Thomas, B.J. - My Home Town Lyrics

Ah, so homey. Isn't it just like Mr. Rogers?

🎹🎶

navigating the Bardo

My husband, Michael, was a close friend of Tom’s and always said that Tom Lehrer was the greatest pianist he had ever seen. This film shows exactly why Michael thought so....

Tom is such a magnificent pianist and this is a really great example of his skill!

I do hope that when you used to stay with us in Downley you enjoyed sharing your bedroom with a Steinway piano. We loved waking up to hear your music filtering up the stairs!

Love watching Tom’s fingers rippling across the keys as he plays this!

Love this song!

My late husband always said of Tom Lehrer that Tom was the greatest pianist he had ever heard and I think his playing in My Home Town is a wonderful demonstration of this skill!

What a joy to listen to Tom’s beautiful singing and piano playing. Miss you, Tom!

I don’t know if this song is suggestive of life in Copenhagen, where this was was recorded in 1967, but the New York in which Tom Lehrer was born and grew up would have been VERY different, as was the Boston where he taught and studied at Harvard University!

I love “My Home Town” with its beautiful piano playing!

This man is a musical genius! Tom, do get in touch with me soon, I haven’t heard from you for ages and I don’t have a mobile number or an address for you. Best wishes to you and the family from Lesley M-W!

"The guy who took a knife,
And monogrammed his wife,
Then dropped her in the pond and watched her drown.
Oh, yes indeed, the people there were just plain folks,
In my home town!"

Here is my own version of what that verse could be:
"Mrs. Unis was no fool,
Who taught our Sunday school,
And neither was the kindly Pastor Brown;
When they conducted the most unusual definition of church business,
In my home town!"

I'm Guessing the LINE is....He Used To ******* When no one was around...in my Home Town. ....... just a guess

How the fuck does he play this that easily?

As a teenager, he did study classical music. But, I agree, very few can sing and play that well.

I don't get the "sprinkled just a bit over each banana split". Is it literal or a metaphor?

I think he wanted to make the song as sick as possible, so... probably literal, yes.

Cristobal Fernandez he was referring to a drug store owner and back then drug stores sold bandanna splits, burgers,soda ect.. so he was implying that he fed his customers ground up flesh.

We had the Songs By Tom Lehrer album on vinyl when I was a kid,and the cover was done like a newspaper with all these columns of headlines and articles related to the lyrics of the various songs,so there was one headline that said: "HUMAN FINGERTIP FOUND IN BANANA SPLIT",for example.

The bit about Dan the village idiot never fails to make me laugh.

Wasn't he born in New York?

He taught math at MIT for his day job. (Born: April 9, 1928 (age 89), New York City, NY)

It is what you do, not your beliefs: they are all friends, so just give them a kind words.

Okay, I don't speak Danish. What did he say in that bit when he spoke to the audience?

+Zachary Matthew James Something like "I wont sing this line tonight". I remember him saying it in english on another record.
There is no "true" line behind it BTW, it is a part of the joke.

On the records, he said "We're recording tonight so I'll have to leave this line out."

+Zachary Matthew James It means "I should probably wipe that line" (As in he wants to draw a line over it)

My friend Lizard, used to sing along with all the albums in the early 1960s, back in Denver.  Show the universality of the message....

I would love for somebody to sing this to me when I'm sad or happy still works

He sensors every recording after the parson brown line. I really want to know what the actual lyric is.

@Snakebite105 Maybe we should try to make up our own versions of what line he *could* have written that would have fitted. Maybe something ending in "down". Now what might the Parson have pulled down?

audubon5425, while there was no line, there was some idea that he came up with. He decided to leave it out, and tell people that he can't say it live

Yes - leave the audience's filthy minds to fill the gap  ;)

Here is my own version of what that verse could be:
"Mrs. Unis was no fool,
Who taught our Sunday school,
And neither was the kindly Pastor Brown;
When they conducted the most unusual definition of church business,
In my home town."

i like to think Brown could be spelt Braün and the mystery line is “they were just following orders”. a pair of nazi sunday school teachers seems very Tom Leher!

I had an old 10" record of his. Memorized every tune. I was around 10.
 

Me, too! I grew up on his genius lyrics. And I wonder if people like Weird Al and Sean Morey did, too.

Lehrer has said of his musical career, "If, after hearing my songs, just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend, or perhaps to strike a loved one, it will all have been worth the while"

closeupman exactly the response he was looking for!

The line in "Hometown" he is saying is "Jeg ma hellere stryge den linje, ikke?"meaning Ï had better leave that line out, eh?

Dear Mr Lehrer,
Please write a new song for today. In this you can depict the rules and laws that keep us safe, the adverts that keep us identical (tall, slim and under 30) & the underlying, nagging belief that once we were all individuals free to make our own mistakes.
However, please be aware that your new song will be blocked on copyright grounds & will only be released in plain wrappers with the public health warning - "Listening to this song may seriously damage your sense of democracy"

Going on a limb and say he is probably dead.

Yeah i responded to a 5 year old comment. Uf you see this, enjoy the cringe of your young self

@Dutchik He isn't dead, he'll be 91 in April. As a matter of fact, it isn't incredibly hard to find his phone number.

It may well be. I copied and pasted that from the aforementioned Danish friend. I was never going to notice any misspelling!

Think he's saying „stryge“ (whipe/erase).

Tom said himself in an interview that there was never a line there. Whether to believe him or not is a different matter!

Here is my own version of what that verse could be:
"Miss. Unis was no fool,
Who taught our Sunday school,
And neither was the kindly Pastor Brown;
When they conducted the most unusual definition of church business,
In my home town."

The "original" version was "they're recording tonight, so I'd better leave this line out". Whether or not Tom Lehrer actually had a single line suggesting that the feller who taught Sunday school was in any kind of inappropriate relationship with kindly Parson Brown will never be known. But if anyone did, he did.

I'm guessing it was a homosexual relationship, which wouldn't be a big deal nowadays.

He didn't have a line for that so he figured it would be funnier to leave it up to the imagination.

That's his hometown...explains alot.

Ah, thank you. You and your friend have brightened up my crappy virus-ridden day :)

"Jeg må hellere styre den linje.... Ej lige meget!" which means 'I had better control that line. Never mind.'

Special thanks to a Danish friend for telling me that!

A correction: he says "Jeg må hellere *stryge* den linje," that is, "I'd better get rid of that line."

that's Great Thank you for that

Apparently, he could never come up with a line that was nearly as funny as the implication here.

What's the bit at 1:40 (the 'missing line' line), Danish people? (Well, I presume it's in Danish.)

It's roughly "I'd better leave that line out".

Amazing how real genius never goes out of date.