Tom Lehrer There are a

Tom Lehrer

There are a lot of web sites dealing with Tom ("I'd like to take you now, on wings of song as it were, and try and help you forget for a while your drab, wretched lives.") Lehrer- a political humorist, satirist, song writer and performer from the 1950s and 1960s.

For anyone interested - there are biographies here and here.

There are interviews here, here, and here.

A list of songs, with lyrics, here. A lot of work has gone into this site. References that were current at the time, but might not be familiar to younger people, are carefully explained. I was glad to finally see a photo of Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel.

A list of audio CDs available from Amazon is here.

We've come a long way since the mid-sixties. The second world war was only 20 years past; the Cold War was at its worst.  A song like the "MLF lullaby" was funny then in a way it isn't now, because it tapped into anxieties we've forgotten:

"A considerable amount of commotion was stirred up during the past year over the prospect of a multilateral force, known to the headline writers as MLF. Much of this discussion took place during the baseball season, so the Chronicle may not have covered it, but it did get a certain amount of publicity; and the basic idea was that a bunch of us nations, the good guys, would get together on a joint nuclear deterrent force including our current friends, like France, and our traditional friends, like Germany.  Here's a song about that, called the MLF Lullaby:

Sleep, baby, sleep, in peace may you slumber,
No danger lurks, your sleep to encumber.
We've got the missiles, peace to determine,
And one of the fingers on the button will be German.

Why shouldn't they have nuclear warheads?
England says no, but they all are soreheads.
I say a bygone should be a bygone,
Let's make peace the way we did in Stanleyville and Saigon.

Once all the Germans were warlike and mean,
But that couldn't happen again.
We taught them a lesson in 1918
And they've hardly bothered us since then.

So, sleep well, my darling, the sandman can linger.
We know our buddies won't give us the finger.
Heil - hail - the Wehrmacht, I mean the Bundeswehr,
Hail to our loyal ally!
M L F
Will scare Brezhnev.
I hope he is half as scared as I!"

On the other hand, our relationship with the French hasn't changed all that much:

"One of the big news items of the past year concerned the fact that China, which we call Red China, exploded a nuclear bomb, which we called a device. Then Indonesia announced that it was gonna have one soon, and proliferation became the word of the day. Here's a song about that.

First we got the bomb and that was good,
'Cause we love peace and motherhood.
Then Russia got the bomb, but that's O.K.,
'Cause the balance of power's maintained that way!
Who's next?

France got the bomb, but don't you grieve,
'Cause they're on our side (I believe).
China got the bomb, but have no fears;
They can't wipe us out for at least five years!*
Who's next?

Then Indonesia claimed that they
Were gonna get one any day.
South Africa wants two, that's right:
One for the black and one for the white!
Who's next?

Egypt's gonna get one, too,
Just to use on you know who.
So Israel's getting tense,
Wants one in self defense.
"The Lord's our shepherd," says the psalm,
But just in case, we better get a bomb!
Who's next?

Luxembourg is next to go
And, who knows, maybe Monaco.
We'll try to stay serene and calm
When Alabama gets the bomb!
Who's next, who's next, who's next?
Who's next?"