The Brief

LOS ANGELES - Tom Lehrer, the witty and scholarly satirical songwriter known for skewering topics like marriage, politics, racism, and the Cold War, has died at the age of 97.

He eventually left his musical career behind to resume teaching mathematics at Harvard and other universities.

Tom Lehrer's life and carer

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Longtime friend David Herder said Lehrer died Saturday at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He did not specify a cause of death.

Lehrer had remained on the math faculty of the University of California at Santa Cruz well into his late 70s. In 2020, he even turned away from his own copyright, granting the public permission to use his lyrics in any format without any fee in return.

A Harvard prodigy (he had earned a math degree from the institution

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