Line #100 Music/ThatWasTheYearThatWas


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3	''That Was the Year That Was'' is a 1965 LiveAlbum (recorded at the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_i hungry i]] in UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco) by humorous singer-songwriter Music/TomLehrer, featuring songs he had written during a stint on the American incarnation of the satirical current affairs show ''Series/ThatWasTheWeekThatWas''. Most of the songs on the album, as well as a few of Lehrer's older songs, were performed on that show by their resident performers; "The Folk Song Army", "Smut", "Alma", "Wernher von Braun" and "The Vatican Rag" were not featured on ''[=TW3=]''.
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5	This was the only Lehrer album not to be originally issued on his own label; it was released by Creator/RepriseRecords. As part of the deal to issue the album, Reprise also got the rights to Lehrer's back catalog; in 1966, they reissued ''Music/AnEveningWastedWithTomLehrer'' and had Lehrer rerecord ''Music/SongsByTomLehrer'' in stereo.
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7	!!Track list
8
9	[[AC:Side One]]
10	# "National Brotherhood Week"
11	# "MLF Lullaby"
12	# "George Murphy"
13	# "The Folk Song Army"
14	# "Smut"
15	# "Send the Marines"
16	# "Pollution"
17
18	[[AC:Side Two]]
19	# "So Long, Mom (A Song for World War III)"
20	# "Whatever Became of Hubert?"
21	# "New Math"
22	# "Alma"
23	# "Who's Next?"
24	# "Wernher von Braun"
25	# "The Vatican Rag"
26	----
27	!!Hot and cold running Tropes:
28
29	* AskAStupidQuestion: [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Lehrer during "New Math", when, while doing the problem in Base 8, he goes to the sixty-fours:
30	-->"Sixty-four...? How did sixty-four get into it?", ''I hear you cry.''\
31	''Well, sixty-four is eight squared, don't you see?''\
32	"Well, you ask a silly question, you get a silly answer."
33	* BalanceOfPower: "Who's Next?" mentions this by name. "First we got the bomb", because the United States developed the nuclear bomb first. But then Russia got the bomb, but Lehrer assures is that it's okay "'cause the balance of power's maintained that way".
34	* CaptainObviousAesop: {{Invoked}}. One of the targets of "The Folk Song Army" is the fact that most of these songs have rather obvious things that they're railing against. "We all hate poverty, war, and injustice, unlike the rest of you squares", as Lehrer sings in the song, tongue firmly in cheek. In the opening monologue before playing the song, Lehrer notes that it takes "a certain amount of courage" to sing a song about being in favor of peace, justice, and brotherhood, in full SarcasmMode.
35	* CarryTheOne: In "New Math", Lehrer describes a traditional way of doing a subtraction problem: "Three from two is nine, carry the one..." but claims that in the New Math approach to mathematics teaching that was then in vogue, "the idea is to know what you're doing, rather than to get the right answer." As a result, he does the problem over again, with ''different'' carrying of the one...to get the same answer, of course, but he does it so fast that it's hard to follow.
36	* CheapHeat: Since ''That Was the Year That Was'' was recorded in San Francisco, he sings "the breakfast garbage that you throw into the bay, they drink at lunch in San Jose" in "Pollution" and gets an enthusiastic reaction from the crowd. The songbook ''Too Many Songs by Tom Lehrer'' suggests that anyone singing the song should similarly localize that line.
37	* DanceSensation: "The Vatican Rag" is a satirical example. After "Vatican II" showed up, Lehrer suggested that a dance craze in the name of the Vatican was a good way to spread the message.
38	-->''First you get down on your knees\
39	Fiddle with your rosaries\
40	Bow your head with great respect\
41	And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!''
42	* DeadpanSnarker:
43	** "MLF Lullaby", regarding a proposal that the USA and Germany (among other countries) join forces in a multilateral nuclear deterrent force:
44	--->''Once all the Germans were warlike and mean, but that couldn't happen again\
45	We [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI taught them a lesson in 1918]], and they've [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII hardly bothered us since then]]!''
46	** In "National Brotherhood Week", Tom mentions that on the first day of the titular week that year, UsefulNotes/MalcolmX was murdered, which he notes "gives us an idea of how effective the whole thing is!"
47	* DoctorVonTurncoat: "Wernher von Braun" portrays the title scientist as gleefully switching sides in the war and not caring who is using his rockets or for what purpose as long as he still gets funded.
48	--->''"Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down?\
49	That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun''
50	* EducationalSong: {{Parodied}} with "New Math", which purports to be an attempt to make the 'New Math' understandable, but is really trying to make it as confusing as possible. In the song, Lehrer does a simple math problem of 342 minus 173; he overexplains the problem first, then does the same problem in base 8 instead of base 10. The whole point of the song was that it was making math unnecessarily complicated in Lehrer's mind.
51	* EthnicMenialLabor: {{Discussed}} in "George Murphy", in the context of insensitive comments the real Murphy had made about Mexican migrants.
52	-->"Should Americans pick crops? George says no, 'cause no one but a Mexican would stoop so low!"
53	* EverybodyHatesMathematics: "New Math" pokes fun at this attitude, especially the result of the 1960s attempt to introduce set theory in elementary school. As Tom himself says, "The idea is to know what you are doing rather than to get the right answer!"
54	-->''Hooray for New Math, New Math\
55	It won't do you any good to review math\
56	It's so simple, so very simple\
57	That only a child can do it!''
58	* {{Filth}}: The subject matter of "Smut".
59	-->''All books can be indecent books,\
60	Though recent books are bolder\
61	For filth (I'm glad to say) is\
62	In the mind of the beholder\
63	When correctly viewed, everything is lewd\
64	I can tell you things about Literature/PeterPan\
65	And [[Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz the Wizard of Oz]] (there's a DirtyOldMan!)''
66	* ForScience: "Wernher von Braun" is about the career of a German scientist who built missiles for the Nazis during World War II with the excuse that what he really wanted to build was space rockets but nobody would give him funding for that (and then after the war was rewarded for his work blowing up parts of England by being hired by the American space program).
67	* GallowsHumor: "So Long, Mom (A Song for World War III)". The song is all about a young soldier in a theoretical war with Russia. The lyrics include such things as shooting Commies, an "agonizing holocaust", and the war ending in an hour and a half from [[NukeEm the use of nuclear bombs]].
68	* GunboatDiplomacy: "Send the Marines" is all about the use of the Marines as soldiers who get sent in early "for MightMakesRight", and that the USA will keep sending the Marines "until somebody we like can be elected".
69	-->''When someone makes a move\
70	Of which we don't approve\
71	Who is it that always intervenes?\
72	U.N. and O.A.S.\
73	They have their place (I guess)\
74	But first, send the Marines!''
75	* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel is considered a controversial figure these days, partly because of her own self-confessed antisemitic[[note]]Even though two of her husbands were Jewish[[/note]] and pro-Fascist beliefs, and partly because she proved to be an UnreliableNarrator in her role [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alma_Problem as the caretaker]] of Music/GustavMahler's legacy.
76	* HypocriticalHumor: From the intro to "National Brotherhood Week":
77	-->''I know there are people in the world who do not love their fellow human beings, and I hate people like that!''
78	* IronicNurseryTune: "MLF Lullaby", a sweet nursery song about how you should rest easy and not worry about the fact that peace and the human race's continued existence depends on some really untrustworthy people.
79	* IWillFindYou: Given a suitably dark twist in "So Long Mom (A Song for World War III)":
80	-->''I'll look for you when [[WorldWarIII the war]] is over''\
81	[checks watch]\
82	''An hour and a half from now!''
83	* LamePunReaction: Lehrer apologizes for his own pun in "Whatever Became of UsefulNotes/{{Hubert\|Humphrey}}?":
84	-->''"We must protest this treatment, Hubert"\
85	Says each newspaper reader\
86	As someone once remarked to [[Music/FranzSchubert Schubert]]\
87	[[TakeMeToYourLeader Take us to your Lieder]]\
88	''[spoken]'' Sorry about that.''
89	* LyricalDissonance: "So Long Mom" is a song about nuclear war set to a cheerful tune. The narrator is a pilot in WorldWarIII addressing his mother:
90	-->''While we're attacking frontally,\
91	Watch Brink-a-ly and Hunt-a-ley\
92	Describing contrapuntally\
93	The cities we have lost.\
94	No need for you to miss a minute\
95	Of the agonizing holocaust. (Yay!)''
96	* MidwordRhyme: "Smut".
97	-->Smut!\
98	Give me smut and nothing but!\
99	A dirty novel I can't shut\
100	If it's uncut\
101	And unsubt--\
102	tle
103	* ParentalBonus:
104	** While most of his songs are still funny, there are lines he says that are rather topical to the 1960s. An example would be when he mentions that Massachusetts is the only state with ''three'' senators; it's because Robert Kennedy (from Massachusetts) happened to be a New York senator at the time.
105	** "New Math" was supposed to make fun of the new (at the time) subtraction method, by using MotorMouth to make it look as incomprehensible as possible. While New Math was mostly abandoned, the subtraction method he demonstrates in the song actually stuck around, and nowadays, kids are taught using that "new" method. Kids will now understand perfectly the incomprehensible "new" method, but struggle trying to understand the normal "old" method because Lehrer didn't bother explaining it too much (since he assumed people would be familiar with the method) and, as Lehrer himself points out, the "old" method wasn't actually meant to be understood.
106	* PainfulRhyme: {{Lampshaded}} in "The Folk Song Army":
107	-->''The tune don't have to be clever,\
108	And it don't matter if you put a couple extra syllables into a line.\
109	It sounds more ethnic if it ain't good English\
110	And it don't even gotta rhyme!'' Excuse me: rhyne.
111	* PatterSong: "New Math" derives a lot of its humor from Lehrer doing a simple math problem (342 minus 173 equals 169), but over-explaining each and every step of the problem, including introducing set theory to do the same problem again in base 8 just to make it even more confusing.
112	* PollutedWasteland: The whole topic of "Pollution", which is a reversal of how Americans going overseas would be warned not to drink the water there, and how foreigners coming to America should prepare for it.
113	-->''If you visit American city,\
114	You will find it very pretty.\
115	Just two things of which you must beware:\
116	Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air!\
117	Pollution, pollution!\
118	They've got smog and sewage and mud.\
119	Turn on your tap\
120	And get hot and cold running crud!''
121	* ProtestSong: Parodied in "The Folk Song Army". Lehrer believed that protest songs were utterly useless and was fond of reminding people of how effective the satirical cabaret shows of Weimar Germany were against the Nazis. He did several songs satirizing political issues of the day, such as nuclear proliferation, and senator and former Hollywood star George R. Murphy's racist remarks during an interview and other such things, but these were more GallowsHumor than protests.
122	-->''If you feel dissatisfaction\
123	Strum your frustrations away\
124	Some people may prefer action\
125	But give me a folk song any old day''
126	* TheShortWar: "So Long Mom" envisages that WorldWarIII will be one, thanks to the presence of nuclear weapons.
127	-->I'll look for you when the war is over\
128	An hour and a half from now!
129	* ShortLivedBigImpact: [[invoked]] The introduction to "Alma" discusses this. In particular, he mentions Music/WolfgangAmadeusMozart, noting that, by the time he was 37 (as Lehrer was at the time of the album's release), Mozart had been dead for two years.
130	* ShoutOut:
131	** "Smut" has references to two classic works of erotic literature, ''Literature/FannyHill'' and ''Literature/LadyChatterleysLover''.
132	** In the banter accompanying "New Math", Lehrer jokes that he's always wanted to write a mathematics textbook because he has a title he knows would sell a million copies: ''[[Literature/TropicOfCancer Tropic of Calculus]]''.
133	* SubvertedRhymeEveryOccasion: "The Folk Song Army".
134	-->''The tune don't have to be clever\
135	And it don't matter if you put a couple extra syllables into a line\
136	It sounds more ethnic if it ain't good English\
137	And it don't even gotta rhyme--excuse me--rhyne''
138	* TakeThat:
139	** "Wernher von Braun" is one long Take That to von Braun, and by extension to the people who employed him after the War.
140	** "Send the Marines" takes aim at American foreign policy.
141	--->For might makes right\
142	And till they've seen the light\
143	They've got to be protected\
144	All their rights respected\
145	Till somebody we like can be elected
146	** "Folk Song Army" mocks protest folk songs, which Lehrer deemed useless and guilty of [[CaptainObviousAesop blatantly obvious messages]].
147	* ThoseWackyNazis: He references Wernher von Braun's Nazi past:
148	-->''Call him a Nazi, he won't even frown...\
149	"Heh, Nazi Schmazi," says Wernher von Braun!''
150	* ThreeChordsAndTheTruth:
151	** He has a dig at this trope in the spoken intro to "Folk Song Army":
152	--->''I have a song here which I realize should be accompanied on a folk instrument, in which category the piano does not, alas, qualify. So imagine, if you will, that I am playing an 88-string guitar.''
153	** Then he does it again in the song itself, where he also pokes fun at the lyrical version:
154	--->''The tune don't have to be clever\
155	And it don't matter if you put a couple extra syllables into a line\
156	It sounds more ethnic if it ain't good English\
157	And it don't even gotta rhyme -- excuse me -- rhyne''
158	* TrophyHusband: "Alma", a ballad dedicated to socialite Alma [[Music/GustavMahler Mahler]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Gropius Gropius]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Werfel Werfel]], whom he praises for managing to marry three of the greatest minds of the day and having the raciest obituary he had ever had the pleasure of reading.
159	* VerbalBackspace: "New Math" gets a gag out of a subtraction error:
160	-->''And so you've got thirteen tens\
161	And you take away seven,\
162	And that leaves five...\
163	''[{{beat}}]''\
164	Well, six actually...\
165	But the idea is the important thing!''
166	* VicePresidentWho: The theme of "Whatever Became of Hubert?", regarding UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson's VP Hubert Humphrey.
167	--> Whatever became of Hubert? Has anyone heard a thing?\
168	Once he shone on his own\
169	Now he sits home alone\
170	And waits for the phone to ring
171	* {{Wangst}}: Discussed at the end of "Alma". Lehrer had little patience for dramas of the day around the lack of communication and all of the complaining about it.[[invoked]]
172	-->''And the characters in these books and plays and so on -- and in real life, I might add -- spend hours bemoaning the fact that they can't communicate. I feel that if a person can't communicate, the very least he can do is to shut up.''
173	* WarIsGlorious: Done, tongue firmly in cheek, in "So Long Mom (A Song for World War III)". The subject of the song apparently looks forward to "getting the Commies" and invoking some agonizing holocaust on his enemies.
174	* WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer: "Send the Marines".
175	-->Fortunately, in times of crisis like this, America always has its number one instrument of diplomacy to fall back on...
176	* WordSchmord: In "Wernher von Braun":
177	-->Call him a Nazi, he won't even frown\
178	"Ha, Nazi Schmazi," says Wernher von Braun
179	* WorldWarIII: "So Long Mom" is a parody of jingoistic World War II songs, updated for the next Big One. It also assumes the war will be over very quickly.

Context Music / ThatWasTheYearThatWas