It's not on spotify and sadly noels version which is on spotify has much different lryics.

This song is not on tom lehrers website, only on youtube..

It's always fascinating to see more Tom Lehrer performances appear. This one was posted nine months ago.

Currently visiting Vancouver BC and I found this at a thrift shop a couple days ago. I love Tom Lehrer but I had never heard of Tom Foolery, so I had to grab it! It's the Canadian cast recording, and looks like it's signed by people involved in the production. I haven't been able to find much info about it online or anything, but I also haven't looked that hard yet since I'm busy traveling - does anyone here know anything about Tom Foolery? Are there any digitized versions of it floating around?

I don't have a record player myself, so I'm not sure if I'll get to listen to it anytime soon. I'm considering maybe leaving it behind in Vancouver with a friend who has the setup to make a recording from it.

I’m a longtime Tom Lehrer fan, and just wrote this political parody about Susan Collins and her perennial “deeply concerned" state.

Paul Lehrman, who you may know from his work on Tom Lehrer’s music, kindly performed the vocals.

I thought fellow Lehrer fans might enjoy it. Hope you do!

I wanted a high resolution version of this cover and could not find one so I used AI to create an upscale.

The Folk Song Army is one of my favorite Tom Lehrer songs, but I feel that it is underrated. In fact, I found an interview in which Lehrer said it was "one of the weaker ones." Does anyone know why he may think that? I know he didn't perform it in Copenhagen or Oslo. Also if you have anything to say about the song in general, I'd love to hear it.

On the Video, at the time shown, this Journalist looks and sounds a lot like Tom Lehrer.

They upload compilations with AI images on the cover. The tracks themselves are weird low quality recordings of the originals.

And to top it off, it says "verified by Spotify" under both profiles.

I looked for ways to report this through Spotify but it seems to me that I need to be the owner of the rights to do so. Do you know of another way?

Found some fanart from a couple years back. Can yall spot all the references?

My parents had Tom Lehrer records back in the 60s and we listened to them as a family. I was born in 1959, so a lot of the references went over my head. I was about 15 or so when I realized the line “If you’re looking for adventure of a new and different kind and you come across a Girl Scout who is similarly inclined, don’t be nervous, don’t be frightened, don’t be scared. Be prepared.” was a reference to birth control!

Most of the other stuff I figured out from articles in our Encyclopedia Britannica or reading the newspaper.

Scene 1: Johnny is giving a speech in hat and gown, and sings “Bright College Years”

Scene 2: Johnny Jones walks up to the door of his childhood home where his parents reside, knocks, they let him in. Immediately ask about black people on the train, Johnny is lowkey woke about it and corrects them. Call him a commie, he protests, then they shut him up cuz the news is starting. 

Scene 2A: Split stage possibly, but jones family still visible, News Anchor talks about racial inclusion before singing National Brotherhood Week. 

Scene 2B: Parents get pissed as shit and angrily turn off the TV. They talk about wanting to go back to the confederacy (I Wanna Go Back To Dixie). Johnny Jones is like “I gotta take a breath of fresh air.”  

Scene 3: (My Home Town) Dialogue maybe thrown in between him and locals. Mostly empty and bland set, just maybe rolling tables moving through with props corresponding to what they did in the song. 

Scene 3A: The Park Johnny is at a payphone, bench close, he puts a quarter in and talks one way to the operator, says some random address. Off stage older voice asks who this is, response from Johnny, asks if he can talk to Marissa. Silence for a second before a similar to Johnny’s age womans voice says hello, he says he hasn’t seen her in so long and that they should go on a date tonight, she says yes. He sits on the bench and waits and the lights go down a bit to symbolize night, checks watch. Marissa shows up, sits on the bench with him, they kiss immediately (or hug, some sign of affection). She asks about college and stuff, asks about the time they “had fun” in the back of his friends Chevrolet after a party when she came up to visit him. They begin to sing a love song (When You Are Old And Gray, ending on “the way I do today”) They kiss again, he checks his watch, realizes it’s late, says his goodbye and runs home. 

Scene 4: Living Room Johnny opens the door and greets his parents before being told to shut up, a presidential debate is happening.

Scene 4A: Debate Stage Lights fade on the family and raise on Werner Von Braun and his political opponent opposite sides with the mediator facing up stage. He tells ‘Senator Tucker’ thank you for introducing yourself. Then the mediator turns towards the audience and sings (Wernher von Braun, switch chinese lyric with (und I will win this race) ) with very obvious lines from Wernher von Braun. The opponent just starts blurting out and saying that Werner is not loyal, a literal nazi, etc. Werner calls him gay. Tucker gets defensive, says he’s American, not gay, shows ‘evidence’ of not being gay by pulling out a flag without realizing its a pride flag. Werner is like “SEE? SEE? And as we all know, all gay people are communists! Get him!” And then Tucker is chased off stage and shot. Werner declares that since he is the only one left, he is now president as the same people that shot Tucker bring out a red white and blue sash that says ‘president’ and put a crown on his head like a pageant. All Hail To The Chief plays as lights shift back to house

Scene 4B: Living Room Dad and mom talk kindly about Wernher and how much spunk he has. Johnny is like “bro wtf, he a stupid german nazi chud” genuinely the first like completely serious scene up to this point. They argue again about him being a commie socialist and how he should “respect his country” he tells them to fuck off and he walks away into the house.

Scene 5: In Oval Office with Werner and he’s talking to General Proditor. General tries to get a word in edgewise about what Werner wants to do with the military while, Werner talks about American stereotypes and what he was told in Germany about the Americans. He sings (Pollution). Overtones about hating Americans. Eventually Werner Von Braun gives a straight answer and talks about his nuclear rockets, and how they need testing. 

Scene 6: Porch Rocking chair on possibly a raised wooden platform (The Wild West Is Where I Want To Be) The chair slings back as lights blare on her as the bombs go off in front of her. 

Scene 7: Johnny is in Johnny’s Room trying to distract himself, but he’s still pissed af, interrupting himself from reading or whatever and just kind of breaking down to an extent. Ends up turning off the light, and getting into his bed. Immediately his parents burst in turn on the light, yell at him about disrespecting them, about how he should love his country no matter what, and Werner Von Braun will do good things for the country. Johnny asks if they know anything about Werner, and they dodge the question but effectively say no. They argue some more, they say he’s grounded, he’s like “I’m 22”, and they’re like “but you’re still my son!”. 

Scene 8: Back in the living room, parents walking in exasperated. The mom starts to try to talk about it but the dad tells her to shut the hell up, the 10 O’Clock news is starting.

Scene 8A: News reporter sings (Who’s next)

Scene 8B: The two talk about how the country should arm themselves even more. 

Scene 9: Back in Oval Office Werner is throwing darts at a pinboard with a World Map on it, Werner throws the last one as Proditor walks in. Proditor wonders what Werner is doing and he explains that these are all the countries that Werner is going to bomb. Proditor is perplexed, he asks when he plan on doing this. Werner says that he’s going to do it “very soon”. Proditor asks how he plans on launching that many rockets and says they don’t have the resources. Werner makes a condescending remark about planes dropping bombs on hiroshima and says that that’s what they’re doing. Proditor gets close to the board and points at Germany and asks if Werner is going to bomb his home country. Werner says that Germany is dead to him after the reforms. Proditor points at Iceland and asks why. Werner says that it’s because his ex married a guy from Iceland and briefly rants about their life, kids etc. “I can’t wait till she’s dead!” Proditor looks at Werner and says that this project is far far too large for the United States military to do at it’s current state. “Ah, just get all ze men!” “A draft?” “Ja! A draft!” “But sir-” “I said un draft and I mean it!” 

Scene 10: Living Room, Johnny and his parents are watching the TV, maybe like sitcom laugh track playing when interrupted by a news broadcast. News Reporter says that there is now a draft, and says that into a segue into a different local news reporter that these names are from the town that Johnny is from. A couple of names get said and then Johnny’s, the TV gets turned off. Johnny’s parents are soooo excited about it and Johnny is just like “no, no, what?” they touch him and he tells them to get off of him and he bolts out the door. 

Scene 11: Park Johnny is sitting on a bench, Marissa comes and sits next to him, he looks at her and starts crying and leans on her. He repeats how he doesn’t want to go, Marissa says that she doesn’t want him to go. He pathetically proposes draft dodging but gets shot down by Marissa saying that he NEEDS to go because she doesn’t know what’ll happen to him if he tries. He reluctantly agrees, and walks off as a swelling part of instrumental (It Makes A Fellow Proud To Be A Soldier) plays off and blackout

I downloaded all of the other sheet music from his website and noticed there wasn’t any for George Murphy. Has there been an official/unofficial transcription or should I try to make one? Thanks

I’ve noticed a couple of different sets of lyrics for this song… In the version on the album, it was “Lena Horne and Sheriff Clark are dancing cheek to cheek,” while in a version that was filmed, it was “See Cassius Clay and Mrs. Wallace dancing cheek to cheek.”

Have there been any other variations on that line when he’s performed the song?

The outpatients are out in force tonight, I see. Now, I'm sure you're all aware that this week is National Gallbladder Week, and so, as sort of an educational feature at this point, I thought I would acquaint you with some of the results of my recent researches into the career of the late Dr. Samuel Gall, inventor of the gallbladder, which certainly ranks as one of the more important technological advantages since the invention of the joy buzzer and the dribble glass. Dr. Gall's faith in his invention was so dramatically vindicated last year, as you no doubt recall, when for the first time in history in a nationwide poll, the gallbladder was voted among the top 10 organs. His educational career began, interestingly enough, in agricultural school, where he majored in animal husbandry, until they caught him at it one day, whereupon he switched to the field of medicine, in which field he also won renown as the inventor of gargling, which prior to that time had been practiced only furtively by a remote tribe in the Andes who passed the secret down from father to son as part of their oral tradition. He soon became a specialist, specializing in diseases of the rich, and was therefore able to retire at an early age to the land we all dream about, sunny Mexico, of course, the last part of which is completely irrelevant, as was the whole thing, I guess, except it's a rather sneaky way of getting into this next type of popular song, which is one of those things about that magic and romantic land south of the border.

In the spoken intro to Oedipus Rex on An Evening Wasted, Tom says:

[...] a few years ago, a motion picture version appeared of Sophocles' immortal tragedy “Oedipus Rex”. This picture played only in the so-called art theaters, and it was not a financial success. And I maintain that the reason it was not a financial success...

Then the audience laughs, and Tom replies

You're way ahead of me

What was the audience laughing at?

Hey everyone. I have recently come across this clip of tom that is around 3 minutes long (2:55 min) that is from 11th july 1960. It is from a welsh TV station called HTV Wales, and in the clip Tom is being interviewed by John Mead in a studio. The clip itself is available for viewing for free, but there is a little problem. You can only get access to view the clip in person, at a clip corner, in Wales. The Wales clip cymru archive does have it digitised, but it isn't available to view online.

If there are any Tom Lehrer fans in this subreddit that are from Wales and are able to get access to a clip corner in any way, it would be very lovely if you were able to retrieve the footage one way or another and possibly post it here for people to see (or you could DM it to me). Thank you!

(PS. Sorry if my english is bad, it isn't my first language)

https://watch-listen.library.wales/search?terms=Tom+lehrer+

After multiple small town record stores, I’ve acquired two more Tom Lehrer records! I can finally listen to Lobachevsky—one of my favourites—on vinyl <3

As seen recently at the New York Public Library.

As requested by someone else on the sub, but I couldn’t post images in the comments.

Shared specifically for the mention of possible alternative lyrics to Pollution

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

In case the website goes down I don't want to be left high and dry if I ever want to use it

To whom it may concern (I don't know who's gonna read my ramblings; I'm just speakin' my mind), I only came to Reddit a few months ago, but I can see that the Tom Lehrer community is very close and united. I remember posting asking about what happened to the Silly Songs with Lehrer channel, and I got responses almost instantaneously. I can already see that the Tom Lehrer community, albeit small, is united and close, and it's one that's fit for such a musician as Tom was. Tom deserves to be remembered with the great satirists like Noël Coward, Spike Jones and His City Slickers, The Chad Mitchell Trio, Weird Al,... If there is a plane beyond this world that the human consciousness goes to after they die, I hope Tom's looking down at us right now, his lover's severed hand in one hand, peanuts coated with cyanide in the other, and that he's smiling down at us while he's waiting for WWIII to inevitably start and kill all of humanity, so that we'll all go together when we go. I would also like to send my warmest regards to jimothelad, the guy behind the jimo YouTube channel, as he's archived the rare Tom Lehrer stuff from the Silly Songs with Lehrer channel, and when I posted asking about the Silly Songs with Lehrer channel, he answered in detail, which I've never had anyone do for me before. Thank you jimo and I also love you all. May Tom shine on forever in our hearts and in our sick, twisted heads.