Overview

• Longtime friend David Herder confirmed that Lehrer died on July 26 at his Cambridge, Massachusetts, home.
• Lehrer gained national recognition in the 1950s and 1960s for his sardonic topical songs, notably on NBC’s That Was the Week That Was and his album That Was the Year That Was, which reached No. 18 on U.S. charts.
• He largely abandoned performing by the late 1960s to devote himself to mathematics, teaching at Harvard, MIT, Wellesley and UC Santa Cruz until retiring in 2001.
• In 2020, he surrendered his copyrights, placing his lyrics and compositions into the public domain without fee or restriction.
• His influence on musical satire endures through revivals like Tomfoolery, digital reissues and tributes by artists such as Randy Newman and “Weird Al” Yankovic.