Oedipus Rex

by Tom Lehrer

From the album: An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer

Track 5 of 11 on An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer (1959).

Duration: 3:43

An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer cover art

Lyrics for Oedipus Rex

From the Bible to the popular song There's one theme that we find right along Of all ideals they hail as good The most sublime is motherhood There was a man though, who it seems Once carried this ideal to extremes He loved his mother and she loved him And yet his story is rather grim There once lived a man named Oedipus Rex You may have heard about his odd complex His name appears in Freud's index 'Cause he loved his mother His rivals used to say quite a bit That as a monarch he was most unfit But still in all they had to admit That he loved his mother Yes, he loved his mother like no other His daughter was his sister and his son was his brother One thing on which you can depend is He sure knew who a boy's best friend is When he found what he had done He tore his eyes out, one by one A tragic end to a loyal son Who loved his mother So be sweet and kind to mother now and then have a chat Buy her candy or some flowers or a brand new hat But maybe you had better let it go at that Or you may find yourself with a quite complex, complex And you may end up like Oedipus I'd rather marry a duck-billed platypus Than end up like old Oedipus Rex

Listen On

More from An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer

  1. Poisoning Pigeons in the Park
  2. Bright College Days
  3. A Christmas Carol
  4. The Elements
  5. Oedipus Rex
  6. In Old Mexico
  7. Clementine
  8. It Makes a Fellow Proud to Be a Soldier
  9. She's My Girl
  10. The Masochism Tango
  11. We Will All Go Together When We Go