Tom Lehrer

With an elegantly nasal voice that sounds almost as if his tongue is literally in his cheek, Tom Lehrer became a late-1950s college sensation with his unique brand of decadent satire. With a Swiftian sense of mixing the intellectual with the base, mathematician-by-day Lehrer created some of the most twisted (and pointed) compositions of the 20th century, including “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park," "The Masochism Tango,” and "The Vatican Rag." Toward the end of the 1960s, the notoriously reluctant performer had retired into the world of academia, but would occasionally peer out over the ensuing decades to give his trademark minimalist concerts at the piano.