Sensible! Part Three!
No one is more dangerous than someone who thinks he has "The Truth". To be an atheist is almost as arrogant as to be a fundamentalist. But then again, I can get pretty arrogant.
"Life is like a sewer — what you get out of it depends on what you put into it." It's always seemed to me that this is precisely the sort of dynamic, positive thinking that we so desperately need today in these trying time of crisis and universal brouhaha.
Any ideas expressed on this record should not be taken as representing Mr. Lehrer's true convictions, for indeed he has none. "If anyone objects to any statement I make," he has said, "I am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also to deny under oath that I ever made it."
It's people like that who make you realize how little you've accomplished. It is a sobering thought, for example, that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.
Things are much more complicated. Feminism versus pornography, for example. There are a lot of feminists who think it is bad, but others think it's good. I have become, you might call it mature — I would call it senile — and I can see both sides. But you can't write a satirical song with 'but on the other hand' in it, or 'however'. It's got to be one-sided.
The real issues I don't think most people touch. The Clinton jokes are all about Monica Lewinsky and all that stuff and not about the important things, like the fact that he wouldn't ban landmines.
(Like john peel playing a record twice in a row, I'm doing the same thing, only with a quote.)
The audiences like to think that satire is doing something. But, in fact, it is mostly to leave themselves satisfied. Satisfied rather than angry, which is what they should be.
-http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer
Reviews selected by Lehrer for his liner notes
* "Mr. Lehrer's muse is not fettered by such inhibiting factors as taste." - New York Times
* "More desperate than amusing" - New York Herald Tribune
* "Plays the piano acceptably" - Oakland Tribune
* "He seldom has any point to make except obvious ones" - Christian Science Monitor
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer
"Life is like a sewer — what you get out of it depends on what you put into it." It's always seemed to me that this is precisely the sort of dynamic, positive thinking that we so desperately need today in these trying time of crisis and universal brouhaha.
Any ideas expressed on this record should not be taken as representing Mr. Lehrer's true convictions, for indeed he has none. "If anyone objects to any statement I make," he has said, "I am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also to deny under oath that I ever made it."
It's people like that who make you realize how little you've accomplished. It is a sobering thought, for example, that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.
Things are much more complicated. Feminism versus pornography, for example. There are a lot of feminists who think it is bad, but others think it's good. I have become, you might call it mature — I would call it senile — and I can see both sides. But you can't write a satirical song with 'but on the other hand' in it, or 'however'. It's got to be one-sided.
The real issues I don't think most people touch. The Clinton jokes are all about Monica Lewinsky and all that stuff and not about the important things, like the fact that he wouldn't ban landmines.
(Like john peel playing a record twice in a row, I'm doing the same thing, only with a quote.)
The audiences like to think that satire is doing something. But, in fact, it is mostly to leave themselves satisfied. Satisfied rather than angry, which is what they should be.
-http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer
Reviews selected by Lehrer for his liner notes
* "Mr. Lehrer's muse is not fettered by such inhibiting factors as taste." - New York Times
* "More desperate than amusing" - New York Herald Tribune
* "Plays the piano acceptably" - Oakland Tribune
* "He seldom has any point to make except obvious ones" - Christian Science Monitor
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer
posted by Tristan Tzara at 9:34 PM
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