Customer Reviews

Too Many Songs by Tom Lehrer with Not Enough Drawings by Ronald Searle

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I enjoyed this book a great deal, and here is why. There are thirty-four songs of his in this book and in most of the songs the piano part is very close to what Tom Lehrer played on his albums. The book contains piano, guitar chords, and the vocal score. I highly recommend this book over the hardback book, "The Tom Lehrer Song Book." This other book only contains twelve songs and I believe it costs more. You will get every cent of your money's worth with "Too Many Songs by Tom Lehrer." The only reason I don't give it five stars is that it does not have all of his songs.

For anyone that has ever heard a Tom Lehrer song and become an instant devotee this book will assuredly help his retirement fund - and good luck to him. For many, Tom Lehrer was (and still is) one of the best and blackest satirists of the 1940's - 1960's. The humour and vitriol in his songs is as fresh as ever in this book and you too will find yourself wanting to Poison Pigeons in the Park, Be Prepared, dance either the Masochism Tango or the Vatican Rag and generally All Go Together When We Go.

There is no neat way of explaining Tom Lehrer thankfully. Just buy it.

I liked the book, as a whole, but if you are planning to buy it, the songs, OEDIPUS, ALMA, MAKES A FELLA PROUD TO BE A SOLDIER, CLEMENTINE are missing. Also, in MY HOME TOWN the line omitted in all recordings is also omitted. A last comment, many of the scores are different from those used by Mr. Lehrer in performances.

Yes, this is the book you definitely want to have! Every Tom Lehrer song you can think of--and probably many you can't-are here in a fairly easy piano format. If you can't play piano, you can probably read the lyrics. If you can't read the lyrics, you're probably not reading this, but you can still see the drawings by Ronald Searle, which are pretty funny in their own right. If you can't see the drawings by Ronald Searle, I can't help you.

The lyrics are also contained, of course. And besides the satirical songs Mr. Lehrer recorded in the sixties, the book also contains the songs he wrote for the Electric Company in the seventies, like "Silent E" ("Who can turn a can, into a cane", etc.) and "L-Y".

The only problem I have with this book is that I believe all music books that are meant to be used for playing instruments should be spiral bound or otherwise fixed such that they don't fall apart. Since this one has a regular glued binding, of course after a few rounds with "A Song for World War III" and "New Math", all the pages fell out. So to the publisher: please make a spiral bound edition! Then I will give this book 5 stars!

My father first encountered Tom Lehrer in college, and I grew up listening to his sarcastic melodies. When I began my bright college days, I found many like-minded Lehrer fans there. This songbook provides hours of boistrous belting with friends, offering lyrics to indoctrinate the ignorant few and sheet music for the ivory tickler of your club. Do not be afraid to imbellish the score, create your own harmony, or ignore intonation altogether; but remember of course to sing with your glasses raised on high.

I bought the song book along with "The Remains of Tom Lehrer" (three CD's and a biographical book). A great purchase for us dead-hard Lehrer fans.

I was delighted that I bought the song book as I can now sing (out of tune) and strum my guitar (rather badly) to many of his infamous songs and annoy the hell out of my children.

I ordered this for the pianist in the family, my 15-year-old son, but we're all just loving these very funny, very satirical songs. Though it's been 40 years since Tom Lehrer recorded them, they hold up well, and the music is pretty easy for an intermediate pianist to play.

The songs are hilarious and perverse enough to really appeal to kids (from 2 to 102). My family has spent many happy hours raucously singing these around the piano. My son had great fun memorizing the elements song and speed-singing it. Some of the songs are dated, and I wish Tom Lehrer were writing new stuff, but you won't be sorry getting this book!

Most people considering buying this book already know Tom Lehrer's work from listening to it, and will hopefully agree with me that nothing quite measures up in terms of musical comedy. Here's your chance to also play the tunes as you sing them.

Well, it did, the first time I put it on the music holder. The binding split and a third of the pages fell out.

Despite that, I've kept it all these years. It's a good collection and fun to bring out when better piano players than I are invited to dinner. It's especially good when my invitee can sight-read and is not familiar with Tom Lehrer's works--last time this happened, she nearly fell off the bench laughing halfway through "The Vatican Rag".

Frankly I think Ronald Searle's drawings are ugly enough to make babies cry, but maybe that's what Tom had in mind, so I guess it's ok.

So I can't recommend this edition for the binding (another reviewer aptly suggested a spiral binder) but if there's no better collection of these great songs, by all means, buy this one.