Comment by ninjin
2 years ago
Good question. I have heard it referenced multiple times, but that does not make it true. Wikiquote cites The Sydney Morning Herald [1], but that is probably not a great source. I did a bit of digging online and also found The Guardian mentioning it too around the same time [2] (some twenty or so years ago). But I do not have a source that I would be willing to bet my life on.
[1]: https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/stop-cla...
[2]: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2000/jul/31/artsfeatures...
This feels like a rabbit hole best left to proper quote investigators (and a timely one at that). Lehrer is alive though (unlike a certain someone...), so maybe one could even ask him?
Do you have a source questioning the authenticity? Not asking you to prove a negative here, just asking since I did not find one skimming a few pages on DuckDuckGo.
https://www.avclub.com/tom-lehrer-1798208112
Excellent! Thank you! Right from the man himself: "I've said that political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Prize." So his objection is not to the quote itself, but rather the implication that he would have retired as a form of protest in relation to said quote.
Indeed, that must have been the source of my confusion.
That article is a gem; thanks for linking!