Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer

Next we have the dear-hearts-and-gentle-people's school of songwriting, in which the singer tells you that, no matter how much sin and vice and crime go on where he comes from, it's still the be
Ace in the world because it's home, you know. sort of gets you. this example is called my home town.

I really have a yen
To go back once again,
Back to the place where no one wears a frown,
To see once more those super-special just plain folks
In my home town.

No fellow could ignore
The little girl next door,
She sure looked sweet in her first evening gown.
Now there's a charge for what she used to give for free
In my home town.

I remember dan, the druggist on the corner, 'e
Was never mean or ornery,
He was swell.
He killed his mother-in-law and ground her up real well,
And sprinkled just a bit
Over each banana split.

The guy that taught us math,
Who never took a bath,
Acquired a certain measure of renown,
And after school he sold the most amazing pictures
In my home town.

That fellow was no fool
Who taught our sunday school,
And neither was our kindly parson brown.
We're recording tonight so i have to leave this line out.
In my home town.

I remember sam, he was the village idiot.
And though it seems a pity, it
Was so.
He loved to burn down houses just to watch the glow,
And nothing could be done,
Because he was the mayor's son.

The guy that took a knife
And monogrammed his wife,
Then dropped her in the pond and watched her drown.
Oh, yes indeed, the people there are just plain folks
In my home town.

Almost every day during the hunting season you see at least one item in the newspapers about somebody who has shot somebody else, under the impression that he was a deer with a red hat perhaps,
A large flesh-colored squirrel. at any rate, it seems to me that this marks an encouraging new trend in the field of blood sports, and deserves a new type of hunting song which i present herewi
Br>

I always will remember,
'twas a year ago november,
I went out to hunt some deer
On a mornin' bright and clear.
I went and shot the maximum the game laws would allow,
Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a cow.

I was in no mood to trifle,
I took down my trusty rifle
And went out to stalk my prey.
What a haul i made that day.
I tied them to my fender, and i drove them home somehow,
Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a cow.

The law was very firm, it
Took away my permit,
The worst punishment i ever endured.
It turned out there was a reason,
Cows were out of season,
And one of the hunters wasn't insured.

People ask me how i do it,
And i say, "there's nothin' to it,
You just stand there lookin' cute,
And when something moves, you shoot!"
And there's ten stuffed heads in my trophy room right now,
Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a pure-bred guernsey cow.

For many years now, mr. danny kaye, who has been my particular idol since childbirth, has been doing a routine about the great russian director stanislavsky and the secret of success in the acti
Ofession. and i thought it would be interesting to stea... to adapt this idea to the field of mathematics. i always like to make explicit the fact that before i went off not too long ago to figh
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 maki
H, 3000 dollars a year just teaching.

Be that as it may, some of you may have had occasion to run into mathematicians and to wonder therefore how they got that way, and here, in partial explanation perhaps, is the story of the great
Ian mathematician nicolai ivanovich lobachevsky.

Who made me the genius i am today,
The mathematician that others all quote,
Who's the professor that made me that way?
The greatest that ever got chalk on his coat.

One man deserves the credit,
One man deserves the blame,
And nicolai ivanovich lobachevsky is his name.
Hi!
Nicolai ivanovich lobach-

I am never forget the day i first meet the great lobachevsky.
In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics:
Plagiarize!

Plagiarize,
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize -
Only be sure always to call it please 'research'.

And ever since i meet this man
My life is not the same,
And nicolai ivanovich lobachevsky is his name.
Hi!
Nicolai ivanovich lobach-

I am never forget the day i am given first original paper
To write. it was on analytic and algebraic topology of
Locally euclidean parameterization of infinitely differentiable
Riemannian manifold.
Bozhe moi!
This i know from nothing.
But i think of great lobachevsky and get idea - ahah!

I have a friend in minsk,
Who has a friend in pinsk,
Whose friend in omsk
Has friend in tomsk
With friend in akmolinsk.
His friend in alexandrovsk
Has friend in petropavlovsk,
Whose friend somehow
Is solving now
The problem in dnepropetrovsk.

And when his work is done -
Ha ha! - begins the fun.
From dnepropetrovsk
To petropavlovsk,
By way of iliysk,
And novorossiysk,
To alexandrovsk to akmolinsk
To tomsk to omsk
To pinsk to minsk
To me the news will run,
Yes, to me the news will run!

And then i write
By morning, night,
And afternoon,
And pretty soon
My name in dnepropetrovsk is cursed,
When he finds out i publish first!

And who made me a big success
And brought me wealth and fame?
Nicolai ivanovich lobachevsky is his name.
Hi!
Nicolai ivanovich lobach -

I am never forget the day my first book is published.
Every chapter i stole from somewhere else.
Index i copy from old vladivostok telephone directory.
This book was sensational!
Pravda - well, pravda - pravda said: (russian double-talk)
It stinks.
But izvestia! izvestia said: (russian double-talk)
It stinks.
Metro-goldwyn-moskva buys movie rights for six million rubles,
Changing title to 'the eternal triangle',
With brigitte bardot playing part of hypotenuse.

And who deserves the credit?
And who deserves the blame?
Nicolai ivanovich lobachevsky is his name.
Hi!

Now to continue with the love song, here we have the viennese waltz type of the franz lehar/johann strauss school, conjuring up images of gaily waltzing couples and probably stale champagne drun
M sweaty slippers. this example is called the wiener schnitzel waltz.

Do you remember the night i held you so tight,
As we danced to the wiener schnitzel waltz?
The music was gay, and the setting was viennese,
Your hair wore some roses (or perhaps they were peonies),
I was blind to your obvious faults,
As we danced 'cross the scene
To the strains of the wiener schnitzel waltz.

Oh, i drank some champagne from your shoe.
I was drunk by the time i got through.
I didn't know as i raised that cup,
It had taken two bottles to fill the thing up.

It was i who stepped on your dress.
The skirts all came off, i confess.
Revealing for all of the others to see
Just what it was that endeared you to me.

I remember the night i held you so tight,
As we danced to the wiener schnitzel waltz.
Your lips were like wine (if you'll pardon the simile),
The music was lovely and quite rudolf frimly.
I drank wine, you drank chocolate malts,
And we both turned quite green
To the strains of the wiener schnitzel waltz.

The most popular type of popular song is of course the love song, and i'd like to illustrate several subspecies of this form during the evening. first of all, the type of love song where the fel
Ells the girl that although the years ahead will almost certainly destroy every vestige of her already dubious charms, that nonetheless his love for her will shine on forever through the years,
Now. another example of stark realism in the popular song.
This particular example is called when you are old and gray, and i'd like to dedicate it to anyone in the audience who is still in love with each other.

Since i still appreciate you,
Let's find love while we may.
Because i know i'll hate you
When you are old and gray.

So say you love me here and now,
I'll make the most of that.
Say you love and trust me,
For i know you'll disgust me
When you're old and getting fat.

An awful debility,
A lessened utility,
A loss of mobility
Is a strong possibility.
In all probability
I'll lose my virility
And you your fertility
And desirability,
And this liability
Of total sterility
Will lead to hostility
And a sense of futility,
So let's act with agility
While we still have facility,
For we'll soon reach senility
And lose the ability.

Your teeth will start to go, dear,
Your waist will start to spread.
In twenty years or so, dear,
I'll wish that you were dead.

I'll never love you then at all
The way i do today.
So please remember,
When i leave in december,
I told you so in may.

Well, what i like to do on formal occasions like this is to take some of the various types of songs that we all know and presumably love, and, as it were, to kick them when they're down. i find
If you take the various popular song forms to their logical extremes, you can arrive at almost anything from the ridiculous to the obscene, or -- as they say in new york -- sophisticated. i'd li
Illustrate with several hundred examples for you this evening, first of all, the southern type song about the wonders of the american south. but it's always seemed to me that most of these song
Lly don't go far enough. the following song, on the other hand, goes too far. it's called i wanna go back to dixie.

I wanna go back to dixie,
Take me back to dear ol' dixie,
That's the only li'l ol' place for li'l ol' me.
Ol' times there are not forgotten,
Whuppin' slaves and sellin' cotton,
And waitin' for the robert e. lee.
(it was never there on time.)
I'll go back to the swanee,
Where pellagra makes you scrawny,
And the honeysuckle clutters up the vine
I really am a-fixin'
To go home and start a-mixin'
Down below that mason-dixon line.

Oh, poll tax, how i love ya, how i love ya,
My dear old poll tax.

Won'tcha come with me to alabammy,
Back to the arms of my dear ol' mammy,
Her cookin's lousy and her hands are clammy,
But what the hell, it's home.
Yes, for paradise the southland is my nominee.
Jes' give me a ham hock and a grit of hominy.

I wanna go back to dixie
I wanna be a dixie pixie
And eat cornpone 'til it's comin' outta my ears
I wanna talk with southern gentlemen
And put my white sheet on again,
I ain't seen one good lynchin' in years.
The land of the boll weevil,
Where the laws are medieval,
Is callin' me to come and nevermore roam.
I wanna go back to the southland,
That "y'all" and "shet-ma-mouth" land,
Be it ever so decadent,
There's no place like home.