say in front of a girl; now you can say them, but you can’t say “girl.”

Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American mathematician, satirist, songwriter
“In His Own Words: On Life, Lyrics and Liberals,” Washington Post (3 Jan 1982)

Lehrer, Tom -- “Lobachevsky,” Songs by Tom Lehrer (1953)

Dave — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 15:50:40 +0000

Plagiarize,
Let no one else’s work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don’t shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize —
Only be sure always to call it, please, “research”.

Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American mathematician, satirist, songwriter
“Lobachevsky,” Songs by Tom Lehrer (1953)

Lehrer, Tom -- “National Brotherhood Week,” That Was the Year That Was (1965)

Dave — Thu, 17 Mar 2016 14:21:45 +0000

Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics
And the Catholics hate the Protestants,
And the Hindus hate the Moslems,
And everybody hates the Jews.

Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American mathematician, satirist, songwriter
“National Brotherhood Week,” That Was the Year That Was (1965)

Lehrer, Tom -- “National Brotherhood Week” (1965)

Dave — Thu, 05 Nov 2015 16:14:12 +0000

Oh, the poor folks hate the rich folks,
And the rich folks hate the poor folks,
All of my folks hate all of your folks,
It’s American as apple pie.

Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American mathematician, satirist, songwriter
“National Brotherhood Week” (1965)

Lehrer, Tom -- “Oedipus Rex,” An Evening (Wasted) with Tom Lehrer (1959)

Dave — Thu, 25 Feb 2016 14:36:05 +0000

Yes, he loved his mother like no other,
His daughter was his sister and his son was his brother.
One thing on which you can depend is,
He sure knew who a boy’s best friend is.

Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American mathematician, satirist, songwriter
“Oedipus Rex,” An Evening (Wasted) with Tom Lehrer (1959)

Lehrer, Tom -- “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park,” An Evening (Wasted) with Tom Lehrer (1959)

Dave — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 16:57:33 +0000

When they see us coming, the birdies all try an’ hide,
But they still go for peanuts when coated with cyanide.

Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American mathematician, satirist, songwriter
“Poisoning Pigeons in the Park,” An Evening (Wasted) with Tom Lehrer (1959)

Lehrer, Tom -- “The Vatican Rag,” That Was the Year That Was (1965)

Dave — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 17:50:39 +0000

Get in line in that processional,
Step into that small confessional.
There the guy who’s got religion’ll
Tell you if your sin’s original.
If it is, try playin’ it safer,
Drink the wine and chew the wafer.
Two, four, six, eight,
Time to transubstantiate!

Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American mathematician, satirist, songwriter
“The Vatican Rag,” That Was the Year That Was (1965)

Lehrer, Tom -- “The Vatican Rag,” That Was the Year That Was (1965)

Dave — Thu, 14 Apr 2016 13:57:02 +0000

So get down upon your knees,
Fiddle with your rosaries,
Bow your head with great respect,
And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!

Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American mathematician, satirist, songwriter
“The Vatican Rag,” That Was the Year That Was (1965)

Lehrer, Tom -- “Wernher Von Braun,” That Was the Year That Was (1965)

Dave — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 13:22:43 +0000

Don’t say that he’s hypocritical,
Say rather that he’s apolitical.
“Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That’s not my department,” says Wernher von Braun.

Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American mathematician, satirist, songwriter
“Wernher Von Braun,” That Was the Year That Was (1965)

Lehrer, Tom -- “When You Are Old and Gray”

Dave — Thu, 05 May 2016 15:09:25 +0000

An awful debility,
A lessened utility,
A loss of mobility
Is a strong possibility.
In all probability
I’ll lose my virility
And you your fertility
And desirability.
And this liability
Of total sterility
Will lead to hostility
And a sense of futility.
So let’s act with agility
While we still have facility,
For we’ll soon reach senility
And lose the ability.

Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American mathematician, satirist, songwriter
“When You Are Old and Gray”

Lehrer, Tom -- An Evening Wasted

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

Life is like a sewer — what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.

Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American mathematician, satirist, songwriter
An Evening Wasted

Lehrer, Tom -- People (11 Jan 1982)

Dave — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 13:31:23 +0000

What good is having laurels if you can’t rest on them?

Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American mathematician, satirist, songwriter
People (11 Jan 1982)
(Source)

Lehrer has used the phrase and variants many times over the years.

Lehrer, Tom -- That Was the Year That Was (1965)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.

Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American mathematician, satirist, songwriter
That Was the Year That Was (1965)

Lehrer, Tom -- Interview (June 1996)

Dave — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 14:45:23 +0000

No one is more dangerous than someone who thinks he has “The Truth”. To be an atheist is almost as arrogant as to be a fundamentalist. But then again, I can get pretty arrogant.

Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American mathematician, satirist, songwriter
Interview (June 1996)

When asked if he considered himself atheist or an agnostic.

Lehrer, Tom -- Interview, Sydney Morning Herald (2003)

Dave — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 14:01:25 +0000

Things are much more complicated. Feminism versus pornography, for example. There are a lot of feminists who think it is bad, but others think it’s good. I have become, you might call it mature, I would call it senile, and I can see both sides. But you can’t write a satirical song with “but on the other hand” in it, or “however.” It’s got to be one-sided.

Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American mathematician, satirist, songwriter
Interview, Sydney Morning Herald (2003)
(Source)

Lehrer, Tom -- Introduction to “We Will All Go Together When We Go,” An Evening (Wasted) with Tom Lehrer (1959)

Dave — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 15:26:10 +0000

“Life is like a sewer — what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.” It’s always seemed to me that this is precisely the sort of dynamic, positive thinking that we so desperately need today in these trying times of crisis and universal brouhaha.

Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American mathematician, satirist, songwriter
Introduction to “We Will All Go Together When We Go,” An Evening (Wasted) with Tom Lehrer (1959)

Lehrer, Tom -- Rhino Records online chat (17 Jun 1997)

Dave — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 21:58:54 +0000

Alas, irreverence has been subsumed by mere grossness, at least in the so-called mass media. What we have now — to quote myself at my most pretentious — is a nimiety of scurrility with a concomitant exiguity of taste. For example, the freedom (hooray!) to say almost anything you want on television about society’s problems has been co-opted (alas!) by the freedom to talk instead about flatulence, orgasms, genitalia, masturbation, etc., etc., and to replace real comment with pop-culture references and so-called “adult” language. Irreverence is easy — what’s hard is wit.

Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American mathematician, satirist, songwriter
Rhino Records online chat (17 Jun 1997)