Trivia / Songs by Tom Lehrer

• Banned in China: In Australia, the states of Queensland and Victoria objected to three of the songs on the album and refused to sell it. An EP containing "The Wild West", "Lobachevsky", "The Irish Ballad" and "My Home Town" was released in that country as a compromise. Lehrer also faced censorship troubles during his Australian tour in Brisbane (where he sang "Be Prepared" despite warnings from the chief of police) and Adelaide (where he had to sign a petition promising not to sing five songs), which he lampshaded during the live performance of "My Home Town" included in the Australian live LP: during the "censored" line, he quipped "I think I'll leave this line out, there may be someone here tonight from Adelaide", which got him so much applause that he had to vamp for a while before the next verse.
• Bury Your Art: Of the various versions, only the original 1953 studio album and the British version of the 1960 live album (which used the MIT performances) have been reissued on CD. The Australian performances which were used on the American and Australian live albums have poorer sound quality (reportedly due to a drunk engineer) and the 1966 stereo remakes had changes made to the lyrics which Lehrer later regretted, which is why neither have been reissued.

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