He remained active and engaged even later in his life. Rapper Tauheed K. Epps, who records as “2 Chainz”, sampled Lehrer’s song The Old Dope Peddler [PDF] for his track Dope Peddler, asking permission to use a snippet. Lehrer wrote back:
As sole copyright owner of ‘The Old Dope Peddler’, I grant you motherfuckers permission to do this. Please give my regards to Mr. Chainz, or may I call him 2?
We linked to his lyrics, although they are slightly inconveniently PDF files, because in 2020, he placed all of his lyrics in the public domain. A couple of years later, he did the same with all his original melodies, ending the disclaimer on tomlehrersongs.com:
In short, I no longer retain any rights to any of my songs.
He also said it felt weird performing his songs in public; he compared it to a novelist showing up to read their book out loud to people. You guys have the album, that’s why I made it. What do you need me for? I don’t know you people and I’m up on this big stage, this feels weird. I want to go home and relax.
Legend.
He also said it felt weird performing his songs in public; he compared it to a novelist showing up to read their book out loud to people. You guys have the album, that’s why I made it. What do you need me for? I don’t know you people and I’m up on this big stage, this feels weird. I want to go home and relax.
Be like Tom 😀
Also he was like 83 when he wrote that response to Mr Chainz and like 94 when he made his stuff public domain