Post by petrolino on Apr 9, 2018 12:33:24 GMT
Pianist Tom Lehrer's influenced some of the finest songwriters of the modern era with his words and music. He once played a gig in Bloomington, Indiana on the same bill as Phil Ochs, in support of Minnesotan Eugene McCarthy’s political campaign.
“I was immersed in popular songs of the time, of the ‘30s and ‘40s. I was writing songs, making fun of the attitudes of those songs, in the musical style of the songs themselves; love songs, folk songs, marches, football.”
- Tom Lehrer speaking in 2001, ‘Sing Out! With Roger Deitz’
“Randy Newman began making his own music when the Beatles, with now 75-year-old Paul McCartney, were taking the world by storm. "I talked to Paul McCartney for the first time at a party we went to recently," says [Randy] Newman. "He jumped over the couch to sit next to me, and I said, 'Jesus Christ, this guy jumped over a couch, I couldn't jump over a newspaper.' I thought he must really work out, he was in that kind of shape. I would liked to have disliked him but I just couldn't, he was a really nice and generous fellow. "
One of Newman's own songwriting heroes is the now sadly overlooked Tom Lehrer ("he is one of the best lyric writers we've had in popular music"), who was prepared to push boundaries in the Fifties with satirical songs such as The Vatican Rag. Newman, too, is noted for risk-taking, even though it has sometimes backfired. Short People, a song lampooning prejudice, earned him death threats and his concerts were picketed by vertically-challenged listeners short on their appreciation of irony.”
- Martin Chilton (speaking with Randy Newman), The Telegraph
"I was born there, in Omaha, and my dad was with Peter Kiewit Sons' (Inc.) company when they built Boys Town. I left there when I was 6 or something. Then we moved away and then we moved back. Then we lived in Bennington and he was working on the Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Now Bennington is probably close to Omaha, but Bennington used to be a different town with a lot of farmland in between. I lived in a little country farmhouse and went to grade school in Bennington. My older brother was a Bennington Badger. One of the first concerts that I ever played was opening for the Fifth Dimension, and we played in Omaha. I remember getting this inordinately large, loving response. It was wonderful. I don't have any family there or anything, but I'd like to think they're all my friends.
I was a construction brat. I went to nine different schools by the time I was in the ninth grade. We followed the jobs around. My dad was killed in a car wreck when I was 13 and I was shipped off to live with an aunt and uncle in Long Beach, California. When I was 21, I went back to L.A. to try to make it in showbiz. I started out as an actor. I always joked that I looked too much like Hayley Mills to get a job, which was a fact. Then out of pure boredom and desperation and angst, I started writing songs for my own amusement when I was 27. Magically, it led to the life I have today. I'm a grateful man."
- Paul Williams, World-Herald
“Tom Lehrer is one of the 10 greatest figures of the 20th century.”
- Martin Gilbert (biographer of Winston Churchill)
“Tom Lehrer was the poet laureate of my high school science club in 1956-58. The teacher played a bowdlerized tape copy of "Songs by Tom Lehrer," but several of us had the LP and delighted in singing "Be Prepared," much to her dismay.
In my freshman year at UCLA, Lehrer played a sold-out concert in Royce Hall, where he sang the favorites from his first album (with many in the audience delightedly singing along), but also some of his then-unrecorded ones. When he spoke of the necrophiliac who achieved his life's ambition by becoming county coroner, the young woman with me whispered, "What does that mean?" After confirming that she really wanted to know, I told her, and she recoiled in horror. Thus ended a potential relationship, which was just as well …
Years later, I took my 12-year-old son to a local performance of "Tomfoolery", and he *loved* "I Hold Your Hand in Mine", delightedly singing it for weeks afterwards.
I heard an interview with Lehrer on a local college radio station some years ago. He was very patient with the student interviewer, and when he was asked why he stopped performing, he responded (approximately), "I liked high school, too, but I didn't make a career of it." The interviewer asked if he would ever write any more songs, and he said (approximately), "I suppose if I get mad enough." It's a shame he never did.”
- Garry Margolis, ‘88 Years On 88 Keys : Tom Lehrer, The Salinger Of The Satirical Song’
“Stephen Sondheim’s certainly the greatest lyricist, I believe, that the English language has ever produced. Oh, "I" don't believe it; it's a fact, not opinion! Sondheim has this ability to make everything sound the way one would say them, yet they rhyme and scan. Even Cole Porter sometimes would stretch things. "Under the height of me."
- Tom Lehrer, Outre Magazine
'Tom Lehrer At 90' - The Telegraph
- Tom Lehrer speaking in 2001, ‘Sing Out! With Roger Deitz’
“Randy Newman began making his own music when the Beatles, with now 75-year-old Paul McCartney, were taking the world by storm. "I talked to Paul McCartney for the first time at a party we went to recently," says [Randy] Newman. "He jumped over the couch to sit next to me, and I said, 'Jesus Christ, this guy jumped over a couch, I couldn't jump over a newspaper.' I thought he must really work out, he was in that kind of shape. I would liked to have disliked him but I just couldn't, he was a really nice and generous fellow. "
One of Newman's own songwriting heroes is the now sadly overlooked Tom Lehrer ("he is one of the best lyric writers we've had in popular music"), who was prepared to push boundaries in the Fifties with satirical songs such as The Vatican Rag. Newman, too, is noted for risk-taking, even though it has sometimes backfired. Short People, a song lampooning prejudice, earned him death threats and his concerts were picketed by vertically-challenged listeners short on their appreciation of irony.”
- Martin Chilton (speaking with Randy Newman), The Telegraph
"I was born there, in Omaha, and my dad was with Peter Kiewit Sons' (Inc.) company when they built Boys Town. I left there when I was 6 or something. Then we moved away and then we moved back. Then we lived in Bennington and he was working on the Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Now Bennington is probably close to Omaha, but Bennington used to be a different town with a lot of farmland in between. I lived in a little country farmhouse and went to grade school in Bennington. My older brother was a Bennington Badger. One of the first concerts that I ever played was opening for the Fifth Dimension, and we played in Omaha. I remember getting this inordinately large, loving response. It was wonderful. I don't have any family there or anything, but I'd like to think they're all my friends.
I was a construction brat. I went to nine different schools by the time I was in the ninth grade. We followed the jobs around. My dad was killed in a car wreck when I was 13 and I was shipped off to live with an aunt and uncle in Long Beach, California. When I was 21, I went back to L.A. to try to make it in showbiz. I started out as an actor. I always joked that I looked too much like Hayley Mills to get a job, which was a fact. Then out of pure boredom and desperation and angst, I started writing songs for my own amusement when I was 27. Magically, it led to the life I have today. I'm a grateful man."
- Paul Williams, World-Herald
“Tom Lehrer is one of the 10 greatest figures of the 20th century.”
- Martin Gilbert (biographer of Winston Churchill)
“Tom Lehrer was the poet laureate of my high school science club in 1956-58. The teacher played a bowdlerized tape copy of "Songs by Tom Lehrer," but several of us had the LP and delighted in singing "Be Prepared," much to her dismay.
In my freshman year at UCLA, Lehrer played a sold-out concert in Royce Hall, where he sang the favorites from his first album (with many in the audience delightedly singing along), but also some of his then-unrecorded ones. When he spoke of the necrophiliac who achieved his life's ambition by becoming county coroner, the young woman with me whispered, "What does that mean?" After confirming that she really wanted to know, I told her, and she recoiled in horror. Thus ended a potential relationship, which was just as well …
Years later, I took my 12-year-old son to a local performance of "Tomfoolery", and he *loved* "I Hold Your Hand in Mine", delightedly singing it for weeks afterwards.
I heard an interview with Lehrer on a local college radio station some years ago. He was very patient with the student interviewer, and when he was asked why he stopped performing, he responded (approximately), "I liked high school, too, but I didn't make a career of it." The interviewer asked if he would ever write any more songs, and he said (approximately), "I suppose if I get mad enough." It's a shame he never did.”
- Garry Margolis, ‘88 Years On 88 Keys : Tom Lehrer, The Salinger Of The Satirical Song’
“Stephen Sondheim’s certainly the greatest lyricist, I believe, that the English language has ever produced. Oh, "I" don't believe it; it's a fact, not opinion! Sondheim has this ability to make everything sound the way one would say them, yet they rhyme and scan. Even Cole Porter sometimes would stretch things. "Under the height of me."
- Tom Lehrer, Outre Magazine
'Tom Lehrer At 90' - The Telegraph
