Who’s Next? Remembering Tom Lehrer’s Wit

My folks loved Lehrer. Me too!

Who’s Next? Remembering Tom Lehrer’s Wit

The mathematician, songwriter and imp has died at 97.

By Faith Bottum, WSJ

July 28, 2025 4:55 pm ET

Tom Lehrer was a mathematician—and quite a good one, by all accounts. Which makes it all the more interesting that he was renowned mostly for sitting at a piano with a sly grin on his face. Always wearing a suit and horn-rim glasses, he would sing, typically to classical melodies, such lines as “Every Sunday you’ll see / my sweetheart and me / as we poison the pigeons in the park.”

Lehrer, who died Saturday at 97 in Cambridge, Mass., was a prodigy. He earned a math degree from Harvard at 18. He went on to teach math at MIT, Harvard, Wellesley College and the University of California, Santa Cruz. He kept teaching until his late 70s.

But his career as a songwriter and performer is what made him memorable. Lehrer’s body of work was surprisingly small—roughly three dozen songs—but he captured audiences with his impish humor. What started as jokes to amuse his friends at school turned into songs that stick in the mind of everyone who’s heard them. “The Masochism Tango.” “Lobachevsky.” “We Will All Go Together When We Go.” The son of a successful necktie designer, he performed looking sleek and professional, all while singing his hilariously horrifying lyrics. “Let our love be a flame, not an ember / Say it’s me that you want to dismember,” he sang in his mild baritone.

His wit and musical talent brought him on tour in the 1950s and early 1960s. He released three albums during this run, and later added “Tom Lehrer Revisited,” a live recording of a 1953 show. His life was full of bopping around. Lehrer contributed to the children’s public-television show, “The Electric Company” with songs teaching phonics and grammar. “The Elements,” set to a Gilbert and Sullivan melody, is a patter-song romp through the periodic table.

He also claimed to have invented the Jell-O shot while serving as a U.S. Army specialist third class to circumvent a ban on alcohol at a base Christmas party. He wasn’t the originator, but his storytelling flair likely boosted the drink’s popularity.

Lehrer had a special way of conveying his humor with a wink, a we’re-in-on-it-together kind of nod. His twinkle and his songs have stood the test of time, and the comic bravado of those old tunes can still be felt nowadays. “So long, Mom / I’m off to drop the bomb.” “Be prepared! That’s the Boy Scouts’ marching song.”

I’ve always had a soft spot for Tom Lehrer. I discovered him when I was young going through my parents’ old CDs. Somehow I still sing his songs with surprising regularity. After being stuck on the highway after the car broke down. To cheer up an old friend. To laugh when I’m feeling down. Lehrer’s music was funny—funny enough for people to hum 70 years later.

Ms. Bottum is an assistant editorial features editor at the Journal.