Tom Lehrer, song satirist and mathematician, dies at 97

Tom Lehrer, a song satirist who gained a popular following in the 1950s and ’60s lampooning marriage, politics, racism and the Cold War, and then largely abandoned his music career to return to teaching math at Harvard and other universities, has died at 97. His songs included “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park,” “The Old Dope Peddler,” “Be Prepared” in which he mocked the Boy Scouts and “The Vatican Rag,” in which Lehrer poked at the rites and ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church. But he attacked in such an erudite, even polite, manner that almost no one objected. Longtime friend David Herder said Lehrer died Saturday at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.