Product Description
The subversive songs of Tom Lehrer, the sardonic piano-wielding fugitive from Harvard, have corrupted generations of Americans since he first began recording and performing in the 1950s. His uniquely depraved wit has been forced again on an unsuspecting public' via Tomfoolery, the stage revue based on his ever-trenchant observation of the American scene. This new songbook, with old favorites unavailable for years as well as never-published songs, is the most comprehensive ever assembled. It contains the words, tunes, piano accompaniments, and guitar chords for these thirty-four classics:

The Irish Ballad

Fight Fiercely, Harvard!

Be Prepared

The Old Dope Peddler

The Wild West Is Where I

Want to Be

I Wanna Go Back to Dixie

Lobachevsky

The Hunting Song

I Hold Your Hand in Mine

My Home Town

L-Y

When You Are Old and Gray

The Wiener Schnitzel Waltz

Poisoning Pigeons in the Park

A Christmas Carol

Bright College Days

In Old Mexico

She's My Girl

The Elements

The Masochism Tango

National Brotherhood Week

MLF Lullaby

The Folk Song Army

Smut

Send the Marines

New Math

Pollution

So Long, Mom

Who's Next?

Wemher Von Braun

We Will All Go Together

When We Go

I Got It from Agnes

Silent E

The Vatican Rag ... Read more

Customer Reviews (30)

Too many songs.
"Too many songs(...)" contains all of the songs from his three records, "Silent-E", "L-Y" and "I got it from Agnes". This means that all the songs from the revue "Tomfoolery" are included in this book (as stated in the upper right corner).

In addition to the lyrics it has all the music sheets for the songs so that you can practise them yourself.

I would say that this is a definite buy if you like humorous music and/or like to play an instrument.

My copy fell apart.But so did I, laughing
Well, it did, the first time I put it on the music holder.The binding split and a third of the pages fell out.

Despite that, I've kept it all these years.It's a good collection and fun to bring out when better piano players than I are invited to dinner.It's especially good when my invitee can sight-read and is not familiar with Tom Lehrer's works--last time this happened, she nearly fell off the bench laughing halfway through "The Vatican Rag".

Frankly I think Ronald Searle's drawings are ugly enough to make babies cry, but maybe that's what Tom had in mind, so I guess it's ok.

So I can't recommend this edition for the binding (another reviewer aptly suggested a spiral binder) but if there's no better collection of these great songs, by all means, buy this one.

Good, but not faithful to his recordings
I grew up listening to my parents' copy of Lehrer's first 10-inch LP.By the time I was old enough to buy my own records, I knew these songs by heart.But I couldn't play piano.

When this book came out, I figured it'd be a good time to take a stab at the instrument.I bought the book immediately and started learning to play the tunes. Though I wasn't a piano player, I could read music and carefully picked out the notes, measure by measure.

I was happy to be able end up playing these tunes, but was disappointed that the arrangements were not the same as on any of the records.The voicings are all different from what he played, and somewhat watered down.I wish whoever did the transcriptions could have taken the extra time to make them more accurate.

If you like Tom Lehrer, you'll love this book!
This book was the only source I could find for a large selection of sheet music for Tom Lehrer's songs.It includes all the lyrics as well.Songs & More Songs by Tom Lehrer

Tom Lehrer is a True Original
Tom Lehrer is a true original. His songs are hilarious and thought provoking. He pokes fun at all our human foibles in a truly witty and intelligent manner. I consider him a worthy successor to Noel Coward and Cole Porter. I am a music teacher and I've enjoyed introducing his songs to a young generation who have little exposure to real wit these days!! Guess what? They love him! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

I was disappointed with this one.
I bought the book, "Too Many Songs by Tom Lehrer," by, none other than, Lom Lehrer.With that book I bought this one.This book only has 12 songs while the one I mentioned first has 34 songs and is much easier to read.On top of that the other is $3.35 cheaper!Granted, this is a limited edition book, which is what made the price seem reasonable and why I gave it a third star.Both have almost identical piano, guitar chords, and vocal score.Please write me for a more detailed opinion. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 1029 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.Signed essays ranging from 500 to 2,500 words, written by subject experts and edited to form a consistent, readable, and straightforward reference. Entries include subject-specific bibliographies and textual cross-references to related essays. ... Read more

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Chapters: Tom Lehrer, Kurt Vonnegut, P. J. O'rourke, Thomas Nast, Robert Zubrin, Frank Zappa, Sinclair Lewis, Bill Watterson, Mel Brooks, Mark Twain, Bill Hicks, Matt Groening, Washington Irving, Ring Lardner, Dorothy Parker, Lenny Bruce, Harry Shearer, Garrison Keillor, John Kennedy Toole, Chuck Palahniuk, Jello Biafra, Gary Larson, Garry Trudeau, H. L. Mencken, Scott Adams, Adam Carolla, Flannery O'connor, Kinky Friedman, Don Delillo, Peter Schickele, Bill Mauldin, Allan Sherman, Randy Newman, Cheech ... Read more

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Commentary (music and lyrics not included).Chapters: Fight Fiercely, Harvard, New Math, It Makes a Fellow Proud to Be a Soldier, We Will All Go Together When We Go, the Irish Ballad. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 20. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: "Fight Fiercely, Harvard" is a satirical college fight song written and originally performed by Tom Lehrer and dedicated to his alma mater, Harvard University. The song was written in 1945 while Lehrer was in his second year of study at Harvard College and "eventually made him a local hero". The song was Lehrer's earliestand for a while his onlymusical work and was included on Songs by Tom Lehrer, a debut album recorded at Trans Radio Studios, Boston, on January 22, 1953. Starting with a press run of 400 copies of the then novel 10" LP record format produced by Lehrer at his own expense, these records were sold in stores around Harvard Square. In speaking about "Fight Fiercely, Harvard" and the rest of his satirical repertoire that brought him a certain level of fame as an undergraduate, Lehrer says he did not write to gain popularity but rather: I mostly thought these songs werent of interest to anyone! I wrote Fight Fiercely, Harvard in 1945. Thats the earliest song on any of my records. The others were written a little later. I wrote a lot of songs for special occasions ... silly songs, songs about math, and so on, but nothing else that would be recordable until 1948. Lehrer has also said of his undergraduate songwriting: The only one of those songs that eventually made it into my repertoire was 'Fight Fiercely , Harvard,' which was written in 1945 and shows it. I started singing these songs at parties, but never with the intention of their becoming commercial. An urban legend of sorts sprung up which says that Lehrer, who eventually...http://booksllc.net/?id=18737964 ... Read more

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Chapters: Tom Lehrer, Angela Davis, David A. Huffman, Frank Drake, Sandra Faber, Ralph Abraham, Ben Stein, Donna Haraway, List of University of California, Santa Cruz People, Hayden White, Theodore R. Sarbin, Barrie Thorne, Greg Landau, David Cope, Sharon Daniel, William Everson, Norman O. Brown, Lucille Clifton, Wlad Godzich, David Magleby, Robert Trivers, Elliot Aronson, Dominic W. Massaro, Bettina Aptheker, Donald Edward Osterbrock, Jean E. Fox Tree, Teresa de Lauretis, Reyner Banham, Larry Stockmeyer, Donald Nicholl, Pat Lauderdale, Page Smith, Geoffrey K. Pullum, Judy Yung, Gary Young, Roger Keesing, Carl E. Walsh, David M. Schneider, Giacomo Bernardi, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Lynn Sukenick, Harold Widom, Jim Kent, John E. Mcmurry, Sandra Chung, James Clifford, George R. Blumenthal, George Chapline, Jr., Stanford E. Woosley, G. William Domhoff, Kevin Karplus, David Montejano, Stephen Thorsett, David Haussler, Harry F. Noller, Kenneth V. Thimann, Dean Mchenry, Claire Ellen Max, Jim Whitehead, Nader Pourmand, Wendy Brown, Mike Rotkin, Raymie Stata, Robert Stevens, Peter Kenez, Tom Banks, Joel Primack, Gopal Balakrishnan, Rychard Bouwens, Jonathan Beecher, Gordon Mumma, Edmund Burke Iii, Martín Abadi, John Dizikes, Erik Ian Asphaug, Manfred K. Warmuth, Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics, Alison Galloway. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 287. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Benjamin Jeremy "Ben" Stein (born November 25, 1944) is an American actor, writer, lawyer, and commentator on political and economic issues. He attained early success as a speechwriter for American presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Later he entered the entertainment field and became an actor, comedian, and Emmy Award-winning game show host. Stein has frequently written commentaries on economic, polit...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=263285 ... Read more

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Chapters: Tom Lehrer, the Rutles, Shirehorses, Allan Sherman, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Steve Dahl, Spinal Tap, Cledus T. Judd, P. D. Q. Bach, Beatallica, Dread Zeppelin, Apologetix, Jah Paul Jo, Florence Foster Jenkins, Michael V., Rick Dees, One Night of Queen, Miranda Sings, Sheb Wooley, Richard Cheese, Homer and Jethro, J.b.o., Billy Murray, 3 Local Boyz, Mark Russell, Deth Specula, Bob Rivers, Rob Balder, Pinkard ... Read more

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Chapters: Tom Lehrer, Ira Levin, William Carlos Williams, Paul Francis Webster, Eliot Spitzer, Ilario Pantano, Horace Mann School, James R. Schlesinger, Roy Cohn, Mark Penn, Elliott Carter, Joshua Malina, Jon Rubinstein, Ari Hest, Renée Richards, Peter Viereck, Johnny Green, Allard K. Lowenstein, Gary Alan Fine, Robert Caro, Peter Deutsch, Anthony Lewis, Amy S. Bruckman, Josh Bernstein, Marion K. Sanders, James Murdoch, Pedro Alvarez, Paul Zimmerman, James Salter, Kenneth Bainbridge, William Barr, David S. Rose, Alan Furst, Henry Geldzahler, Gil Shaham, Anthony Hecht, Jordan Roth, Thomas Legg, Fred F. French, Richard Grossinger, Generoso Pope, Jr., Andrew Tobias, Barry Scheck, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, August Kleinzahler, Aram Avakian, Ely Jacques Kahn, Jr., Timothy "Speed" Levitch, Peter Cincotti, Bob Rafelson, Orli Shaham, Martin Duberman, Martin Moynihan, Erik Barnouw, Evan Rosen, Mary Petty, Alison Gertz, Gideon Rose, Samuel Irving Newhouse, Jr., Ben Yagoda, Rafael Yglesias, Seymour Durst, Paul Rapoport, Andrew Hacker, Richard Kluger, Larry Schwarz. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 347. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Eliot Laurence Spitzer (born June 10, 1959) is an American lawyer and former politician of the Democratic Party. He served as the 54th Governor of New York from January 2007 until his resignation on March 17, 2008 in the wake of the exposure of his involvement as a client in a high-priced prostitution ring. Prior to being elected governor, Spitzer served as New York State Attorney General. Spitzer was born and raised in The Bronx, to Jewish real estate tycoon Bernard Spitzer and Anne Spitzer, an English literature professor. After being rejected by Harvard University, he attended Princeton University for his undergraduate studies and then Harvard Law School for h...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=21378255 ... Read more

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Kapitel: Heinz-Otto Peitgen, Elliot Aronson, Tom Lehrer, Gerhard Ringel, Victor Burgin, Frank Drake, George William Domhoff, Karen Barad, Patricia Garfield, Harold Widom, Harry Noller, Teresa de Lauretis, Sandra Moore Faber. Aus Wikipedia. Nicht dargestellt. Auszug: Dr. Frank Donald Drake (born May 28, 1930, Chicago) is an American astronomer and astrophysicist. He is most famous for founding SETI and creating the Drake equation and Arecibo Message. As a youth in Chicago, Drake loved electronics and chemistry. He reports that he considered the possibility of life existing on other planets as an 8-year-old, but never discussed the idea with his family or teachers due to the prevalent religious ideology. He enrolled at Cornell University on an NROTC scholarship. Once there he began studying astronomy. His ideas about the possibility of extraterrestrial life were reinforced by a lecture from astrophysist Otto Struve in 1951. After college, he served briefly as an electronics officer on the USS Albany. He then went on to graduate school at Harvard in radio astronomy. Drake's hobbies include lapidary and orchid cultivation. Although explicitly linked with modern views on the likelihood and detectability of extraterrestrial civilizations, Drake started his career undertaking radio astronomical research at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Green Bank, West Virginia, and later the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He conducted key measurements which revealed the presence of a Jovian ionosphere and magnetosphere. In the 1960s, Drake spearheaded the conversion of the Arecibo Observatory to a radio astronomical facility, later updated in 1974 and 1996. As a researcher, Drake was involved in the early work on pulsars. In this period, Drake was a professor at Cornell University and Director of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC) - the formal name for the Arecibo facility. In 1974 he wrote the Arecibo message. Drak...http://booksllc.net/?l=de ... Read more

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Chapters: Tom Lehrer, Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, Steve Martin, Paul Shaffer, Adam Sandler, Peter Schickele, Christine Lavin, Michael Mckean, Steve Allen, Tom Smothers, Julie Brown, Dick Smothers, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Stan Freberg, Sarah Silverman, Steve Dahl, Jack Black, Bo Burnham, David Koechner, Dickie Goodman, Spike Jones, Stephen Lynch, Jimmy Fallon, Graham Clarke, Hjalmar Peterson, Fred Armisen, Demetri Martin, Zach Galifianakis, Charles G. Widdén, Jonathan Coulton, Brendon Small, Ed Helms, Wayne Federman, Miranda Sings, Jessica Delfino, Martin Mull, Neil Hamburger, Mark Lowry, Mark Russell, Eric Wareheim, Kyle Gass, Leslie Hall, Biff Rose, Rodney Carrington, Andy Breckman, Gregg Turkington, Saucy Sylvia, Rob Paravonian, Tim Wilson, Jp Hasson, Charlyne Yi, Tex Williams, Blowfly, Mike Birbiglia, Jorma Taccone, Andy Samberg, Napoleon Xiv, Page the Village Idiot, Chris Hardwick, Tommy Blacha, Red Ingle, Donald Glover, Tim Heidecker, Carla Ulbrich, Dave Allen, Mark Nadler, Ruth Wallis, Nervous Norvus, Harry Stewart, Jon Wurster, John Valby, Paul Rust, Akiva Schaffer, Andy Milonakis, Wally Pleasant, Ogden Edsl, Heywood Banks, Tom "T-Bone" Stankus, Hard 'n Phirm, John Lee, Steve Agee, Vernon Chatman, Ed Haynes, Tim Cavanagh, Alyson Levy, Evan Wecksell, the Walter and Hays Band. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 531. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic (English pronunciation: ; born October 23, 1959) is an American singer-songwriter, music producer, actor, comedian, satirist, and a parodist. Yankovic is known in particular for his humorous songs that make light of popular culture and that often parody specific songs by contemporary musical acts. Since his first-aired song parody in 1979, he has sold more than 12 million...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=18938265 ... Read more