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I'd like to introduce now the featured artist of this page.
I'm sure that you'll all agree without any hesitation that Tom Lehrer is the
most brilliant creative genius that America has produced in almost 200 years,
so perhaps a few words of biographical background might not be amiss.
Endowed by nature with perhaps the most glorious baritone voice to be heard
on an American stage since the memorable concert debut in 1835 of Millard
Fillmore; endowed also with twelve incredibly agile fingers; Mr. Lehrer has
had a long and varied career in the field of entertainment starting with
nine years at Harvard University... where it was that he first decided to
devote his life to what has since become a rather successful scientific
project -- namely, the attempt to prolong adolescence beyond all previous
limits.
Even before he came to Harvard, however, he was well known in academic
circles for his masterly translation into Latin of The Wizard of Oz,
which remains even today the standard Latin version of that work. A few
years ago he was inducted... forcibly... into the United States Army and
spent most of his indenture in Washington as sort of Army liaison to the
Office of Naval Contemplation. About his service record he is justifiably
modest, but it is known that in a short time he rose to the rank of brigadier
general. However, before he could acquire a tenure, he was discharged, and
owing to nepotism and intrigue, he emerged with only the rank of specialist
3rd class, which was roughly equivalent to the rank of corporal without
portfolio.
But to return to his career in show business: for several years he toured
vaudeville theaters with an act consisting of impressions of people in the
last throws of various diseases. I'm sure that many of you here tonight still
recall with pleasure his memorable diphtheria imitation. He is generally
acknowledged to be the dean of living American composers, and is currently
working on a musical comedy based on the life of Adolf Hitler.
Without further ado: Tom Lehrer!
Tom Lehrer is a comedian who has found a large group of fans all over the world, but embarrassingly few good webpages. This page is supposed to be pretty good. I even manage to update it from time to time. Thanks to everybody who's been sending me e-mail. I really appreciate it!
It's actually not bad. Full lyrics, including the texts for the intros. Neat MIDI files by Glenn Vallen, a wwwboard, and a few decent links. I used to put up announcements and stuff here, but I decided to stick 'em on the wwwboard from now on instead, so go check it out.
All lyrics were ripped from various pages on the 'net. I'm afraid I've lost anything about the original transcribers. The MIDI sound files were done by Glenn Vallen. The rest is pretty much all my own work. Feel free to copy/rip/whatever it. It would be nice if you could give credit though. (Yeah, I'm being a hypocrit here, go sue me.)
Tom Lehrer was a comedian who cared little about political correctness. Some people find this makes for some incredible entertainment. If you are not one of them then leave this page and come back when you're bitter enough not to care anymore. Most of the material in this site comes from documents recorded between 1959 and 1965. This means that not all statements made may be completely accurate. For instance, it is completely feasible that today's standard Latin version of The Wizard of Oz is not the version which Tom Lehrer made. Also, because the purpose of the statements was to entertain rather than to relay the truth, it is feasible that Tom Lehrer never translated The Wizard of Oz into Latin at all. I assume no responsibility for any result the viewing of these pages may have. If viewing them, however, does cause you to spontaneously translate The Wizard of Oz into Latin then I demand 10% of any royalties you might receive for that work.
Authors of anything done for free live on feedback. So if you have any additions, comments, question, praise, money, scholarships then please mail me about them.
| Tom Lehrer | Tim Newsome, drz@froody.bloke.com, , |
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