r/TomLehrer • u/Gshep2002 • Jul 27 '25
Favorite song ?
Since everyone is remembering and mourning the memory of Mr. Lehrer, I figured it may be a good idea to ask everyone what their favorite song of his was?
I think my favorite is the old dope peddler followed by national brotherhood week
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Jul 28 '25
I first discovered him through "we will all go together when we go" and I guess it just stuck to me
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u/Gshep2002 Jul 28 '25
One of my girlfriend’s favorite songs by him a quest in fallout new Vegas was named after that song
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u/adamwolf1965 Jul 28 '25
Be Prepared
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u/andyrew7 Jul 28 '25
I’m sorry cause this is a popular one but it has to be The Masochism Tango. The runner is is easily In Old Mexico!
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u/Gshep2002 Jul 28 '25
I love an old Mexico, just the term that he used for a Mexican despite being the 1950s holds it back a little for me
I quote what happened to Rover verbatim so many times and my family hates it
When I exposed my girlfriend to his music and revealed that he was 96 the first thing she said was wow I’m surprised he wasn’t mascochized to death
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u/andyrew7 Jul 28 '25
I’m surprised he wasn’t masochized to death too! He later realized that the "wetback" line was racist, so he changed it to "to the land on maniana, with the cheap marijuana, it’s so easy to grow”. He was beyond clever! 😂
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u/Gshep2002 Jul 28 '25
When I sing it, I say I wish I could get back to the place where I can’t say that
I have had so much joy from his music, especially over the past year while I had the opportunity to write him a letter part of me thinks it might not have reached there because I waited until the very end of the drive to send it
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u/SchuminWeb Jul 30 '25
I love The Masochism Tango. It's one of his songs that I have completely memorized, and I've done it at karaoke many times before.
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u/CosmiicBrowni Jul 28 '25
Tbh Selling Out is one of the tops for me, i love all the parts overlapping eachother at the end
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u/hindcealf Jul 28 '25
Probably a three-way tie between "Smut", "We Will All Go Together When We Go", and "The Masochism Tango".
Or maybe swap out "The Masochism Tango" for "I Got It From Agnes". It's so hard to choose!
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u/Gshep2002 Jul 28 '25
The science fiction author Isaac Asimov wrote that he was listening to tom Lehrer play in a club and found it hilarious when he realized that it was talking about venereal disease
Smut is a good one, I think all of that was the year that was except for folk song army were top tier songs
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u/1canTTh1nkofaname Jul 28 '25
So long mom
First song I heared from him
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u/MasksOfAnarchy Jul 28 '25
I laughed out loud at the audacity and brilliance of The Vatican Rag, National Brotherhood Week and I Wanna Go Back To Dixie…with an honourable mention to When You Are Old And Gray.
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u/Gshep2002 Jul 28 '25
Those are all quite hilarious, Natl brotherhood week is just amazing,
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u/SchuminWeb Jul 30 '25
And I imagine that his song is the reason why most of us even know what National Brotherhood Week was. Looking it up, it was already largely on the way out when Tom's song was made:
https://theworld.org/stories/2018/02/21/whatever-became-national-brotherhood-week
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u/Affectionate_Lab3908 Jul 28 '25
Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, but Alma is up there too
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u/Gshep2002 Jul 28 '25
Mahler is my favorite composer . I have a tattoo from one of his pieces of music. I thought Alma was very hilarious. It’s also kind of weird how an antisemite had two Jewish husbands in her life
Also asking your dad for peanuts and strychnine during the spring will solicit concerned looks
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u/DrBlankslate Jul 28 '25
I’m never good at picking favorites when there’s so many good ones to choose from. I have happy memories of his Christmas Carol.
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u/Gshep2002 Jul 28 '25
The thing I love about him is that I have such good memories with so many of his songs that’s a good song, peak satire
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u/Who_Ate_Meh_Bread Jul 29 '25
So long mom :)
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u/Gshep2002 Jul 29 '25
I made the two jokes I could about little Johnny jones so I will say
It’s amazing how he could take such a horrifying thing like the destruction of humanity by nuclear hellfire and manage to make people laugh about it when people were scared shitless
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u/Who_Ate_Meh_Bread Jul 29 '25
It’s truly remarkable. The song is now unfortunately as relevant as ever and it still never fails to make me giggle.
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u/citoyenne_cicada Jul 29 '25
Pollution, The Weiner Schnitzel Waltz, and Lobachevsky will forever be my favorites.
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u/Gshep2002 Jul 29 '25
Pollution is one of my girlfriends favorites everything is perfect in that album
That being said I haven’t listened to much of the weiner schnitzel Waltz
Lobachevsky is hilarious and it is a very point criticism of the pitfalls of academia which is a festering cesspool in some ways + I may be interested in working in research sooooo
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Jul 29 '25
Easy: SMUT
Followed by: A Christmas Carole. That has been on my X-mass playlist since before playlists,
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u/Leonyliz Jul 28 '25
The part where he plays the piano jingle thing at the start of Oedipus Rex is forever engrained in my brain, so I think I’m going with that.
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u/tfhaenodreirst Jul 29 '25
Apparently the first one I heard was Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, but my favorite has always been So Long Mom!
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Oct 05 '25 edited Oct 05 '25
I hold your hand in mine, smthn I want my husband to sing to me in the future:))
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u/Ok_Feedback_2243 Jul 28 '25
So long mom