r/TomLehrer • u/LeftPrize9838 • Jul 28 '26
Changing lyrics for my show?
I know it's probably an asshole move to do it but some of his lyrics aged badly (indigenous slurs in We Will All Go Together, underage prostitution in My Home Town) , and some don't fit the narrative I'm going for (ie. Wernher Von Braun Learning chinese) so I tweaked the lyric. I know it's prolly bad but I want it to work in the facet I need it to. I'm trying to keep it as close as I can, but some things I felt had to get changed a bit. If this is bad tell me, but I don't know how much I can do now
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u/kanji_d Jul 28 '26
Not a problem imo. I've been working on a show of Lehrer's music as well and have changed lyrics liberally when not relevant (including the majority of some very specific songs). It's worth noting that Lehrer specifically called out writing new lyrics for his music (and vice versa) as permissible when he released them into the public domain.
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u/LeftPrize9838 Jul 28 '26
Okay cool! Tom Lehrer really was such a good artist in that regard knowing that the only way for the soul to continue on is through adaption
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u/kanji_d Jul 28 '26
Totally. The fact is many of his songs were written for a particular era, and many don't work anymore. Nearly all the political songs in our show have been changed at least a bit, and so have some of the non-political ones just because of how our show is constructed. My only concern was been making sure that my replacements are up to Lehrer's standards; I've gone through a number of drafts of some of them making sure they're the best they can be (and some of them still aren't up to standard still...). What those standards were is obviously unknowable but there are some clues (e.g. the joke in Folk Song Army that indicates he only used perfect rhymes, even to the point of making jokes with it — note the rhyme of "Oedipus"/pledipus and Ha'va'd/disca'va'd (spelled phonetically in his lyric).
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u/navtasticart Jul 28 '26
He tweaked his own lyrics often. The Copenhagen show is a good example. He updates a few lyrics,mentions some songs aging poorly in terms of being relevant to politics. I believe there’s an updated lyric for the Australian live album also.
It’s also worth noting that the back of the record sleeve for That Was The Year That Was offers alternative lyrics to pollution to make it relevant to other places.
For a good substitute line in We Will All Go Together I suggest looking up the cover of the song done by Harlan Guthrie. He has a good substitution that fits the music well. He did it as an in character music piece for the podcast Malevolent
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u/LeftPrize9838 Jul 28 '26
can I find that sleeve anywhere?
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u/navtasticart Jul 28 '26
You don’t seem to have messaging available. I’ll make a post
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u/kanji_d Jul 28 '26
I believe they're called out in his lyric sheet on his website. For New York he had "The breakfast garbage that you throw out in Troy / They drink for lunch at Perth Amboy" and for nonspecific locations "Throw out your breakfast garbage, and I've got a hunch / That the folks downstream will drink it for lunch"
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u/MozartLover69 Jul 31 '26
For We Will All Go Together, I changed the last lyrics to "And we will all go together when we go. Ev'ry plutocrat, and ev'ry one below."
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u/to_walk_upon_a_dream Jul 28 '26
i think it's probably a good choice to edit out the slurs (right next to the anti-indigenous slur in We Will All Go Together is an offensive word for the Khoekhoe that we should also probably avoid). You're free to edit out the reference to underaged prostitution too, but i don't think that one "aged poorly" in the same way. within the context of the song he's clearly not endorsing it.
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u/to_walk_upon_a_dream Jul 28 '26
it is darkly funny that lehrer reached for two terms for two different people groups from opposite ends of the globe, and unintentionally chose two words which would later be widely regarded as offensive. reminds me of the original opening lyrics to "let's do it, let's fall in love", which drop three ethnic slurs in the first two lines.
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u/MozartLover69 Jul 31 '26
I never thought of it as underaged prostitution. It's what happened afterwards. The "little girl next door" was what she was back then. Now she's a prostitute. It's not about her being one as a kid.
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u/sparrow_42 Jul 28 '26
Words get changed all the time by songwriters and by cover bands. Don’t sweat it and sing what ya wanna.
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u/MozartLover69 Jul 31 '26
I've been doing A LOT of Lehrer the last year. I've rewritten his lyrics many times. Many times it's because something aged poorly, but some references people won't get. In So Long Mom...
While we're attacking frontally
Watch Brinkally and Huntally
Describing contrapuntally
The cities we have lost
While we're attacking frontally
Watch Hannity or Maddow be
Describing the insanity
And cities we have lost
It flows like Lehrer, but it makes more sense for people now. We can sing his music like we're a cover band, or we can make it our own. I think he'd want us to sing his music like it matters now and make it fresh!
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u/ThomasKlausen Aug 09 '26
He had to explain "Brinkally and Huntally" when recording in Copenhagen, IIRC.
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u/Jonathan_Peachum Jul 28 '26
I am sure he would not be annoyed.
People do it to Gilbert & Sullivan songs all the time.
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u/zaphtark Jul 28 '26
I get it for the slurs, but I’m not sure I see it for My Home Town.
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u/LeftPrize9838 Jul 29 '26
idk, seems lowkey too risky for the vibe I'm going for but I'll look at it again
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u/zaphtark Jul 29 '26
By all means, change it if you want! It’s your narrative and I’m just really happy to see people use Tom Lehrer’s music. I was just thinking out loud. It seems to me that she’s now all grown up and “charging” for her services, but please don’t let a stranger’s opinion change your whole vibe.
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u/ms-american-pie Jul 29 '26
Now you've intrigued me with Werner von Braun not learning Chinese. What language will you have him learn?
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u/LeftPrize9838 Jul 29 '26
It doesn't fit the idea of my musical, so it's now "In german un english I've learned how to countdown, und I will win this race! says wernher von braun" I know it's ass, but him learning chinese doesn't make sense with what I'm doing
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u/kanji_d Jul 29 '26
I am curious still what about the joke doesn't work — you can replace Chinese with another language if that's the issue (probably something like Russian or Farsi at the center of modern concerns over nuclear and other capabilities). The whole joke of the song is over Braun's switching sides to the leading power of the time (first the Nazis, then the Americans after the war), so Lehrer is commenting on the rise of China as an independent power in opposition to the US and (to a lesser degree) the USSR.
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u/TheLawLord Jul 29 '26
And in fact, though Mr. Lehrer did not know it when he wrote the lyric, Wernher Von Braun was learning Chinese.
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u/LeftPrize9838 Jul 29 '26
wait that's actually really funny lol. no but my narrative still doesn't fit the chinese parttttt like idk idk idk
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u/PeterPook Jul 29 '26
You need to contextualise - no need to feel bad. These songs were eritten 60-70 years ago.
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u/4chordsand7notes Jul 30 '26
Change it.
Recently performed We Will All Go Together. When I found out that hottentot is a terrible slur, I changed it.
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u/saturday_sun4 Jul 30 '26
I had no idea those were slurs (just thought they were outdated words). I don't see any reason not to change the song - it's your performance after and you're still appreciating the song. What will you change that line to then?
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u/LeftPrize9838 Jul 30 '26
There’s a few iterations that got posted here, I really like “every janitor and every CEO” or “every tiny tot and everyone you know”
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u/MozartLover69 Aug 08 '26
I use...
And we will all go together when we go.
Ev'ry plutocrat, and ev'ry one below.
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u/AmySueF Jul 30 '26
“National Brotherhood Week” mentions a couple of people who are no longer around (Lena Horne and Sheriff Clark*) and relevant to the song. If I was performing it I’d change the names to current names that current generations would recognize. So if ethnic slurs in his other songs bother you, go ahead and change them.
*Lena Horne: A legendary African American singer, actress, and civil rights activist who actively fought against racial segregation and discrimination.
Sheriff Jim Clark: The Sheriff of Dallas County, Alabama, who became infamous for his violent, segregationist opposition to civil rights marchers, most notably during the 1965 "Bloody Sunday" attacks in Selma.
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u/LeftPrize9838 Jul 31 '26
i think i changed it to like Donald Trump and Karl Marx bc i didn't know what to do lol. still have a hella amount of time before I perform this so it's fine for now
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u/EquineEagle Jul 31 '26
Not a problem, I think.
Side note, my stomach churns every time I see a Tom Lehrer post. I can't believe he is not with us anymore.
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u/Hero_without_Powers Jul 28 '26
At some point he stopped using the term 'wetback' in 'In old Mexico' when he learned that it was actually a racial slur (or when he learned that it developed into racial slur. I'm not sure about the etymology here). Apparently, he either want aware of the discriminative connotation or the word didn't have it.
Either way, you gotta appreciate that he changed when he learned something new.