Tom Lehrer

Another from the same table top sale as the Flanders & Swann. A 10" LP on Decca from 1952/53. Gentle and sometimes pithy social commentary songs about the old dope peddler, boy scouts and the American pre-occupation with guns, to name but a few.

Wikipedia says  -  " Lehrer was born in 1928 to a Jewish family in the New York City borough of Manhattan, and began studying classical piano music at the age of seven. He was more interested in the popular music of the age, however. Eventually, his mother also sent him to a popular-music piano teacher. At this early age, he began writing his own show tunes, which eventually helped him in his future adventures as a satirical composer and writer in his years of lecturing at Harvard University, and later at other universities.Lehrer graduated from the Horace Mann School in Riverdale, NY. He attended Camp Androscoggin, both as a camper and a counselor.While studying mathematics as an undergraduate student at Harvard College, he began to write comic songs to entertain his friends, including "Fight Fiercely, Harvard" (1945). Those songs were later named The Physical Revue, a joking reference to a leading scientific journal, The Physical Review.
Lehrer earned his AB in mathematics (magna cum laude) from Harvard University in 1946, when he was nineteen. He received his MA degree the next year, and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He taught classes at MIT, Harvard, and Wellesley.
He remained in Harvard's doctoral program for several years, taking time out for his musical career and to work as a researcher at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. He served in theU.S. Army from 1955 to 1957, working at the National Security Agency. (Lehrer has stated that he invented the Jell-O Shot during this time, as a means of circumventing liquor restrictions.) All of these experiences eventually became fodder for songs, viz. "Fight Fiercely, Harvard", "The Wild West Is Where I Want To Be" and "It Makes a Fellow Proud to Be a Soldier". Despite holding a master's degree in an era when American conscripts often lacked a high school diploma, Lehrer served as an enlisted soldier, achieving the rank of Specialist Third Class (later retitled "Specialist-4" and currently "Specialist"), which he described as being a "corporal without portfolio". In 1960, Lehrer returned to full-time studies at Harvard, but he never completed his doctoral studies in mathematics.
From 1962, he taught in the political science department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In 1972, he joined the faculty of the University of California, Santa Cruz, teaching an introductory course entitled "The Nature of Mathematics" to liberal arts majors—"Math for Tenors", according to Lehrer. He also taught a class in musical theater. He occasionally performed songs in his lectures, primarily those relating to the topic.
In 2001, Lehrer taught his last mathematics class (on the topic of infinity) and retired from academia.^[ He has remained in the area, and in 2003 said he still "hangs out" around theUniversity of California, Santa Cruz."

Tom Lehrer  -  Side One.

Flanders & Swann

An LP from 1958 on the Parlophone label.  Intelligent and charming comedy songs from a bygone era.
Wikipedia says  -  "Flanders and Swann both attended Westminster School, where in July and August 1940 they staged a revue called Go To It, and Christ Church, Oxford, two institutions linked by ancient tradition. The pair went their separate ways during World War II, but a chance meeting in 1948 led to a musical partnership writing songs and light opera, Flanders providing the words and Swann composing the music. Their songs have been sung by performers such as Ian Wallace and Joyce Grenfell.In December 1956, Flanders and Swann hired the New Lindsey Theatre, Notting Hill, to perform their own two-man revue At the Drop of a Hat, which opened on New Year's Eve. Flanders sang a selection of the songs that they had written, interspersed with comic monologues, and accompanied by Swann on the piano. An unusual feature of their act was that, due to Flanders' having contracted poliomyelitis in 1943, both men remained seated for their shows: Swann behind his piano, and Flanders in a wheelchair. The show was successful and transferred the next month to the Fortune Theatre, where it ran for over two years, before touring in the UK, the United States, Canada and Switzerland.In 1963 Flanders and Swann opened in a second revue, At the Drop of Another Hat at the Haymarket Theatre. Over the next four years they toured a combination of the two shows in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, the United States and Canada, before finishing up at the Booth Theatre on Broadway. On 9 April 1967, they performed their last live show together. Ten days later, they moved into a studio and recorded the show for television.Over the course of eleven years, Flanders and Swann gave nearly 2,000 live performances. Although their performing partnership ended in 1967, they remained friends afterwards and collaborated on occasional projects."

Flanders & Swann  -  Side One