Watch Cher Play All the Major Parts in a 12-Minute Remake of West Side Story (1978)

in Gender, Music, Television, Theatre | January 9th, 2023

Cher, the monony­mous God­dess of Pop, gift­ed the small screens of the 70s with a lot of over-the-top glam­our.

Her work eth­ic, comedic flair and unapolo­getic embrace of camp helped her stand out from the crowd, con­fer­ring the fame she had longed for since child­hood, when she com­man­deered her 5th grade class­mates for an unof­fi­cial, and, from the sounds of it, all-female pro­duc­tion of Okla­homa, cov­er­ing the male roles her­self when the boys declined to par­tic­i­pate.

Some twen­ty years lat­er, she was a house­hold name — one that was no longer append­ed to that of ex-hus­band Son­ny Bono, co-host of the pop­u­lar epony­mous vari­ety hour in which they sang, hammed their way through goofy skits, and bust­ed each other’s chops to the delight of the live stu­dio audi­ence.

The 1978 tele­vi­sion event Cher…special found her bring­ing many of those same tal­ents to bear, along with coun­try star Dol­ly Par­ton, rock­er Rod Stew­art, out­ré glam band, The Tubes, and the crowd-pleas­ing array of span­gled, skin-bar­ing Bob Mack­ie designs that defined her look.

More shock­ing than any of Mackie’s cre­ations or the Musi­cal Bat­tle to Save Cher’s Soul, a set piece where­in Par­ton and a gospel choir endeav­or to coax the diva from a kinky dis­co hellscape, is the star’s 12-and-a-half minute solo ver­sion of West Side Sto­ry, above.

This is no mere med­ley. Cher puts the big pot in the lit­tle, don­ning mul­ti­ple wigs, a fac­sim­i­le of the chaste white par­ty dress Natal­ie Wood wore to the dance at the gym, and flats (!) to embody Tony, Maria, Ani­ta, Bernar­do and var­i­ous Jets, sans irony.

Some of Stephen Sond­heim’s award-win­ning songs have been trans­posed to a dif­fer­ent key to accom­mo­date Cher’s con­tral­to, and when they haven’t, her famous voice is stretched a bit thin.

Vocal­ly, she makes a more con­vinc­ing Jet than she does the ingenue, Maria.

(Speak­ing of which, let’s not for­get that that’s ghost singer Marni Nixon, not Wood, as Maria on the 1961 film’s sound­track…)

Why West Side Sto­ry?

Why not God­spell or Jesus Christ Super­star? Wouldn’t those fit bet­ter the­mat­i­cal­ly with the por­tion of the spe­cial that has Dol­ly and a white-robed cho­rus bat­tling the denizens of Satan’s sexy playpen?

Two words:

1. Vari­ety. That’s what Cher was ped­dling in the 70s.

2. Nos­tal­gia. As Cher recalls in On the Dance Floor: Spin­ning Out on Screen:

I remem­ber danc­ing around my liv­ing room to West Side Sto­ry (1961). I would sing all the parts and dance every sin­gle dance, when there was no one else around.

That admis­sion helps us reframe the cringe fac­tor. Before ye cast the first stone, think: hast thou nev­er stood before a mir­ror singing into a hair­brush?

And if, by some chance, you’re unfa­mil­iar with West Side Sto­ry’s drama­tis per­son­ae and plot, don’t look to Cher for clar­i­fi­ca­tion.

Instead, we refer you to Romeo and Juli­et, and for some mod­ern con­text touch­ing on green screens, gen­der­flu­id­i­ty, and the col­or-con­scious cast­ing of the 2021 remake, the below episode of Chris Frank’s snarky Bad Music Video The­ater.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

David Bowie and Cher Sing Duet of “Young Amer­i­cans” and Oth­er Songs on 1975 Vari­ety Show

Leonard Bern­stein Awk­ward­ly Turns the Screws on Tenor Jose Car­reras While Record­ing West Side Sto­ry (1984)

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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What’s Entering the Public Domain in 2023: Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, Franz Kafka’s Amerika & More

in Books, Film, Music | January 4th, 2023

It’s safe to say that few, if any, of us alive today were doing any movie-going in 1927. But that should­n’t stop us from rec­og­niz­ing the impor­tance of that year to cin­e­ma itself. It saw the release of, among oth­er pic­tures, The Lodger, with which the young Alfred Hitch­cock first ful­ly assem­bled his sig­na­ture mechan­ics of sus­pense; Metrop­o­lis, Fritz Lang’s still-influ­en­tial vision of Art Deco dystopia; F. W. Mur­nau’s Sun­rise, a lav­ish roman­tic dra­ma com­plete with sound effects; and even the very first fea­ture-length “talkie,” The Jazz Singer star­ring Al Jol­son. And don’t even get us start­ed on what a year 1927 was for lit­er­a­ture.

Rather, take it from Hyper­al­ler­gic’s Rhea Nay­yar, who high­lights Franz Kafka’s posthu­mous­ly pub­lished first nov­el Ameri­ka, which is now “con­sid­ered one of his more real­is­tic and humor­ous works.” Nay­yar also men­tions Vir­ginia Woolf’s much bet­ter-known To the Light­house, which, like Ameri­ka as well as all the afore­men­tioned films, has just entered the pub­lic domain in the Unit­ed States in 2023 for any­one to enjoy and use as they please.

So has Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Case-Book of Sher­lock Holmes, the final book of sto­ries fea­tur­ing that icon­ic detec­tive, Ernest Hem­ing­way’s col­lec­tion Men With­out Women, Her­mann Hes­se’s Der Step­pen­wolf, and even the very first Hardy Boys nov­el, The Tow­er Trea­sure.

You’ll find many such notable books, movies, and musi­cal com­po­si­tions — that last group includ­ing such immor­tal tunes as “The Best Things in Life are Free,” “Puttin’ on the Ritz” and “(I Scream You Scream, We All Scream for) Ice Cream” — round­ed up here by Jen­nifer Jenk­ins, direc­tor of Duke Law School’s Cen­ter for the Study of the Pub­lic Domain. She also explains why we should care: “1927 was a long time ago. The vast major­i­ty of works from 1927 are out of cir­cu­la­tion. When they enter the pub­lic domain in 2023, any­one can res­cue them from obscu­ri­ty and make them avail­able, where we can all dis­cov­er, enjoy, and breathe new life into them.” We know that many works cre­at­ed in 1927 have stood the test of time; now to find out what they’ll inspire us to cre­ate in 2023.

Find a list of impor­tant works enter­ing the pub­lic domain here.

via Duke Uni­ver­si­ty Law School

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Lodger: Alfred Hitchcock’s First Tru­ly ‘Hitch­cock­ian’ Movie (1927)

Metrop­o­lis: Watch Fritz Lang’s 1927 Mas­ter­piece

Free: F. W. Murnau’s Sun­rise, the 1927 Mas­ter­piece Vot­ed the 5th Best Movie of All Time

Why Should We Read Vir­ginia Woolf? A TED-Ed Ani­ma­tion Makes the Case

Franz Kaf­ka: An Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to His Lit­er­ary Genius

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Joni Mitchell’s Catalog of Albums Now on YouTube: Stream Them Online

in Music, YouTube | January 4th, 2023

2022 — anoth­er dif­fi­cult year for so many — has drawn to a close.

While not a rem­e­dy for all the hard­ships and pri­va­tions we’ve been privy to, Joni Mitchell’s music remains good med­i­cine. Lis­ten­ing to her always makes us feel more con­nect­ed, reflec­tive and calm for at least an hour or two.

Lucky us. The beloved singer-song­writer has giv­en us a New Year’s gift — all her albums post­ed to her offi­cial Youtube chan­nel.

What a love­ly way to ush­er the old year off­stage, and qui­et­ly wel­come the new.

We all have our alle­giances, though many who iden­ti­fy as fans may dis­cov­er they’ve missed a cou­ple releas­es along the way.

She has, to date, released 19 stu­dio albums, 5 live albums, and an EP, as well as inspir­ing 2 trib­ute albums. A recent remark on Elton John’s Rock­et Hour left us hope­ful that more may be in the off­ing.

Sir Elton is but one of many well known musi­cians who are unabashed Mitchell fans. Artists as diverse as Har­ry Styles, k.d. lang, and Her­bie Han­cock have writ­ten songs in response to their favorite Joni cuts.

And the inter­net teems with cov­ers from both heavy hit­ters and unknowns. (See them orga­nized by song title on Mitchel­l’s web­site, where “Both Sides Now” remains the champ with a whop­ping 1576 ren­di­tions.)

Her fourth album, 1971’s Blue, seems to gar­ner the most fer­vent praise…

Tay­lor Swift: She wrote it about her deep­est pains and most haunt­ing demons. Songs like ‘Riv­er,’ which is just about her regrets and doubts of her­self – I think this album is my favorite because it explores some­body’s soul so deeply.”

James Tay­lor:  I said it prob­a­bly too many times that Joni is like, you tap the tree, and you know, it’s like maple syrup. This stuff, this nec­tar comes out of the most unusu­al places.

Jew­el: On Blue, you hear every­thing she expe­ri­enced, the highs and the lows. It’s such a lone­ly album — not in the “I don’t have any friends” sense but in the sense that you’re a lit­tle bit removed, and always watch­ing. It takes a lot of courage to be that hon­est, espe­cial­ly as a woman. 

Prince on The Hiss­ing of Sum­mer Lawns:

It was the last album I loved all the way through.

Boy George on Court and Spark:

I’ve bought this for many peo­ple because it is prob­a­bly her most acces­si­ble [album]. I love unusu­al voic­es and I’ve sat and cried to so many of her songs. My favorite is Car On A Hill because I’ve done what it’s about: wait­ed for the boyfriend to turn up as the cars go by.

Björk on 1977’s dou­ble album, Don Juan’s Reck­less Daugh­ter and Heji­ra:

I think it was that acci­den­tal thing in Ice­land, where the wrong albums arrive to shore, because I was obsessed with Don Juan’s Reck­less Daugh­ter and Heji­ra as a teenag­er. I hear much more of her in those albums. She almost made her own type of music style with those, it’s more a wom­an’s world.”

Sis­ters Danielle and Este Haim on 1974’s live album Miles of Aisles:

There’s a lit­tle bit of every­thing. Songs from all her albums up until then, and she’s play­ing them with the L.A. Express, which was this amaz­ing jazz band… a reimag­in­ing of a lot of her ear­ly work through this jazz lens.

Enjoy a love­ly wan­der through Joni Mitchell’s oeu­vre here. When you click on this page, scroll down to the “Albums & Sin­gles” sec­tion, and then move (from left to right) through the entire discog­ra­phy.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Joni Mitchell Tells Elton John the Sto­ries Behind Her Icon­ic Songs: “Both Sides Now,” “Carey” & More

Watch the Full Set of Joni Mitchell’s Amaz­ing Come­back Per­for­mance at the New­port Folk Fes­ti­val

Songs by Joni Mitchell Re-Imag­ined as Pulp Fic­tion Book Cov­ers & Vin­tage Movie Posters

Hear Demos & Out­takes of Joni Mitchell’s Blue on the 50th Anniver­sary of the Clas­sic Album

How Joni Mitchell Learned to Play Gui­tar Again After a 2015 Brain Aneurysm–and Made It Back to the New­port Folk Fes­ti­val

How Joni Mitchell Wrote “Wood­stock,” the Song that Defined the Leg­endary Music Fes­ti­val, Even Though She Wasn’t There (1969)

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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“Weird Al” Yankovic Breaks Down His Most Iconic Tracks: “Eat It,” “Amish Paradise,” “White and Nerdy,” and His Other Hilarious Songs

in Comedy, Music | January 3rd, 2023

Few things could have been more amus­ing to a twelve-year-old in 1996 than an Amish-themed par­o­dy of the late Coo­lio’s por­ten­tous­ly grim life-in-the-hood anthem “Gangsta’s Par­adise.” As luck would have it, “Weird Al” Yankovic released just such a song in 1996, when I hap­pened to be twelve years old myself. Like every­one who’s been a kid at some point in the past 40 years, I grew up hear­ing and appre­ci­at­ing Yankovic’s pro­lif­ic out­put of par­o­dies, pas­tich­es, and even orig­i­nal songs. From “Eat It” to “Smells like Nir­vana” to “White and Nerdy,” there was hard­ly a pop-music phase of my child­hood, ado­les­cence, and ear­ly adult­hood that he did­n’t make fun­ny.

That’s to make fun­ny, as dis­tinct from to make fun of: unlike that of a pre­de­ces­sor in com­e­dy song­writ­ing like Tom Lehrer, Yankovic’s body of work evi­dences not the least ten­den­cy toward harsh­ness or ridicule.

Hence his appeal from his very first record­ing “My Bol­og­o­na,” an accor­dion-based par­o­dy of “My Sharona” record­ed in the bath­room of his col­lege radio sta­tion, to no less an advo­cate of silli­ness than Dr. Demen­to, whose air­play launched the young Weird Al’s career — a career that, as Yankovic acknowl­edges while telling the sto­ries behind his icon­ic songs in the GQ video above, has not gone with­out its strokes of luck.

Yet few liv­ing per­form­ers more clear­ly per­son­i­fy the old apho­rism describ­ing luck as the meet­ing of prepa­ra­tion and oppor­tu­ni­ty. “Weird Al approach­es the com­po­si­tion of his music with some­thing like the holy pas­sion of Michelan­ge­lo paint­ing the ceil­ing of the Sis­tine Chapel,” writes Sam Ander­son in a 2020 New York Times Mag­a­zine pro­file. See­ing Yankovic’s notes for “White & Nerdy” “file felt like watch­ing a super­com­put­er crunch through pos­si­ble chess moves. Every sin­gle vari­able had to be con­sid­ered, in every sin­gle line.” To work in musi­cal form, even the sil­li­est humor demands his total ded­i­ca­tion.

Yankovic has long showed a will­ing­ness straight­for­ward­ly to dis­cuss what it’s like to be Weird Al, as well as what it takes to be Weird Al. For a con­sid­er­ably less straight­for­ward ver­sion, we can watch The Roku Chan­nel’s new Weird: The Al Yankovic Sto­ry. Most biopics take artis­tic lib­er­ties with the lives of their sub­jects, but Weird goes all the way, par­o­dy­ing the very form of the biopic itself while per­form­ing colos­sal (and sure­ly fan-delight­ing) exag­ger­a­tions of the facts of Yankovic’s life. In the GQ video, for exam­ple, he men­tions get­ting the idea for “Like a Sur­geon” by hear­ing Madon­na throw it out in an inter­view; in the trail­er above, Madon­na turns at the door at his opu­lent man­sion, a ver­i­ta­ble suc­cubus ready to drag him into the musi­cal under­world. And it seems a safe bet that things only get Weird­er there­after.

Relat­ed con­tent:

“Weird Al” Yankovic Releas­es “Word Crimes,” a Gram­mar Nerd Par­o­dy of “Blurred Lines”

Two Leg­ends: Weird Al Yankovic “Inter­views” James Brown (1986)

Dr. Demento’s New Punk Album Fea­tures William Shat­ner Singing The Cramps, Weird Al Yankovic Singing The Ramones & Much More

Mon­ty Python’s Eric Idle Breaks Down His Most Icon­ic Char­ac­ters

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Paul McCartney Explains How Bach Influenced “Blackbird”

in Music | January 2nd, 2023

If you’re going to steal, steal from the best.

For most of human­i­ty, this might mean nab­bing a lick or two from Paul McCart­ney’s play­book.

For Paul McCart­ney, it meant bor­row­ing from Bach — the fifth move­ment from Suite in E minor for Lute, to be spe­cif­ic.

As he explained dur­ing the above 2005 appear­ance on the Parkin­son Show, when he and his bud­dy, George Har­ri­son, used to sit around teach­ing them­selves basic rock n’ roll chords, their show off move was a bit of semi-clas­si­cal fin­ger­pick­ing that Sir Paul mod­est­ly claimed to be “not very good at:”

It was actu­al­ly clas­si­cal but we made it semi.

Thus­ly did the chord pro­gres­sions of Bach’s Bour­ree in E minor  — a piece which “I nev­er knew the title of, which George and I had learned to play at an ear­ly age; he bet­ter than me actu­al­ly”  — inspire Black­bird:

Part of its struc­ture is a par­tic­u­lar har­mon­ic thing between the melody and the bass line which intrigued me. Bach was always one of our favorite com­posers; we felt we had a lot in com­mon with him. For some rea­son we thought his music was very sim­i­lar to ours and we latched on to him amaz­ing­ly quick­ly. We also liked the sto­ries of him being the church organ­ist and wop­ping this stuff out week­ly, which was rather sim­i­lar to what we were doing. We were very pleased to hear that…The fin­ger­pick­ing style was some­thing we admired in Chet Atkins, par­tic­u­lar­ly in a piece called Tram­bone, though it was also played by Col­in Man­ley, from a group called The Remo Four. They’d start­ed out in Liv­er­pool around the same time as The Bea­t­les.

This decep­tive­ly slow burn, now a sta­ple of Sir Paul’s setlists, debuted as a solo acoustic track on the White Album.

Bach’s Bour­ree in E minor also inspired Jethro Tull and, hilar­i­ous­ly, Tena­cious D.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Watch Pre­cious­ly Rare Footage of Paul McCart­ney Record­ing “Black­bird” at Abbey Road Stu­dios (1968)

When the Bea­t­les Refused to Play Before Seg­re­gat­ed Audi­ences on Their First U.S. Tour (1964)

The Bea­t­les’ ‘Black­bird’ Sung in the Indige­nous Mi’kmaq Lan­guage

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Miley Cyrus & David Byrne Perform David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” on New Year’s Eve

in Music | January 1st, 2023

Last night, Miley Cyrus and David Byrne per­formed David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” on the NBC hol­i­day spe­cial Miley’s New Year’s Eve Par­ty. And they also treat­ed view­ers to a per­for­mance of “Everybody’s Com­ing to My House,” from Byrne’s 2018 album Amer­i­can Utopia. Not a bad way to send off 2022.

Before leav­ing 2022 behind, we’ll also flag anoth­er Miley Cyrus collaboration–a per­for­mance from this sum­mer’s cel­e­bra­tion of the life of Tay­lor Hawkins. Below, watch her take the stage with Def Lep­pard and per­form “Pho­to­graph” at the 3:45. No doubt, she can sing.

Hap­py 2023.

Relat­ed Con­tent

How David Byrne and Bri­an Eno Make Music Togeth­er: A Short Doc­u­men­tary

Watch a Very Ner­vous, 23-Year-Old David Byrne and Talk­ing Heads Per­form­ing Live in NYC (1976)

Watch David Byrne Lead a Mas­sive Choir in Singing David Bowie’s “Heroes”

David Byrne’s Grad­u­a­tion Speech Offers Trou­bling and Encour­ag­ing Advice for Stu­dents in the Arts

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Dave Grohl, Jack Black & Greg Kurstin Sing Rush’s “The Spirit Of Radio” for Hanukkah

in Music | December 26th, 2022

Once again, Foo Fight­ers front­man Dave Grohl and pro­duc­er Greg Kurstin have teamed up to cel­e­brate Hanukkah by per­form­ing songs cre­at­ed by musi­cians with Jew­ish roots. Above, they perform–along with Jack Black–Rush’s “The Spir­it Of Radio.” (Ged­dy Lee’s par­ents were both Jews who sur­vived Auschwitz and Dachau. Lee tells their sto­ry below.) Oth­er songs fea­tured in this year’s cel­e­bra­tion include Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.,” “Spin­ning Wheel” by Blood, Sweat & Tears, Janis Ian’s “At Sev­en­teen” and more. Find per­for­mances from pri­or Hanukkah cel­e­bra­tions in the Relat­eds below.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Dave Grohl & Greg Kurstin Cov­er The Ramones “Blitzkrieg Bop” to Cel­e­brate Han­nukah: Hey! Oy! Let’s Goy!

Dave Grohl & Greg Kurstin Cov­er 8 Songs by Famous Jew­ish Artists for Hanukkah: Bob Dylan, Beast­ie Boys, Vel­vet Under­ground & More

Dave Grohl & Greg Kurstin Cov­er Van Halen’s “Jump,” Cel­e­brat­ing David Lee Roth, One of the Hard­est Rock­ing Jews, on the Fourth Night of Han­nukah

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Tom Lehrer Puts His Songs into the Public Domain & Makes Them Free to Download (for a Limited Time)

in Music | December 22nd, 2022

“Christ­mas time is here, by gol­ly / Dis­ap­proval would be fol­ly / Deck the halls with hunks of hol­ly / Fill the cup and don’t say ‘when.’ ” So sings musi­cal satirist Tom Lehrer on his hit 1959 album An Evening Wast­ed with Tom Lehrer — which was record­ed in March of that year, not that it stopped him from tak­ing an out-of-sea­son jab at the hol­i­days. “Kill the turkeys, ducks and chick­ens / Mix the punch, drag out the Dick­ens / Even though the prospect sick­ens / Broth­er, here we go again.” If it seems to you that he takes a dim view of Christ­mas, you should hear how he sings about every­thing else.

Now, more eas­i­ly than ever, you can hear how Lehrer sings about every­thing else, by sim­ply down­load­ing his music from his web site. “All copy­rights to lyrics or music writ­ten or com­posed by me have been relin­quished, and there­fore such songs are now in the pub­lic domain,” he writes. “All of my songs that have nev­er been copy­right­ed, hav­ing been avail­able for free for so long, are now also in the pub­lic domain.” In short, he adds, “I no longer retain any rights to any of my songs.” We post­ed about the release of those songs them­selves into the Pub­lic Domain a cou­ple years ago, but last month Lehrer made the songs avail­able online–for a lim­it­ed time.

Not only is An Evening Wast­ed with Tom Lehrer free to stream or down­load on TomLehrerSongs.com — com­plete with tracks not avail­able even on Spo­ti­fy — so is its fol­low-up Revis­it­ed, That Was the Year That Was (fea­tur­ing per­for­mances of the songs he wrote for the Amer­i­can ver­sion of That Was the Week That Was) and the three-disc col­lec­tion The Remains of Tom Lehrer. Togeth­er these albums con­tain all the music Lehrer record­ed before he stood up from the piano and became a pro­fes­sor, first of polit­i­cal sci­ence and lat­er of math­e­mat­ics (though he did teach some musi­cal the­ater as well.)

Giv­en his sec­u­lar Jew­ish ori­gins and his obvi­ous dis­dain for the Mam­monis­tic hol­i­day sea­son (at least “as we cel­e­brate it in the Unit­ed States”) Lehrer would sure­ly get a laugh from us tak­ing this free release of all his music as a Christ­mas gift. And yet, like all the best Christ­mas gifts, it has both a sur­face val­ue and a deep­er one. Despite their top­i­cal late-fifties-ear­ly-six­ties ref­er­ences to things like “new math” and Vat­i­can II, his songs can still make us laugh today. But they can also show younger gen­er­a­tions a satir­i­cal sen­si­bil­i­ty they’ve nev­er known: cul­tur­al­ly lit­er­ate, dry with well-placed plunges into the low­brow, trans­gres­sive with­out cheap cru­di­ty, all sup­port­ed by musi­cal aplomb. Maybe Lehrer decid­ed to make his music free because now, in his tenth decade, he can be sure that nobody will sur­pass him. Find his music here.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Tom Lehrer Releas­es His All of Catchy and Sav­age Musi­cal Satire Into the Pub­lic Domain

Hear Tom Lehrer Sing the Names of 102 Chem­i­cal Ele­ments to the Tune of Gilbert & Sul­li­van

Tom Lehrer’s Math­e­mat­i­cal­ly and Sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly Inclined Singing and Song­writ­ing, Ani­mat­ed

Cel­e­brate Har­ry Potter’s Birth­day with Song. Daniel Rad­cliffe Sings Tom Lehrer’s Tune “The Ele­ments”

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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