My favorite Tom Lehrer song is probably New Math.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=UIKGV2cTgqA
With its clever lyrics and rapid fire delivery it sounds like it could have come out last year and not fifty years ago.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=UIKGV2cTgqA
With its clever lyrics and rapid fire delivery it sounds like it could have come out last year and not fifty years ago.
> First we got the bomb and that was good
> Cause we love peace and motherhood
> Then Russia got the bomb, but that's O.K
> Cause the balance of power's maintained that way!
...
> ...We'll try to stay serene and calm
> When Alabama gets the bomb!
And since he wrote the "Who's next" the list did grow longer, I wasn't completely aware of, for example, "NATO nuclear weapons sharing states":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_we...
Designated nuclear weapon states: China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States
Other states with nuclear weapons: India, North Korea, Pakistan
Presumed to have nuclear weapons: Israel
NATO nuclear weapons sharing states: Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Turkey
Formerly possessing nuclear weapons: Belarus, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Ukraine (Lehrer mentioned South Africa in the song).
"(Mommy,) I'll look for you when the (WW III) war is over, an hour and a half from now!"
So Israel’s getting one for self defense - «The Lord’s our shepherd, says the psalm - but just in case - we’d better get a bomb!»
Tom Lehrer still makes me laugh until I cry after more than twenty years of exposure.
I haven’t listened to that song in months; think I’ll put it on now. (My absolute Lehrer favourite, together with Wernher von Braun, National Brotherhood Week and New Math)
So Israel's getting tense. Wants one in self-defense.
"The Lord's our shepherd," says the psalm, but just in case, we'd better get a bomb!
But that couldn’t happen again.
We taught them a lesson in 1918 and they’ve hardly bothered us since then!
I do enjoy the fact that now that common core is catching on, people are whining in almost the exact same way that people did 50 years ago.
Except the 'new math' is now quite old math. 1960s math maybe.