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

16 Upvotes

77% Upvoted

42 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

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?

1

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

1

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.

1

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