Tom Lehrer
Songs & More Songs by Tom Lehrer (Rhino 72776)

A longtime favorite of Dr. Demento and lots of those smirking dudes who quote Monty Python in casual conversation and love Animaniacs, Tom Lehrer is one of those unique talents who is difficult to assess apart from his fans. In some ways it is hard to imagine that Lehrer is any less self-congratulating than the people who think he's "a hoot."

Listening to him, I'm reminded of the Simpsons episode where Homer and family sit blankfaced in front of a PBS broadcast of "A Prairie Home Companion." I side with the Simpsons. Smart funny isn't "real" funny. Give me a football in the groin, that's "real" funny.

If you haven't heard him, Tom Lehrer is a Harvard-educated song parodist whose dark humor and genius for musical cliché is offset somewhat by his tendency to be cocktail-party humorous. People belly-laughing at a song about a Russian mathematician ("Lobachevsky") are my foes.

However, what spares Lehrer from being simply annoying like Lehrer imitator Mark Russell (that insufferable idiot who does topical political humor while standing at a piano on PBS) is that the songs are well-written and memorable.

Songs & More Songs by Tom Lehrer collects his earliest recordings: two albums featuring many of the songs that would be rerecorded on Lehrer's more famous 60s albums, plus orchestrated versions of four songs ("Poisoning Pigeons in the Park," "The Masochism Tango," etc) and one newly recorded track, the heretofore unavailable "I Got it From Agnes."

In general, the songs tend to be one-trick ponies hinging on one amusing idea: "Fight Fiercely, Harvard" is a faux football fight song that mocks the idea that a bunch of blue-blooded eggheads would have a competitive team.

"My Home Town" offsets a nostalgic player-piano melody with lyrics about hometown pornographers, etc. "I Wanna Go Back to Dixie" sounds like the typical Southern patriotic song until you hear lines about lynching, etc.

Lehrer is at his best when he gets morbid: "I Hold Your Hand in Mine" is a romantic-sounding song about a guy who has severed his beloved's hand. "Poisoning Pigeons," while undoubtedly clever (that's not a compliment), is also infectious and ultimately funny.

"The Masochism Tango" is what you'd expect ("Blacken my eye/Set fire to my tie/As we dance to the masochism tango") but still fires a few zingers ("My heart is in my hand … ecch"). Definite MAD magazine attitude, but part of me finds that pretty appealing.

The orchestrated songs are probably the best on the album, sounding much better in contrast to the piano-and-voice performances that comprise the rest of the CD. There are quite a few dismissable songs ("She's My Girl," "Bright College Days," "The Irish Ballad," "The Hunting Song"), but plenty to enjoy among the 28 tracks.

Lehrer's great moment remains "The Elements," which sets the names of the elements on the periodic table to a Gilbert & Sullivan melody. Smug stuff, to be sure, but if you heard some guy performing it in a dorm lounge you'd still be impressed, until you began punching him in the head, back, ass, and stomach.

It's nice to hear that the nearly 70-year old Lehrer is still in fine voice on the new track ("I Got it From Agnes"), even if the grad student humor is still there (the song isn't new, of course).

Songs & More Songs by Tom Lehrer will be of great interest to a lot of people, but many will find his style to be enormously hammy and obvious. I'd still rather listen to him than to Ben Folds, who I would like to kick in the head, back, ass, stomach, and nuts.

I think that the genre of comedy albums may be the only category of CDs that has not produced an essential recording, perhaps because so much of comedy is subjective. Good thing we spend so much time telling everyone what is and what is not funny and/or good on this goddamn site.

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Review by Lionel Kitschy