This week, Tom Lehrer passed away at the age of 97. Pretty good innings, Tom was a famous American satirist and musician. Not being American, I did not know much about Tom until I started surfing the net. In those days things were scattered and decentralised, being a nerd I trawled through geeky humour pages. It was here that I discovered some of Lehrer's work. Clicking on little speaker icons and listening to low kilobyte midi tunes, I remember the Von Braun song in particular.
Fast-forward over some years and I encounter Tom Lehrer again, in 2020 the then relatively young Tom Lehrer announced that he was putting his entire musical body of work into the public domain.
I, Tom Lehrer, individually and as trustee of the Tom Lehrer Trust 2007, hereby grant the following permissions: All copyrights to lyrics or music written or composed by me have been permanently and irrevocably relinquished, and therefore such songs are now in the public domain. All of my songs that have never been copyrighted, having been available for free for so long, are now also in the public domain. In other words, I have abandoned, surrendered and disclaimed all right, title and interest in and to my work and have injected any and all copyrights into the public domain.
I was surprised and spent an evening and then a weekend flicking through the catalogue. While doing that, I felt a growing sense of familiarity. Then it clicked, "I know some of these songs!" songs I hadn't heard in ages. It was a nostalgic trip, I never had the pleasure of meeting Tom Lehrer nor am I capable of writing a biography, but I appreciate his wit and his work and his commitment to an open culture.
If you've not had the pleasure than I recommend checking out his site, there's also a fan run channel on YouTube. Goodnight Mr Lehrer, goodnight.
