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Samizdata quote of the day The other day I received a letter which contained this message: “Darling, I adore you and I cannot live without you so if you don’t marry me I’ll kill myself”. I was rather disturbed by this and even more so when I saw that the letter was addressed to “occupant”.
The inimitable Tom Lehrer, composer of ‘Poisoning Pigeons in the Park’ and other gems.
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Great! Lehrer is one of my all time heroes.
… we’ll murder them all amidst laughter and merriment, except for the ones we take home to experiment…”
Same here! Never tire of the Masochism tango or the Vatican Rag. My favourite line must be:
Sliding down the razorblade of life…. Ready?
They don’t make them like that anymore….
“Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” is one of my all-time faves.
Lehrer is a genius. I have all his stuff on my iPod. I wish he had not retired – there is much scope for his talent today.
“They gave us some trouble in 1918, but they’ve hardly bothered us since then”
This is a great quote. I think I’m going to try to use it in an email today. Or perhaps I should write a letter using it as my inspiration.
Adriana,
How odd. That is one of my fave lines and a brilliantly apposite song for anyone who’s ever left university, “Ivy covered professors…” and all that, though I’ve always thought the masochism tango was rather weak. TL’s best love song has to be “I hold your hand in my hand”. Though I have a lot of time for “I got it from Agnes”.
Nick, yes, yes, I hold your hand in mine is a gem… 🙂
Each time I kiss it I get bloodstains on my tie…
But I think as love song When you are Old and Gray must have the highest cynicism quotient. 🙂
Adriana,
True, for the pure cynicism it’s unbeatable. I think of it as a counterpoint to songs like “When I’m 64”. It achieves this through it’s spectacular volte-face. I mean, it really almost sounds tender, then… Bang! “Because I know I’ll hate you / when you are old and grey.”
I have a liking for lists, continued rhymes and such nonsense and it’s got one of the best:
An awful debility,
A lessened utility,
A loss of mobility
Is a strong possibility.
In all probability
I’ll lose my virility
And you your fertility
And desirability.
And this liability
Of total sterility
Will lead to hostility
And a sense of futility.
So let’s act with agility
While we still have facility,
For we’ll soon reach senility
And lose the ability.
I love my Lehrer CDs and have had many an “Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer”.
Nick M, that’s the one! TL is a real ‘wordsmith’. 🙂
I came across him when I was at university and his appeal hasn’t diminished over the years. Funny to have Jonathan quote him here….
Do I detect the harsh metallic Dame Judi of spambots?
I once managed to work into an essay on the Sophists
‘”Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down?
It’s not my department”, says Werner von Braun’