R.I.P. Tom Lehrer

Tom Lehrer was a staple in our household. Just like the Raunch Hands were. We had a Tom Lehrer songbook and we’d play it on the piano. I had no context for him. It was like my equal love around the same time of Max Shulman, another “relic” from the generation before, whom I tripped over by accident and adored. All that Cold War paranoia etc. I still understood something about that, Evil Empire “Star Wars”, etc. These people were MAD magazine people, still a force to be reckoned with at the time. I was drawn to the vibe just naturally, in the same way I was naturally drawn to P.J. O’Rourke later, without really connecting the dots. I was a child of the 80s and their anti-establishment nothing-is-sacred satire was in the air I breathed. I didn’t know Tom Lehrer’s background , but I loved his clever funny songs. “New Math”. Still cracks me up. I didn’t understand every reference but I certainly understood the objects of his mockery.

Which leads me to …

It was a tradition where I went to high school that the junior class would put on a variety show every year. It was meant to bond the class together ahead of the senior year. The show was student-organized, student-directed, with very little administration interference (can you believe this? Like, they did not oversee us and all kinds of insanely inappropriate things happened on that stage!) Its purpose was sound, though. The show was definitely a bonding agent for the class. We had to work together. Nobody was rejected. You want to come on and do a juggling act or a mime act? Go for it. Two of my good friends, Beth and Anne, were the emcees.

We wrote skits and sketches. There were lip synch re-creations of MTV music videos. People dressed up as the teachers, we lampooned the administration, etc. There were musical interludes where kids from the band would play songs. A couple of girls did soulful duets.

I made a bold move on my own to sing a solo. My friend Peter accompanied me on piano. My song was not soulful. I did not, for example, sing the theme from Ice Castles. I chose to sing Tom Lehrer’s gleefully sarcastic anti-war song “So Long, Mom (I’m off to drop the bomb)”. I wore camo pants, combat boots and a military jacket. I marched onstage waving an American flag.

Who the hell did I think I was??

I belted out those crazy funny lyrics with maximum bombast and patriotic fervor. Did I even know what I was saying? Well, in the specifics, no, i.e.

While we’re attacking frontally
Watch Brinkally and Huntally
Describing contrapuntally
The cities we have lost

I mean, okay? But what?

But the rest of it? I knew exactly what he was saying. I lived in fear of war and nuclear winter. Sign of the times. So I belted out lines like

I’ll look for you when the war is over
An hour and a half from now

with rage powered by razzle dazzle jazz hands. And big exaggerated military salutes.

I brought down the house. I was very proud, especially since – I won’t lie – I had a couple of insecure moments backstage, holding my flag, wearing my camo, surrounded by girls in frilly mini skirts and heels, practicing their dance moves … wondering uneasily if I was way too out on a limb all by myself. The other girls all looked so pretty and cute! Whereas I …

Here’s the man himself, singing it:

I got the message.

Don’t believe the bullshit. Interrogate the propaganda coming at you from all sides. Make fun of it. Be loud. Be smart about it. Upholding the status quo and submitting to consensus thinking is for unimaginative bores. At the very least, question everything. Resist. Puncture the self-serious. ROAST them. If it feels like bullshit, it probably is. Resist the group. Very important lessons for a teenage kid to learn.

Thanks for the music, Tom Lehrer. Thanks for your satirical bite. I “got it” at 15 and I’m the better for it.