A couple of days ago I was saddened but not surprised to learn that Tom Lehrer had died. He was 97 years old, after all. He remarked many years ago that “It is sobering to consider that when Mozart was my age he had already been dead for a year,” but he went on to surpass the lifespans of nearly every well-known writer of music. Irving Berlin and Elliott Carter broke the century mark, but that’s about it. His songwriting career was only a short interlude in a long academic career, but his fans know nearly all of his thirty or so songs.

The lyrics of those songs are widely quoted and discussed, but not as much is said about his music. He set his satirical lyrics to tunes that are inventive, catchy, and full of solid musicianship. I’d like to say a few things about that music, to restore a bit of balance.

The most obvious feature of his music is his ability to imitate different styles as the song required. “So Long, Mom” perfectly reflects the enthusiastic, slightly martial tone of George M. Cohan’s patriotic songs. “She’s My Girl” follows the old sentimental ballad style. It isn’t hard to imagine “The Vatican Rag” played by Glenn Miller. Many of his songs are waltz-like, but “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” is in a distinct style from the explicitly Viennese “Wiener Schnitzel Waltz.” “In Old Mexico” has a definite Hispanic sound, using the Spanish scale which I’ve discussed before.

Another conspicuous feature is the contrast of the innocent-sounding tunes with the satirical lyrics. But those tunes hide things that deserve careful listening. Lehrer’s instrument was the piano, and the chords for most of his songs are complex enough to give a guitarist fits. In “We Will All Go Together When We Go,” he takes the tune up from F to G-flat major, a common move in songwriting, but then he uses a bold modulation to land in E major! The “old maelstrom” interlude then takes the song back to F major. In the interlude of “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” he lets the harmony take full control, as the tune stays on the note G for six measures, followed by six measures of A. It sounds as if it should be boring, but it isn’t.

The main part of “The Old Dope Peddler” is more or less in the Mixolydian mode, giving the tune a dreamlike quality, all the better to contrast with what the peddler is doing. In “I Hold Your Hand in Mine,” the shifting harmonies add to the growing gruesomeness of the lyrics. The song starts off in a safe F major, but the words “I take a healthy bite” come with an A major chord, which moves the tune into D minor. On “The night you died,” the key abruptly jumps from F to A-flat.

Covers of his songs using instruments of the guitar family often make significant changes for the sake of playability. Covering his songs is good (and fully legal, since he released all his songs into the public domain), but try to hear the originals occasionally so you’ll hear them as he intended.

With brilliant words and music to match, Tom Lehrer could have been the top musical satirist of the twentieth century if he hadn’t given it up so soon. Some would say he was anyway.