When I sang a Tom Lehrer song around the house, a roommate during my grad school days, shocked by the lyrics ( Poisoning Pigeons in the Park?) remarked to me that my parents had neglected their parental duties by exposing me to such music

I grew up on Tom Lehrer. My parents always skipped the song about Oedipus Rex, but I listened to it when they weren’t around.

When I was in grad school, and sang one of Tom Lehrer’s songs (Poisoning Pigeons in the Park ??) my roommate said that I had bad parents to have exposed me to such songs! My point of view was that Tom Lehrer songs were as cherished a childhood memory as were birthday parties or visits from grandparents.

Someone asked Tom Lehrer why he stopped composing his songs, and he replied that he did so because his satirical songs had become reality. The Old Dope Peddler had a different reality in the 1950s than it did in later decades, for example.

I read another commentary which said that with the bursting of the liberal consensus in the 1960s, and the rise of the New Left, there was no longer a common point of reference.

While I didn’t like it at the time, his song The Folk Song Army, perhaps because it hit too close to home, the following is still relevant today.

We are the folk song army,
Every one of us cares.
We all hate poverty, war, and injustice
Unlike the rest of you squares.

I have often thought of these lines in recent years. It describes the self-righteousness of many on the left to a T.