That Was the Year That Was

2012-06-27T21:08:13Z

Sow-crates:

{{Infobox Album | 
Name = That Was the Year That Was |
Type = [[Live Album]] |
Artist = [[Tom Lehrer]] |
Cover = That_Was_The_Year_That_Was.jpg |
Released = 1965 |
Recorded = July 1965 |
Genre = [[Satire]] |
Length = 31:42 |
Label = [[Reprise Records|Reprise]]/[[Warner Bros. Records]] |
Producer = Jimmy Hilliard |
Last album = ''[[Revisited (Tom Lehrer album)|Revisited]]''<br />(1960) |
This album = '''''That Was the Year That Was'''''<br />(1965) |
Next album = ''[[That Was "That Was the Week That Was"]]''<br />(1981) |
}}
{{Album ratings
|rev1 = [[Allmusic]]
|rev1score = {{Rating|4.5|5}}<ref>[{{Allmusic|class=album|id=r82426|pure_url=yes}} Allmusic review]</ref>
}}

'''''That Was the Year That Was''''' (1965) is a live album recorded at the [[hungry i]] in [[San Francisco]], containing performances by [[Tom Lehrer]] of [[satire|satiric]] [[topical song]]s he originally wrote for the [[NBC]] television series ''[[That Was The Week That Was]]'', known informally as ''TW3'' (1964–65). All of the songs related to items then in the news.

==Track listing==
Side one:
# "National Brotherhood Week" – 2:35
# "MLF Lullaby" – 2:25
# "George Murphy" – 2:08
# "The Folk Song Army" – 2:12
# "Smut" – 3:15
# "Send the Marines" – 1:46
# "Pollution" – 2:17

Side two:
# "So Long, Mom (A Song for World War III)" – 2:23
# "Whatever Became of Hubert?" – 2:13
# "[[New Math (song)|New Math]]" – 4:28
# "Alma" – 5:27
# "Who's Next?" – 2:00
# "Wernher Von Braun" – 1:46
# "The Vatican Rag" – 2:14

== Topics of songs ==
* "National Brotherhood Week" – [[National Brotherhood Week]]
* "MLF Lullaby" – An ultimately failed U.S. proposal for a [[Multilateral Force|multilateral nuclear force]] as part of [[NATO]]
* "George Murphy" – [[George Murphy]], dancer, actor, U.S. Senator from California, and [[Robert F. Kennedy]] (D, NY), the putative third senator from Massachusetts
* "The Folk Song Army" – [[Topical song]]s as part of the [[roots revival|folk revival]] of the 1960s; also alludes to songs of the Republican side in the [[Spanish Civil War]], especially "[[Venga Jaleo]]" which it excerpts musically
* "Smut" – [[Censorship]] of [[obscenity]], and the 1957 U.S. Supreme Court case ''[[Roth v. United States]]'', which coined the expression "redeeming social importance" (Lehrer: "I love smut and nothin' but.")
* "Send the Marines" – Militarism in [[United States]] foreign policy.<Br />In 2003, former chief UN weapons inspector [[Hans Blix]] told a [[Sweden|Swedish]] radio program that he did not think that the [[Iraq War]], "in the way it was justified, was compatible with the UN Charter," then had the station play this song.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/07/1060145783214.html|title= Iraq invasion violated international law: Blix|accessdate=2008-11-23 |date= August 7, 2003|publisher= [[Sydney Morning Herald]]}}</ref>
* "Pollution" – Pollution of the environment
* "So Long, Mom (A Song for [[World War III]])" – [[Nuclear warfare|Nuclear war]], [[Mutually Assured Destruction]], nostalgia over past wars, and television news coverage. (Lehrer: "I feel that, if there's going to be any songs coming out of World War III, we'd better start writing them NOW.")
* "Whatever Became of Hubert?" – [[Hubert Humphrey]], then U.S. vice president under [[Lyndon B. Johnson]]
* "New Math" – [[New Math]], a trend at the time in the teaching of mathematics
* "Alma" – [[Alma Mahler]], who had recently died. Composer and painter; wife, successively, of [[Gustav Mahler]], [[Walter Gropius]], and [[Franz Werfel]]. (Lehrer: "It's people like that who make you realize how little you've accomplished.")
* "Who's Next?" – [[Nuclear proliferation]]
* "Wernher Von Braun" – Rocket scientist [[Wernher von Braun]] (Lehrer: "And what will make it possible to spend $20 billion of ''your'' money to put some clown on the moon? Why, it's good ol' American know-how, that's what! Led by good ol' Americans like Wernher Von Braun.")
* "The Vatican Rag" – The [[Second Vatican Council]] and the reform of [[Roman Catholicism|Roman Catholic]] [[liturgy]] (Upon performing this song in the [[Hungry i]] nightclub in San Francisco, Lehrer was harshly criticized by actor [[Ricardo Montalban]], who happened to be in the audience that night. Montalban shouted, "How ''dare'' you make fun of my religion! I ''love'' my religion! I will ''die'' for my religion!" To which Lehrer responded, "That's fine with me, as long as you don't do it here.")

==References==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
* [http://php.indiana.edu/~jbmorris/FAQ/lehrer.disco.html Tom Lehrer Discography]
* [http://www.youtube.com/6funswede Tom Lehrer performing some of the songs on TV in the 1960's]

[[Category:Tom Lehrer albums]]
[[Category:1965 live albums]]
[[Category:Reprise Records live albums]]
[[Category:English-language live albums]]
[[Category:Warner Bros. Records live albums]]

{{1960s-album-stub}}

Wikipedia - Benutzerbeiträge [de]

That Was the Year That Was