Tom Lehrer is likely to be drawn into any fresh debate about the New Math movement, which raged in the United States in the 1960s, putting not only students, but teachers and parents in distress.
Lehrer was an accomplished mathematician from Harvard, but it’s by virtue of his satirical-songwriting skill that he gets to sit at this table. Back then, the piano-playing singer launched a scathing attack on New Math with a song named after it. Five decades on, New Math as well as MLF Lullaby, another of his songs from the 1960s, stand as a benchmark in the less-patronised yet powerful genre of satircal music.
This column revisits his music, for there is still an interest in it, and this sometimes manifests in interesting forms. Can you imagine that this includes gaming? An interactive gaming contest called #LehrerJam is now under way at https://itch.io, a community for gamers. Hosted by one Xalavier Nelson Jr., #LehrerJam asks participants to create an interactive work based on one or more of Lehrer's songs. Submissions can be made here till December 1, 2018. Lehrer is now 90 years old, and if he comes to know of this, he would likely cherish it as one of the best tributes to his work.
Many moons ago, when I listened to New Math, my reaction was one of thigh-slapping appreciation. Not because I was invested in the debate. Honestly, I can’t tell old math from new. How Lehrer directs his barbs at the target without naming it was what made it fascinating for me. The song is political satire couched in simple numbers, easily-recognisable humour and a hand-squeezing commiseration with parents. It is a rocket-missile launched at the “mindlessness” of the Cold War. Given how engaged Lehrer-the-musician was in commenting on the political developments in America and outside, it’s natural to make that inference. The New Math programme that sought to revamp math teaching was a small part of an exercise to make America scientifically more advanced than the Soviet Union.
In classic Lehrer style, this song is overlaid with a spoken intro that sets the tone for the “attack”.
“Some of you who have small children may have perhaps been put in the embarrassing position of being unable to do your child’s arithmetric homework because of the current revolution in mathematics teaching known as the New Math. So, as a public service here tonight I thought I would offer a brief lesson in the New Math.”
With the piano played at a quick tempo and brisk lines, he demolishes New Math and the international politics behind it.
In ‘MLF Lullaby’, a song from his 1965 album ‘That Was The Year That Was’, the attack drips with irony. Conjuring up the image of a child being sung to sleep with promise of missiles to provide peace, he takes a sharp jab at efforts by the United States to create a multi-lateral force (MLF) under North Atantic Treaty Organisation.
Lehrer delivers his intro to the song, tongue grooved into cheek. Here’s a line: “Much of the discussion [about the proposed MLF] took place during the baseball season, so The Chronicle may not have covered it, but... it did get a certain amount of publicity, and the basic idea was that a bunch of us nations, the good guys, would get together on a joint nuclear deterrent force, including our current friends like France and our traditional friends like Germany.”
At live performances (videos of which have been shared on YouTube) mention of Germany as a traditional friend would draw guffaws from the audience.
The song ends on a devastating note, bringing Leonid Brezhnev, leader of the Soviet Union, into the picture: “MLF/ Will scare Brezhnev (the ‘v’ pronounced as ‘f’)/ I hope he's half as scared as I.”
