r/TomLehrer

I'm a composer, and I write musical theatre. I constantly get people telling me how I should use AI to develop concept art, to write accompaniments, to orchestrate reductions, to map out harmonies, to write my lyrics for me... you name it. I just got sick of it, and decided to write a song. I was going to write something original, but then it occurred to me that this kind of social commentary is exactly the kind of thing Lehrer did, so I thought I'd pay homage by instead putting new words on an old favorite.

Disclosure: I help build 52lyrics, so this guide is from my own project.

Tom Lehrer’s own archive publishes the source documents: https://tomlehrersongs.com/. We checked the reading text for “The Elements” and “Be Prepared” against the published PDFs and link readers back to those documents. One useful distinction: a lyric sheet documents one text edition; it does not necessarily capture every spoken intro or change in a particular performance.

If that source trail is useful, here is our guide: https://www.52lyrics.com/guides/tom-lehrer-lyrics-source-guide?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=community&utm_campaign=lehrer-source-guide

It is a reading guide, not a complete archive or replacement for the official documents.