guest post by mikl-em
A classic song from The Electric Company in the 1970s Morgan Freeman & Rita Moreno perform The Menu Song by Tom Lehrer. The song was arranged by Joe Raposo (a classmate of Lehrer’s at Harvard, who himself wrote the classics Bein’ Green and C is for Cookie).
While several of Lehrer’s children songs on the show have become classics, he is otherwise known for his often dark and always funny compositions that often appeared on the Dr. Demento radio show such as Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, The Old Dope Peddler, and The Masochism Tango…
Like few other performers, Lehrer had to make the difficult choice between being a full-time recording artist and teaching math. Until 2001, when he retired, he was on the faculty at UC-Santa Cruz.
Below Lehrer in action more recently (1997), as he revisits some of his more advanced math songs, Calculus specifically, written in the 1940’s. This and other videos are available on archive.org.
See also these lyrics for various Tom Lehrer songs including Silent E and L-Y from The Electric Company.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
What the hell? Is Morgan Freeman some sort of Man Out of Time? He looks exactly the same as he did in the 70’s
Tom Lehrer is King. Recorded one of the most popular/best selling comedy albums in one afternoon for pennies. He’s a humble genius.
I’ll have a telegram sandwich, please, with a side of transistors.
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