American singer and songwriter Tom Lehrer passes away at 97

Tom Lehrer, a famous American satirist and singer-songwriter, has died at the age of 97. According to media, his friends said he was found dead at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Saturday, July 26. Lehrer was known for his sharp and darkly funny songs that criticized the politics and society of the 1950s and 1960s. Many artists like Randy Newman, “Weird Al” Yankovic, and the creators of The Simpsons have said he influenced their work.

He first became known in the 1950s on the underground beatnik scene and later became more popular by appearing regularly on NBC’s show “That Was The Week That Was,” which was the American version of a famous British satire show.

Lehrer was not afraid to talk about controversial topics in his songs. He sang about drug addiction in “The Old Dope Peddler,” war and patriotism in “It Makes A Fellow Proud To Be A Soldier,” nuclear weapons in “So Long Mom,” and sexuality in “The Masochism Tango.”

Who was Tom Lehrer?

Tom Lehrer was born in New York on April 9, 1928, and started playing piano when he was young. At 15, he got accepted to Harvard University. While working on a math doctorate in the early 1950s, he recorded his first album, “Songs Of Tom Lehrer,” in 1953. It became popular in Boston and sold 10,000 copies.

Lehrer continued his work in education and became a math professor at Harvard and later at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

In 2022, his lasting impact was shown when “Weird Al” Yankovic told NME that he chose Daniel Radcliffe to play him in the movie “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” after seeing Radcliffe perform Lehrer’s “The Elements Song” on a talk show.

Lehrer never married and did not have any children.