Tom Lehrer in 1957, as he was becoming famous.
Bright college days, oh, carefree days that fly
To thee we sing with our glasses raised on high.
Let's drink a toast as each of us recalls
Ivy-covered professors in ivy-covered halls.
Turn on the spigot
Pour the beer and swig it
And gaudeamus igitur
Here's to parties we tossed
To the games that we lost
We shall claim that we won them some day.
To the girls young and sweet
To the spacious back seat
Of our roommate's beat up Chevrolet.
To the beer and benzedrine
To the way that the dean
Tried so hard to be pals with us all.
To excuses we fibbed
To the papers we cribbed
From the genius who lived down the hall.
To the tables down at Mory's
Wherever that may be
Let us drink a toast to all we love the best.
We will sleep through all the lectures
And the cheat on the exams
And we'll pass, and be forgotten with the rest.
Oh, soon we'll be out amid the cold world's strife.
Soon we'll be sliding down the razor blade of life
O-oh!
But as we go our sordid separate ways
We shall ne'er forget thee, thou golden college days.
Hearts full of youth.
Hearts full of truth.
Six parts gin to one part vermouth.
“Bright College Days,’’ by Tom Lehrer (born 1928), a now retired American musician, singer-songwriter, satirist, mathematician and professor (in which position he taught mathematics and the history of musical theater, among other topics). He’s best known for the often hilarious and sometimes biting songs that he recorded in the 1950s and 1960s, though he had written some of the songs as early as the late ‘40s. A Harvard graduate, he taught there as well as at MIT, Wellesley College and the University of California at Santa Cruz. In his heyday, he starred in numerous concerts, singing his songs as he played them on a piano.
Mory’s, founded in 1849, is a private club/restaurant/watering hole in New Haven whose membership is confined to those with Yale connections. It is virtually on the Yale campus.
