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That Was the Year That Was

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 satiric topical songs 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. The album peaked at #18 on Billboards Top 200 Albums on January 8, 1966 and was on the chart for 51weeks. The album reached #5 on the Canadian GMP/AC chart.

In October 2020, Lehrer transferred the music and lyrics for all songs he had ever written into the public domain. In November 2022, he formally relinquished the copyright and performing/recording rights on his songs, making all music and lyrics composed by him free for anyone to use.

Track listing

Side one:

  1. "National Brotherhood Week" – 2:35
  2. "MLF Lullaby" – 2:25
  3. "George Murphy" – 2:08
  4. "The Folk Song Army" – 2:12
  5. "Smut" – 3:15
  6. "Send the Marines" – 1:46
  7. "Pollution" – 2:17

Side two:

  1. "So Long, Mom (A Song for World War III)" – 2:23
  2. "Whatever Became of Hubert?" – 2:13
  3. "New Math" – 4:28
  4. "Alma" – 5:27
  5. "" – 2:00
  6. "" – 1:46
  7. "The Vatican Rag" – 2:14

Topics of songs

Side one
  • "National Brotherhood Week" – race relations in the US, specifically, a week-long program sponsored by the National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ) held generally during the third week of February from the 1940s through the 1980s.
  • "MLF Lullaby" – an ultimately failed US proposal for a multilateral nuclear force as part of NATO.
  • "George Murphy" – George Murphy, dancer, actor and recently-elected junior senator for California. Democratic voters of the time questioned whether an actor with no political experience could function as a Senator. Lehrer also criticizes Murphy's comments about Mexicans working in the US, and refers briefly to the then-nascent political career of Ronald Reagan.
  • "The Folk Song Army" – the folk revival of the 1960s, and specifically what Lehrer perceived to be the futility of protest music. 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 US Supreme Court case Roth v. United States. The song refers to Fanny Hill, which at the time of the recording was engaged in an anti-obscenity case, Memoirs v Massachusetts, that would not be resolved until the following year. It also references Lady Chatterley's Lover, which had been subject to a similar case, R v Penguin Books Ltd, in Britain in 1960.
  • "Send the Marines" – US interventionist policy in other, usually weaker, countries, the most recent example being the deployment of the US Marine Corps in the Dominican Civil War in April 1965. In 2003, former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix told a Swedish radio program that he did not think that the invasion of Iraq, "in the way it was justified, was compatible with the UN Charter," and then had the station play this song.
  • "Pollution" – environmental pollution. According to the liner notes of the album, this was the San Francisco version of the song, featuring the lines: "The breakfast garbage that you throw into the Bay / They drink at lunch in San Jose". The lyrics varied: for example, the version Lehrer performed in New York version referred respectively to Troy and Perth Amboy.
Side two

References

External links