Hooray for Tom Lehrer, To-ho-hom Lehrer

Tom Lehrer's had a remarkable life. Besides being the man who invented the Jell-O shot (no, really), he got his BA and MA from Harvard before he turned 20, he became a respected mathematician, and of course, he wrote a few dozen songs that made him, in Dr. Demento's words, "the best musical satirist of the 20th century."

Try and imagine how excited I was to find that someone's posted songs from Lehrer's 1966 concert for German television. To not only see him doing these, but to see him doing them in his prime, is an absolute treat.

Here he performs "The Masochism Tango." The German word he speaks toward the end means "Excuse me."



As a child, I wasn't allowed to sing "The Vatican Rag" when certain company came by. It's great to see the man himself zip through it with such vim.



Finally, here's an excellent lip-synch of "New Math."