Tom Lehrer citáty

On the current state of satire, in Rhino Records online chat (17 June 1997)
Kontext: Alas, irreverence has been subsumed by mere grossness, at least in the so-called mass media. What we have now — to quote myself at my most pretentious — is a nimiety of scurrility with a concomitant exiguity of taste. For example, the freedom (hooray!) to say almost anything you want on television about society's problems has been co-opted (alas!) by the freedom to talk instead about flatulence, orgasms, genitalia, masturbation, etc., etc., and to replace real comment with pop-culture references and so-called "adult" language. Irreverence is easy — what's hard is wit.

Introduction to "Alma"
That Was the Year That Was (1965)
Kontext: Last December 13th, there appeared in the newspapers the juiciest, spiciest, raciest obituary it has ever been my pleasure to read.
It was that of a lady named Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel, who had, in her lifetime, managed to acquire as lovers practically all of the top creative men in central Europe. And, among these lovers, who were listed in the obituary, by the way, which is what made it so interesting, there were three whom she went so far as to marry: One of the leading composers of the day, Gustav Mahler, composer of "Das Lied von der Erde" and other light classics, one of the leading architects, Walter Gropius, of the "Bauhaus" school of design, and one of the leading writers, Franz Werfel, author of the "Song of Bernadette" and other masterpieces.
It's people like that who make you realize how little you've accomplished. It is a sobering thought, for example, that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.

"Be Prepared"
Songs by Tom Lehrer (1953)

Quotes from interviews, Sydney Morning Herald interview (2003)
Kontext: Things are much more complicated. Feminism versus pornography, for example. There are a lot of feminists who think it is bad, but others think it's good.
I have become, you might call it mature — I would call it senile — and I can see both sides. But you can't write a satirical song with 'but on the other hand' in it, or 'however'. It's got to be one-sided.

Introduction to "Alma"
That Was the Year That Was (1965)
Kontext: Last December 13th, there appeared in the newspapers the juiciest, spiciest, raciest obituary it has ever been my pleasure to read.
It was that of a lady named Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel, who had, in her lifetime, managed to acquire as lovers practically all of the top creative men in central Europe. And, among these lovers, who were listed in the obituary, by the way, which is what made it so interesting, there were three whom she went so far as to marry: One of the leading composers of the day, Gustav Mahler, composer of "Das Lied von der Erde" and other light classics, one of the leading architects, Walter Gropius, of the "Bauhaus" school of design, and one of the leading writers, Franz Werfel, author of the "Song of Bernadette" and other masterpieces.
It's people like that who make you realize how little you've accomplished. It is a sobering thought, for example, that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.

Responding to a question on whether he considered himself an atheist or an agnostic, in an interview at celebathiests.com (June 1996) http://web.archive.org/web/20061027073138/http://www.celebatheists.com/index.php?title=Tom_Lehrer
Kontext: No one is more dangerous than someone who thinks he has "The Truth". To be an atheist is almost as arrogant as to be a fundamentalist. But then again, I can get pretty arrogant.

Intro to "Lobachevsky"
Songs by Tom Lehrer (1953)
Kontext: I always like to make explicit the fact that before I went off not too long ago to fight in the trenches, I was a mathematician by profession. I don't like people to get the idea that I have to do this for a living. I mean, it isn't as though I had to do this, you know, I could be making, oh, 3000 dollars a year just teaching.

Quotes from interviews, Sydney Morning Herald interview (2003)
Kontext: I'm not tempted to write a song about George W. Bush. I couldn't figure out what sort of song I would write. That's the problem: I don't want to satirise George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporise them. … And that's not funny. … OK, well, if I say that, I might get a shock laugh, but it's not really satire.

Introduction to "Be Prepared"
Songs by Tom Lehrer (1953)
Kontext: I would like to state at this time that I am not now and have never been... a member of the Boy Scouts of America. Their motto is, as you know, "Be Prepared!" and that is the name of this song.

Quotes from interviews, Insider Audio interview (1997)
Kontext: I remember when Richard Pryor said something about how in South Africa, all the black people should pick up guns and kill all the white people, and they went right on with the interview, and nobody stopped him on that. "Oh good old Richard, what a card." As long as you're billed as a comedian, I guess you can say anything.

Quotes from interviews, Sydney Morning Herald interview (2003)
Kontext: Things are much more complicated. Feminism versus pornography, for example. There are a lot of feminists who think it is bad, but others think it's good.
I have become, you might call it mature — I would call it senile — and I can see both sides. But you can't write a satirical song with 'but on the other hand' in it, or 'however'. It's got to be one-sided.

Quotes from interviews, Sydney Morning Herald interview (2003)
Varianta: Irreverence is easy — what's hard is wit.
Kontext: One of the problems I see with these comics on television, particularly cable television, is, since you can say anything in terms of sex and scatological references and so on, therefore, you should do it. So they all limit themselves to these subjects and this vocabulary. My objection is that it is a lack of articulateness … Irreverence is easy, but what is hard is wit. Wit is what these comedians lack.

Quotes from interviews, Insider Audio interview (1997)
Kontext: I don't appreciate poetry--I don't mind admitting that now, I don't understand poetry. We studied it in high school and college, but they never told us why it was good. I got A's on all the exams--"Hail to thee blithe spirit, bird thou never wert"-- what the hell does that mean? I have no idea.

Quotes from interviews, Sydney Morning Herald interview (2003)
Kontext: You can make fun with Saddam Hussein jokes … but you can't make fun of, say, the concentration camps. I think my target was not so much evil, but benign stupidity people doing stupid things without realising or, instead, thinking they were doing good.

Afterword to "Alma"
That Was the Year That Was (1965)
Kontext: Speaking of love, one problem that recurs more and more frequently these days, in books and plays and movies, is the inability of people to communicate with the people they love: husbands and wives who can't communicate, children who can't communicate with their parents, and so on. And the characters in these books and plays and so on, and in real life, I might add, spend hours bemoaning the fact that they can't communicate. I feel that if a person can't communicate, the very least he can do is to shut up.

Introduction to "So Long Mom (A Song For World War III)
That Was the Year That Was (1965)

Introduction to "Wernher Von Braun"
That Was the Year That Was (1965)

"I Hold Your Hand In Mine"
Songs by Tom Lehrer (1953)

"Alma"
That Was the Year That Was (1965)

"National Brotherhood Week", closing stanza
That Was the Year That Was (1965)

"Oedipus Rex"
An Evening (Wasted) With Tom Lehrer (1959)

Sydney Morning Herald interview (2003)

Introduction to "We Will All Go Together When We Go"
An Evening (Wasted) With Tom Lehrer (1959)

"The Masochism Tango"
An Evening (Wasted) With Tom Lehrer (1959)

Zdroj: That Was the Year That Was (1965), Liner notes

"The Vatican Rag"
That Was the Year That Was (1965)

Introduction to "Smut"
That Was the Year That Was (1965)

That's Mathematics (verse added in 1993 to celebrate the achievement of Andrew Wiles)

Introduction to "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park"
An Evening (Wasted) With Tom Lehrer (1959)