Tom Lehrer, the master of satirical song who sang of the Cold War, dies.

American musician and writer Tom Lehrer , known for his witty satires of current political and social issues, has died at the age of 97, the New York Times reports. A Harvard -educated mathematician, Lehrer wrote darkly humorous songs that became popular in the 1950s and 1960s, influencing modern comedians such as Weird Al Yankovich.

Born in Manhattan in 1928, he was a classically trained pianist. Although he achieved great success with his musical works, he devoted most of his life to academia, teaching at Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the University of California. He also taught mathematics and musical theater courses at the University of California from 1972 to 2001.

A brilliant student, Lehrer graduated early from the Loomis Chaffee School in Connecticut and majored in mathematics at Harvard, where he earned his bachelor's degree at the age of 18. It was there that he began writing song lyrics to entertain his friends.

One of his most famous songs was 'The Elements' , a list of the chemical elements set to the melody of 'I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General' from 'The Pirates of Penzance', the comic opera by Gilbert and Sullivan. Also very popular were 'The Masochism Tango', in which the singer extols the violent passions of his beloved ("The touch of your lips hurts me, my dear / But much more the touch of your whips, my dear..."), and the irreverent 'I Hold Your Hand in Mine, I Got It From Agnes' where he sang about the transmission of a venereal disease.

Also popular was 'Poisoning Pigeons in the Park', which evokes a couple enjoying the springtime pastime of euthanizing pigeons with strychnine: "It only takes a pinch!" Another song, 'Folksong Army', mocked the protesters of the 1960s, but he later became an activist himself, writing pieces like 'Who's Next', about nuclear weapons, and 'Pollution', which warned that "you can use the last of the toothpaste and then rinse your mouth out with industrial waste."

In 1953, he compiled many of his songs on "Songs by Tom Lehrer," a mail-order record that became a widespread word-of-mouth success, selling half a million copies. The following year, the BBC banned most of the album's songs from broadcast due to their controversial nature.

Following the album's success, Lehrer began playing in nightclubs in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, and at anti-war and left-wing acts. He also wrote songs for the American edition of the British satirical talk show 'That Was the Week That Was,' which were released on another album in 1965. These included the controversial 'Vatican Rag,' a ragtime Catholic hymn that mocked the Church, and the anti-nuclear 'We Will All Go Together When We Go,' which sang: "Oh, we'll all go together when we go fry / We'll be potato chips before long / There'll be no more misery / When the world's our spit / Yeah, we'll all go together when we go fry."

In the late 1960s, he stopped composing music, although he returned to performing briefly in 1972 for a public television children's program, The Electric Company. "I estimate I wrote 37 songs in 20 years, and that's not exactly a full-time job. Every once in a while I'd write something, and every once in a while I wouldn't. The latter outweighed the former," he said wryly of his legacy.

In 2020, he placed the copyrights to his songs in the public domain, allowing anyone to perform, record, or interpret his work for free. He also relinquished all rights to his recordings , as he explained in a statement posted on his website at the time: "In short, I no longer retain any rights to any of my songs. So please help yourselves and don't send me any money." He also warned that the website would be "shut down in the not-too-distant future," which has yet to happen.

"Tom Lehrer is the most brilliant satirist ever recorded," musicologist Barry Hansen, who co-produced the 2000 box set 'The Remains of Tom Lehrer,' once said.