RIP Tom Lehrer, Song Satirist And Mathematician Who Also Shilled For Dodge

Yesterday, I heard that a figure I remembered from my childhood had died recently: Tom Lehrer, a musical satirist, performer, and mathematician. I had no idea he was still alive, to be honest, as he was damn near 100 when he finally made the move to seek out new opportunities with the infinite. I was saddened to hear this, as he was one of the few musical influences I got from my mom, but I was heartened to find that he once did work with Dodge, which means I can write about him here.

Really, Lehrer was before my time, as he had a peak in popularity in the 1950s and 1960s, decades when I had made the decision not to exist yet. But once I did deign to arrive in this world, by the 1970s, I remember my mom playing some Tom Lehrer songs for my sister and me.

Really, my parents didn’t play much music at home, which I always found sort of odd, since my mom (and dad, briefly) were part of a Gilbert and Sullivan troupe and did a lot of singing. But, she did play some Tom Lehrer, and I particularly remember this song about a plagiarizing Russian mathematician:

He made funny songs, funny and, I suppose, educated. At least once, it was barely a song, just the periodic table set to, yes, a Gilbert and Sullivan favorite:

Some of the songs made me re-think people who I had admired, like the father of NASA’s moon missions, Wernher von Braun, who had a let’s say checkered past:

If you weren’t familiar with Tom Lehrer, I think you probably get some idea of what he was like now. He had enough mainstream success that by the 1960s, Dodge hired him to write some songs and do some dealer promo films for their 1966 to 1967 ad campaign known as the Dodge Rebellion:

For some reason, the whole thing is set in a fictional Old West town called Cactus Bend, though the existence of late 1960s cars from not just Dodge, but all the other Big Three automakers are referenced, mostly so Lehrer can make fun of Fords and Chevys and Oldsmobiles and pretty much every other make.

It’s remarkable just how much content Lehrer produced for Dodge: there were at least three “ballads” he wrote for various Dodge models, some that relied on racial caricatures that we’d likely avoid now, but you know, it was the era. The ballads were (with their principal character in the parentheticals) The Ballad of Coronet (Bald Eagle), The Ballad of Polara Monaco (El Toro), and The Ballad of Dart (Priscilla Smugly).

Seriously, though, we can’t condone the portrayal of Native Americans or Mexican folks as shown here, so, you know, please keep that in mind.

If you want to see them all in full, tell your boss you need a full hour to focus on important things, and watch this:

Lehrer was a one-of-a-kind, and was a huge influence on comedic musicians like Weird Al Yankovic. He was a remarkable blend of intellectual and goofball, a mix that I think is crucial to any successful culture.

Also, the idea of a modern carmaker hiring a musical satirist to write whole songs talking shit about other carmakers is pretty hard to imagine today, which is sort of a shame, especially considering that Stellantis still exists. I mean, the songs should be writing themselves, right?