Tom Lehrer - A Christmas Carol

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Christmas time is here, by golly
Disapproval would be folly
Deck the halls with hunks of holly
Fill the cup and don't say when

Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens
Mix the punch, drag out the Dickens
Even though the prospect sickens
Brother, here we go again

On Christmas Day you can't get sore
Your fellow man you must adore
There's time to rob him all the more
The other three hundred and sixty-four

Relations, sparing no expense, 'll
Send some useless old utensil
Or a matching pen and pencil
("Just the thing I need, how nice!")

It doesn't matter how sincere it is
Nor how heart felt the spirit
Sentiment will not endear it
What's important is the price

Hark, the Herald Tribune sings
Advertising wondrous things
God rest ye merry merchants
May ye make the Yuletide pay
Angels we have heard on high
Tell us to go out and – buy!

So let the raucous sleighbells jingle
Hail our dear old friend Kriss Kringle
Driving his reindeer across the sky
Don't stand underneath when they fly by

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Tom Lehrer

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Tom Lehrer (born 9 April 1928) is an American singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist, and mathematician. He has lectured on mathematics and musical theater.

Before attending college, Lehrer graduated from the Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, Connecticut. As an undergraduate student at Harvard University, he began to write comic songs to entertain his friends, including Fight Fiercely, Harvard (1945). Those songs later became ‘The Physical Revue’ in a joking reference to a leading scientific journal, The Physical Review. Influenced mainly by musical theater, his style consisted of parodying then-current forms of popular song. For example, his appreciation of list songs led him to set the names of the chemical elements to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Major-General’s Song”.

Inspired by the success of his performances of his songs, he paid for some studio time to record an album, Songs By Tom Lehrer, which he sold by mail order. Self-published and unpromoted, the album, which included the macabre (I Hold Your Hand In Mine), the mildly risqué (Be Prepared), and the mathematical (Lobachevsky), became a success via word of mouth. With a cult hit, he embarked on a series of concert tours and released a second album, which came in two versions: the songs were the same but More Songs by Tom Lehrer was studio-recorded, while An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer was recorded live in concert.