If you’ve not listened to Aussie comedian/composer Tim Minchin’s Christmas song ‘White Wine in the Sun’, please do. Not only does it bring a tear to my eye when he assures his infant daughter that when she’s grown up her family will always be there for some boozy festive sunbathing, it offers a succinct assessment of consumerist Xmas, expertly strung together in waltz-time:
‘And yes, I have all of the usual objections
To consumerism, the commercialisation of an ancient religion
To the westernisation of a dead Palestinian
Press-ganged into selling Playstations and beer.’
However, everyone from Minchin to Trey Parker & Matt Stone (Book of Mormon) owes a significant debt to the man who wrote the rulebook on satirical tunesmithery: Tom Lehrer.
You know who he is, even if you don’t know who he is. He’s the one who listed each and every chemical element to the tune of Gilbert & Sullivan’s ‘I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General’ (what Daniel Radcliffe did on Graham Norton that time).
He was first introduced to me by a singing teacher when I was about 15. She got me to have a bash at a gay little springtime ditty of his, entitled ‘Poisoning Pigeons in the Park’. I’ve been ready to whip it out in whatever bizarre circumstances may call for it ever since.
He combined pitch black humour with musical influences including British Music Hall and Cole Porter-style musical theatre. Some songs draw on his experiences; as a Harvard mathematics student and professor in ‘Bright College Days’ and ‘Lobachevsky’; in the US Army in ‘It Makes a Fellow Proud to be a Soldier’. Others, particularly during his spell on the 1960s satirical TV show That Was the Week that Was, send up political figures or giant institutions – such as the Catholic Church in (possibly my favourite) ‘The Vatican Rag’. And some just revel in the perverse and macabre (‘My Home Town’, ‘I Hold Your Hand in Mine’).
Like Minchin, his ‘A Christmas Carol’ takes aim at Yuletide consumerism. I’ve gone for a live recording so you get to hear his sardonic, bone-dry intro. And I’m actually not going to say any more about it. Just give it a listen. In fact, the whole of Tom Lehrer In Concert is an ideal introduction to one of my musical and comedy heroes.
Next up, your favourite – some contemporary classical close harmony…
The Human Jukebox 