That Time Tom Lehrer Pranked the NSA - Source: www.schneier.com

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Steve • July 28, 2025 5:44 PM

The story about how I came to appreciate Tom Lehrer is far too long and rambling to relate here but for a number of reasons “Lobachevsky” has always been my favorite song of his.

It led the to appreciate the beauty of both satire and mathematics, which, unfortunately, since I’m no good at either, I can only appreciate from afar.

Clive Robinson • July 28, 2025 8:59 PM

Bruce and I are of nearly the same age, and it was around the time we were born that Tom started teaching mathematics at MIT in of all places

“The political science department.”

As a drafted soldier he was sent to work at the “Never Say Agency” and he later claimed he used “working on nukes” as a cover story…

But it was my father that sort of introduced me to Tom Lehrer when I was first “picking locks” at Junior School and doing other apparently weird things –for some one who was not even close to ten– that the teachers just scratched their heads over.

My father had a collection of records including 78’s that had what you might call comedy records.

More accurately amusing word play put to music.

The record of Tom Lehrer’s I remember the most and it’s the first of his I remember hearing was,

“Poisoning pigeons in the Park”

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VR9Qm7IXpU8

I was quickly “word perfect” and can still sing it today (even though I sound like a grisly with a sore throat these days).

It was years later when at what we now call “secondary school” I kind of learned the periodic table with,

“The element song”

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U2cfju6GTNs

It was unusual for Tom because he actually used the music from Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Major General” from “The Pirates of Penzance”. Which is kind of a “micky take” of educated military officers who know all about everything except how to be a military commander.

I must admit I was surprised when I heard the news of Tom’s death a few days ago. He made it to 97 which we say in the UK “is not a bad innings”. Oddly perhaps for someone so famous quite a bit of his life is unknown.

Any way having mentioned “Bruce” and philosophy earlier and as for some reason Python is a thing in the IT set… How about something in a somewhat less decorous form from the early 70’s, with Montey Python’s

“Bruce’s Philosophers Song”

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l9SqQNgDrgg

(The Bruce’s were Python’s Aussie philosophy Dept from the University of Wool-on-a-loo — don’t ask 😉

David_in_Toronto • July 28, 2025 11:15 PM

I first encountered the works of Tom Lerher in Middle school. We used to stay at lunch and there was a shred listening station where you could play tapes and records and there were eight sets of headphones along a thin desk. Later I picked up the albums I could find. And book called Too many Songs by Tom Lerher with not enough drawings by Ron Searle. I also fondly remember listening to him on the Dr. Dimento show. And finally, saw Tomfoolery with an amazing (and exhausting looking) performance of The Elements with the singers doing small quick change sight gags for a lot of the element names.

Fascinating individual. Nothing escaped his razor wit, not the church, NASA, scouting, anything stuffy. He had a song about Harvard, may have scored him points with MIT.

Amazing that even with the paper declassified, nobody caught this. So on point that there was a joke left in store after he passed! (Until the next one, cue the theme from Jaws).

He’ll be missed.

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