Tom Lehrer, a popular musical satirist who rose to fame in the 1950s and '60s before returning to a career teaching math, has died at age 97.
Lehrer died on Saturday at his home in Cambridge, Mass., his friend David Herder confirmed to NPR.
He was remembered across the entertainment industry on Sunday, including by( weird AI)who called Lehrer a "living musical hero"
When Lehrer wasn't teaching college-level math, he was sitting at a piano making people laugh — and worry — about the world. His targets included politics, nuclear destruction, and even social harmony.
"I could never sit down and say, 'Today, I will write a funny song,'" he told NPR in 1997.
Born in 1928, he was raised in New York City's Upper East Side, according to a 1981 Harvard Crimson profile, where he took piano lessons as a child. He attended Horace Mann High School before going to Harvard, where he wrote "Fight Fiercely Harvard," his first recorded song, which he wrote at 17 years old.
His records spread well beyond campus to become an underground sensation in the 1950s. In the mid-1960s, NBC aired a satirical show called That Was The Week That Was. Producers turned to Lehrer for material. Although cast members sang his songs, Lehrer later performed and recorded them for intentional distribution.
"He established this genre of comedy songwriting," said Rachel Bloom, a musical satirist and star of the CW TV show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Although she's several generations younger, Bloom says she learned a lot from Lehrer work`s work. "When you're doing comedy songs, you want to take established genres and flip them on their head," she said. "It's almost like you want to go opposite."
When Tom Lehrer wanted to ridicule and attack something, he did it from the inside. He would falsely embrace what he detested.
Thanks.
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