science

That Was the Year That Was

That Was the Year That Was is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand That Was the Year That Was rather than just read about it. In short: That Was the Year That Was (1965) is a live album recorded at the Hungry I in San Francisco, containing performances by Tom Lehrer of satiric topical songs he originally wrote for the NBC television series That Was the Week That Was, known informally as TW3 (1964–65). All of the songs related to items then in the news.

Key takeaways

That Was the Year That Was belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect That Was the Year That Was to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of That Was the Year That Was from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

That Was the Year That Was (1965) is a live album recorded at the Hungry I in San Francisco, containing performances by Tom Lehrer of satiric topical songs he originally wrote for the NBC television series That Was the Week That Was, known informally as TW3 (1964–65). All of the songs related to items then in the news. The album peaked at #18 on Billboard's Top 200 Albums on January 8, 1966 and was on the chart for 51 weeks. The album reached #5 on the Canadian GMP/AC chart. In October 2020, Lehrer transferred the music and lyrics for all songs he had ever written into the public domain. In November 2022, he formally relinquished the copyright and performing/recording rights on his songs, making all music and lyrics composed by him free for anyone to use.

Track listing Side one:

"National Brotherhood Week" – 2:35 "MLF Lullaby" – 2:25 "George Murphy" – 2:08 "The Folk Song Army" – 2:12 "Smut" – 3:15 "Send the Marines" – 1:46 "Pollution" – 2:17 Side two:

"So Long, Mom (A Song for World War III)" – 2:23 "Whatever Became of Hubert?" – 2:13 "New Math" – 4:28 "Alma" – 5:27 "Who's Next?" – 2:00 "Wernher von Braun" – 1:46 "The Vatican Rag" – 2:14

Topics of songs Side one "National Brotherhood Week" – race relations in the US, specifically, a week-long program sponsored by the National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ) held generally during the third week of February from the 1940s through the 1980s. The lyrics juxtapose actress and civil rights activist Lena Horne with Jim Clark, an Alabama county sheriff notorious for using excessive force to quell civil rights protests. "MLF Lullaby" – an ultimately failed US proposal for a multilateral nuclear force as part of NATO. "George Murphy" – George Murphy, dancer, actor and recently-elected junior senator for California. Democratic voters of the time questioned whether an actor with no political experience could function as a Senator. Lehrer also criticizes Murphy's comments about Mexicans working in the US, and refers briefly to the then-nascent political career of Ronald Reagan. He makes an additional quip about the state of Massachusetts being the only one with three United States Senators – a reference to Robert F. Kennedy, who was a native of that state but was representing New York in the Senate at the time. "The Folk Song Army" – the folk revival of the 1960s, and specifically what Lehrer perceived to be the futility of protest music. Alludes to songs of the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, especially "Venga Jaleo", which it excerpts musically. "Smut" – censorship of obscenity, and the 1957 US Supreme Court case Roth v. United States. The song refers to Fanny Hill, which at the time of the recording was engaged in an anti-obscenity case, Memoirs v Massachusetts, that would not be resolved until the following year. It also references Lady Chatterley's Lover, which had been subject to a similar case, R v Penguin Books Ltd, in Britain in 1960. "Send the Marines" – US interventionist policy in other, usually weaker, countries, the most recent example being the deployment of the US Marine Corps in the Dominican Civil War in April 1965. In 2003, former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix told a Swedish radio program that he did not think that the invasion of Iraq, "in the way it was justified, was compatible with the UN Charter," and then had the station play this song. "Pollution" – environmental pollution. According to the liner notes of the album, this was the San Francisco version of the song, featuring the lines: "The breakfast garbage that you throw into the Bay / They drink at lunch in San Jose". Lehrer altered the lyrics to suit the city or state in which he was performing at the time; for example, the version Lehrer performed in New York version referred respectively to Troy and Perth Amboy. Side two "So Long, Mom (A Song for World War III)" – nuclear war, mutually assured destruction, nostalgia over past wars, and television news. References a 1904 George M. Cohan song and show, Little Johnny Jones. "Whatever Became of Hubert?" – Hubert Humphrey, then US Vice President under Lyndon B. Johnson, and frustrations among liberals over Humphrey's perceived quiescence to the more domineering figure of Johnson. "New Math" – New Math, a trend at the time in the teaching of mathematics. "Alma" – the late Alma Mahler, a composer, painter, and the wife, successively, of Gustav Mahler, Walter Gropius, and Franz Werfel. "Who's Next?" – nuclear proliferation. Lists numerous countries that either had already achieved the capacity to deploy nuclear weapons or could potentially do so. "Wernher Von Braun" – German-American rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, who had helped develop the V-2 rocket for Nazi Germany before relocating to the US under Operation Paperclip and leading the US rocket development program during the 1960s. "The Vatican Rag" – the Second Vatican Council and the reform of Roman Catholic liturgy. (Upon performing this song in the hungry i nightclub in San Francisco, Lehrer was harshly criticized by actor Ricardo Montalbán, who happened to be in the audience that night. Montalbán shouted "How dare you make fun of my religion! I love my religion! I will die for my religion!" To which Lehrer responded "Hey, no problem, as long as you don't fight for your religion.")

References

External links Tom Lehrer Discography Tom Lehrer performing some of the songs on TV in the 1960s

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with That Was the Year That Was

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what That Was the Year That Was claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to That Was the Year That Was before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about That Was the Year That Was ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of That Was the Year That Was

In research: That Was the Year That Was appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses That Was the Year That Was in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: That Was the Year That Was is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1960s comedy albums, 1965 live albums, Albums free for download by copyright owner, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for That Was the Year That Was outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study That Was the Year That Was in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what That Was the Year That Was means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain That Was the Year That Was out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is That Was the Year That Was in simple terms?

Why does That Was the Year That Was matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study That Was the Year That Was?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on That Was the Year That Was.