an evening wasted with tom lehrer (1959) – tom lehrer: reprise records 1966 reissue, r-6199

Political satire has a tradition going back to the times of the court jester pointing out the foibles of the ruling class through the guise of jokes. Writers like Chaucer and Boccacio in the 14th century, Cervantes in the 16th century, Swift, Voltaire, and Fielding in the 17th and 18th centuries established an institution of telling the truth using oblique means.

America also has a very rich history of satirists holding up a magnifying glass to speak to the hypocrisy of government leaders. In the 19th and 20th centuries men like Mark Twain and Will Rogers were adept at laying bare the absurdity of government through the surgical use of humor and story-telling.

Now a truism of political satire is that it is a reaction to the current powers that be. During the Eisenhower years (when this was recorded) America was at the height of the Cold War, and reactionary anti-communist sentiment in the form of McCarthyism, as well as a conservative resistance to things like civil rights were rampant, so satirists at that time tended to be liberal. Makes sense. After all, context is everything.

And it also makes it the perfect environment and time for a young, pointy-headed, New York, Jewish, left-wing, liberal, intellectual, Central Park West, socialist summer camps, father with the Ben Shahn drawings, strike-oriented, red-diaper type* to make his mark.

You know, someone like Tom Lehrer and his debut album An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer.

Side 1: Poisoning Pigeons In The Park Bright College Days A Christmas Carol The Elements Oedipus Rex In Old Mexico
Side 2: Clementine It Makes A Fellow Proud To Be A Soldier She’s My Girl The Masochism Tango We Will All Go Together When We Go

A bit of personal background is probably in order at this point. In the 3rd grade my best friend’s mom was the perfect result of the social revolution of the 60’s. She was young, single (widowed), intelligent, independent, liberal in her attitude, and was bringing up two boys with the help of her mother, who lived with them. All of this made her very dangerous for a suburban mom simply because she was not the same as every other suburban mom. In short, she was exactly the sort of person who would own an album like this. And we would listen to this repeatedly whenever we were over there.

We loved Tom Lehrer songs. They were funny, clever, catchy, and even as a kid I could tell there was a definite layer of something dangerous and seditious lurking somewhere beneath them. I mean, leaving aside the clearly impolite aspects of Poisoning Pigeons In The Park or the geek-tasticness of The Elements that even an 8-year old could grasp, the subversive nature of songs like Oedipus Rex and It Makes A Fellow Proud To Be A Soldier filtered through. And even if I didn’t quite entirely get it, I still “got” it. If you know what I mean.

While the very nature of listening to all of my albums is nostalgic, this listen was special because it reached back to the very beginning of my musical awareness. It really is one of the first actual albums to which I would listen all the way through. In fact, probably the only album that I can recall preceding this one is Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron featuring such kid songs as On Top Of Spaghetti. But this one was different. Tom Lehrer was adult music, not kid music, and it tackled some heady stuff. In many ways I think that this may well have helped shape my current frame of mind and social values.

I suppose the unanswered (and likely unanswerable) question is whether I grew up to be a liberal atheistic tree-hugging pacifist because I liked Tom Lehrer as a kid, or if I liked Tom Lehrer because even as a kid I was a liberal atheistic tree-hugging pacifist.

Up Next: What if Rocky Horror wasn’t a musical comedy?

*Yes, I know it’s wonderful reducing someone to a base cultural stereotype. I admit I am a bigot, but I’m a bigot for the left, so it’s okay.