Introduction (Remastered 2023)

I'd just like to introduce now the

Featured artist of this evening's ordeal

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 12 incredibly agile fingers

Mr. Lehrer has had a long and varied

Career in the field of entertainment

Starting with nine years at Harvard University

But 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

A sort of army liaison to the office of Naval contemplation

For several years he toured vaudeville theaters with an act consisting

Of impressions of people in the last throes of various diseases

I'm sure that many of you here tonight still recall

With pleasure his memorable diphtheria imitation

He's 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

You'd be amazed at the money we save that way

Well, what I like to do on formal occasions like this

Is to take some of the various types of

Songs that we all know and presumably love

And, as it were, to kick them when they're down

I find that if you take the various popular

Song forms to their logical extremes

You can arrive at almost anything from the ridiculous to the obscene

Or as they say in New York, sophisticated

I'd like to illustrate with several

Hundred examples for you this evening

First of all, the Southern type song

About the wonders of the American South

But it's always seemed to me that most of

These songs really don't go far enough

The following song, on the other hand, goes too far