Overview

• Tom Lehrer passed away on Saturday, July 26, at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the age of 97.
• He gained prominence in the 1950s and ’60s by pairing cheerful piano melodies with sharply satirical lyrics on subjects from nuclear annihilation to religion.
• Lehrer produced just 37 songs before returning full-time to academia, teaching mathematics at Harvard, MIT and the University of California and working briefly for the NSA and Germany’s Atomenergiebehörde.
• After many U.S. broadcasters refused to air his provocative songs, the BBC delivered his international breakthrough and he later wrote for NBC’s That Was the Week That Was.
• In 2020 he released his entire catalog into the public domain, and his words continue to resonate today, even serving as the motto for the 29th Chaos Communication Congress.