History Music / SongsByTomLehrer

** The back cover gives the [[LongTitle full title]] as ''Songs by Tom Lehrer: His Lyrics, His Music, His So-Called Voice, and His Piano''.

* EveryoneHasStandards: What makes the CensoredForComedy NoodleIncident in "My Home Town" work so well. Given what Tom Lehrer ''will'' put in his songs (this one alone includes arson, sale of pornography to minors, prostitution, cannibalism, and multiple murders), the implication of what, exactly, even ''he'' considers best left unsaid is hysterical.

-->''People ask me how I do it\\

You just stand there looking cute,\\
And when something moves -- you shoot!"''

--->Not only did she do them wrong\\
She did ev'ry one of them in

--->I'm sorry now I killed you\\

I shall hold your hand in mine

-->If you're looking for adventure of a new and different kind,\\

''Be prepared!''

-->When at last the police called by\\

And lying, she knew, was a sin.

-->Be prepared! And be careful not to do
-->Your good deeds when there's no one watching you

-->The guy that taught us math\\

Acquired a certain measure of renown

* TheSecretOfLongPorkPies: In "My Home Town", the topping on "each banana split" sold at the drugstore is made from the ground-up corpse of the store owner's mother in law.

* SerialKiller: "The Irish Ballad" is about a woman who murders her entire family one by one.

-->I wanna talk with southern gentlemen\\

I ain't seen one good lynchin' in years!

--->One day when she had nothing to do\\

And invited the neighbours in

--->I remember Dan, the druggist on the corner; he\\

Over each banana split

-->He gives the kids free samples,\\

Will be tomorrow's clientele.

!!Tracklist [[note]]This is the running order of the original 1953 release. The 1958 British release, the various live albums, and the 1966 re-recording had all the same songs but sequenced them differently.[[/note]]

* TheSomethingSong: "The Hunting Song".

* QuirkyTown: Parodied in "My Home Town", which starts out as a nostalgic piece about a town of "extra-special just-plain-folks" inhabiting a "place where no-one wears a frown", but goes on to describe such loveable eccentrics as the ice cream seller whose special garnish was made from the ground-up corpse of his mother-in-law, the young man who "burned down houses just to watch the glow", and the kindly parson whose depravity is such that the narrator refuses even to speak of it.

Only be sure always to call it, please, "research."

* GriefSong: Gruesomely parodied in "I Hold Your Hand in Mine".

* YouMakeMeSic: In "Be Prepared", Lehrer admonishes young Boy Scouts, "Don't write naughty words on walls if you can't spell".

[[caption-width-right:350:The original 1953 release.]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/801bd175787200856755216b57c1c56e.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:The 1958 British release.]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/12b9a19bd7556217f04cd11367a3a16f.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:The "Newly Recorded" 1966 version.]]

* HavingAHeart: "I Hold Your Hand in Mine".
* HoldingHands: Gruesomely subverted in "I Hold Your Hand in Mine".

* CoverAlbum: A cover of the entire album was recorded by one Jack Eljan circa 1954 when the genuine article was only available by mail order from Lehrer himself and thus a bit hard to find. [[SdrawkcabName Eljan]] was actually a pseudonym for Jack Nagle, who hid his identity because he was embarrassed with recording songs he felt were beneath him.

-->For many years now, Mr. Music/DannyKaye, 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 acting profession. And I thought it would be interesting to st-- to ''adapt'' this idea to the field of mathematics.

** "I Wanna Go Back to Dixie" is mostly an almost sweet, happy song about wanting to go back home...but it's after he includes the line "Ol' times there are not forgotten/Whuppin' slaves and selling cotton" that it gets dark.

** "The Old Dope Peddler" sings admiringly of the cornerstone of any neighborhood, the Heroin Dealer. In more recent interviews, he's admitted that in retrospect he finds that particular song "chilling".

* EveryoneHasStandards: What makes the CensoredForComedy NoodleIncident in "My Home Town" work so well. Given what Tom Lehrer ''will'' put in his songs (this one alone includes arson, sale of pornography to minors, prostitution, and multiple murders), the implication of what, exactly, even ''he'' considers best left unsaid is hysterical.

-->My name in Dnepropetrovsk is cursed\\
When he finds out I published first!

* ListSong: "The Elements." It's a song about all of the elements on the periodic table.

* SkewedPriorities: The VillainProtagonist of "Irish Ballad" thinks that lying is more of an issue than killing her entire family since when the police come by to investigate the murders, she admits them so as not to lie.

* CensoredForComedy: In "My Home Town", Lehrer leaves out a line in the verse about the Sunday School teacher and the parson with something to the effect of "I guess I'd better leave this line out just to be on the safe side". He later admitted that he never found a satisfactory rhyme and found the idea that he wanted to say something so unspeakably racy that it had to be censored much funnier.