Tom Lehrer releases song lyrics to public domain (opens in new tab)

"In German oder Englisch, I know how to count down And I'm learning Chinese, says Wernher von Braun."

but some feel our attitude should be one of gratitude /

like the widows and cripples in old London town /

who owe their large pensions to Werner von Braun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTKn1aSOyOs&t=63

He is amazingly talented across many different axes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_All_Mankind_(TV_series)#So...

I know how to count down...

Und I'm learning Chinese",

Says Werner von Braun

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Pretty prophetic for 1962, pre-moon-landing.

...built entirely to circumvent sanctions and fight "Die Swart Gevaar/Rooi Gevaar"... ("Black Danger" / "Red (Communist) Danger")

When the changes came they continued on without missing a beat except their number one problem now was to convince someone to continue paying them to carry on making munitions.

Because they're gonna shut down on Dec 31 2024? Would you prefer them shutting down without a notice?

Me neither, but I think it's a wonderful idea.

> TL: No, I won't. They're mostly rip-offs.

Having interned/worked in three INGOs (Save the Children, World Concern and UNICEF) for a total of ~2 years, and having a family member who have worked in a well-known French NGO (ACF International)for 3+ years, I have to agree with this assessment.

That's why when I donate money to charities, I'm very selective and make sure the charities I donate are NOT affiliated with religion (ahem, Save the Children and World Concern) or any political agenda (UNICEF). The truth in INGOs is that they need constant stream of funding and sometimes, they make up/exaggerate stuff to help drive the donations.

Worse is, when you actually work with people in NGOs, you'll find there is a stark difference in pay and benefits between foreigner (usually white or English speaking) and the local/native employees although the latter are the ones who know much more about the actual problems. Regional directors in UNICEF come and go every two years or less and they always can't wait to get out of the shithole third world country that they are supposed to be helping about. They and their fellow (foreign) workers are also paid very well with car, housing and children education benefits (all of which I'm not opposed to, but I'm sure as hell that they cannot find an equally well-paying job with their degrees and credentials in their home countries). Plus you never find these regional directors and management people at work (meaning, they show up to work like maybe once a week if we are lucky; no, they are not in the field working, which is left to the native employees of said INGO).

>He grew up on Manhattan's Upper East Side, the son of a pioneering necktie manufacturer, James Lehrer

That's just hilarious. I can't think of anything more appropriate than a necktie manufacturer family.

In any case, if anyone is unfamiliar with Tom Lehrer, I encourage you to take a wiki dive and then listen to his music. This guy taught mathematics at Harvard, then accidentally sold 10,000 copies of a vinyl of his songs in a few weeks, then went on to tour the US and the world.

His works remain some of the brightest, most convivial, most haunting and poignant works of song to date. He sings clever happy songs of things like pollution, patricide, nuclear holocaust, arson, murder, racism, plagiarism, criminal boy scouts, disease and crime in Mexico and, of course, the eternal desire of the common man to poison pigeons in the park.

Like "Weird Al" Yankovic says in that article, Tom Lehrer remains the modern Tom Lehrer today. There's just no one like him and the way his songs have remained so relevant up to this day is something I find myself in awe of. He just... took a look at society, grokked it on a primordial level and wrote songs that I will end up teaching my kids and they'll go "Wait, they had these things 80 years ago?"

EDIT: Also, OP title is wrong, Lehrer simply released his LYRICS to the public domain. My copy of "Too Many Songs by Tom Lehrer" with musical notation remains relevant, yay!

In the United States, copyright is automatic and exists until expired. Nothing in the federal statute allows an entity to terminate copyright, effectively putting works in the public domain.

The United States also allows authors (and heirs), except work-for-hires, to clawback copyright transfers and terminate licenses after 35 years. This is an inalienable statutory right, which means it cannot be waived even with a contract.

You can give up the economic rights and these are inherited and you can trade them.

Personal rights cannot be traded or inherited and remain with the author till their death. So you cannot change the text without author's permission, you cannot lie about who wrote something, and author can prevent you from using his art for a different purpose (for example if you wrote a song and somebody used it as a military recruitment ad and you're a pacifist - that sort of thing).

Note: "Satoshi", which is Ash's name in the original Japanese, rhymes with "Pika-Pi", which is why Pikachu says "Pika-Pi" so much.

Each time "Pika-Pi" pops out in the anime, its Pikachu calling out Satoshi / Ash's name. (Sa-To-Shi).

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Some things are lost in translation. Calling Satoshi "Ash" in the American version, but keeping Pikachu's original dub, prevents the American Audience from seeing the level of thought put into this.

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I think you can similarly force rhymes and/or common syllables and/or intonations between Pokemon. There's over 900 of them now, surely there's a song to make some rhymes out of. (IE: Pokerap style)

Were you only rhyming pokemon names with other pokemon names, or could you use other words?

If you can use other words, the trick to rhyming made-up words is to find any word that ends with the same sound, and look that word up in a rhyming dictionary.

Pickachu -> You -> zoo, IQ, caribou, misconstrue etc

Charmander -> Salamander -> gander, candour, meander, highlander etc

Bulbasaur -> Dinosaur -> door, floor, centaur, guarantor, heretofore etc

[1] https://web.archive.org/save

It looks like a pretty brilliant hack to me.

A better title would be: "Tom Lehrer publishes his songs and lyrics online and states that they can be freely used."

    And you may have thought it tragic
    Not to mention other adjec-
    -tives...

    These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard,
    And there may be many others, but they haven't been discovered.