Oh, Mr. Nash

"Oh, Mr Nash" - an unofficial Tom Lehrer song for New Zealand

by Robbie Ellis
30 October 2023

In the Southern Hemisphere winter of 1960, New Zealand's national rugby team, the All Blacks, toured South Africa. Sporting contact during Apartheid was highly controversial for much of the 20th century. At the time, South Africa refused to let visiting non-white sportsmen compete against its own all-white national team, the Springboks, which meant the All Blacks could not send Māori players and therefore not a full-strength squad. Nonetheless, rugby was so central to New Zealand identity that the tour proceeded, despite domestic and international condemnation. Prime Minister Walter Nash faced criticism from many in his own Labour Party for failing to take stronger action against the tour.

Mere weeks before the All Blacks set sail, Tom Lehrer played ten dates in New Zealand. Journalist and broadcaster John Berry wrote of inviting Lehrer over for drinks on his first night in the country:

From the moment he arrived, he showed a keen interest in New Zealand's political and social scene. This was now Lehrer the satirist, in search of targets. I had one for him, practically tailor-made. The controversy over the All Blacks' proposed tour of South Africa, without Maori players, was at its height.
"Is there any particular issue troubling New Zealand at this time?" he asked.
I handed him a Scotch-on-the-rocks, asked him to sit down, and held him there for 20 minutes while I told him about an extraordinary situation: New Zealanders, I explained, were proud of the fact that they considered themselves world leaders in race relationships, but there was another pride which surmounted this. In one word, Rugby. This took some explanation, too. He had never heard of Rugby. But when Tom prepared to leave that night, I am sure he had a clear picture of a nation which felt that cordial relations with the Maoris [sic] was of paramount importance, provided it didn't interfere with New Zealand's Rugby supremacy. It was a situation which appealed to his nimble mind.
(From John Berry: Seeing Stars: A Study of Show Folk in New Zealand, Seven Seas Publishing, Wellington, 1964. pp.75-76.)

Tom Lehrer addressed the rugby tour situation on multiple occasions while in the country. In an interview with Victoria University of Wellington's student newspaper Salient, he commented: "Everybody seems to be playing the game. Sportsmanship before morality." John Berry described his first show at the Auckland Town Hall on 2 April:

One of his songs was a satire on American grid-iron football, called "Fight Fiercely, Harvard". He had a knife-edged preamble to it. After spoofing America's passionate preoccupation with football, he added, with a deadpan expression: "At this juncture of this evening's symposium, I wish to pay tribute to the New Zealand Rugby Football Union - for not allowing a little thing like human dignity to interfere with the great principles of the game." There was a great roar of applause, which confirmed my belief that most thinking people - however vocal or silent - were uneasy about the all-white tour.

Berry recounts that later that month, Lehrer was driving through the South Island, came up with lyrics on the subject of the rugby tour, and mailed them to Berry in Auckland. Berry had them printed on the front page of the Auckland Star newspaper on 16 April 1960:

"Oh, Mr Nash," says Tom Lehrer

American satirist Tom Lehrer has mailed to Auckland Star "Show Folk" columnist John Berry a song setting out his ideas on the All Black tour controversy.
Tom writes: "The car I rented to see the South Island has no radio, so I wrote this to keep from going mad." He adds that the song, "Oh, Mr Nash," can be sung to almost any tune:
When the early missionaries first brought Rugby to New Zealand,
It became the state religion right away,
And to the ten commandments has been added an eleventh,
And it says: No matter what -- thou shalt play!
CHORUS:
Oh, Mr Nash, why so rash?
Is the Rugby Union so hard up for cash?
Though you talk about the Maori
In your phrases sweet and flow'ry
I'm afraid you've missed the point, Mr Nash.
When the team goes to South Africa, we all must act politely,
So to all their local problems, let's be mute.
It might be a friendly gesture as a token of affection
If we brought along some blacks for them to shoot.
CHORUS: Oh, Mr Nash, etc.
No, it doesn't really matter what New Zealand may have lost,
As long as Kiwi Rugby players are supreme,
And just think how glad they'd make us if they came back with the title
Of the World's Greatest Non-Pigmented Team!
CHORUS: Oh, Mr Nash, etc.

Fast forward to 2023. I'm part of The FuMP Desecrates Tom Lehrer, a compilation album featuring well over a dozen artists from The Funny Music Project (The FuMP) covering one Tom Lehrer song each. In the course of covering "Wernher von Braun", I came across a throwaway tidbit on Wikipedia that Tom Lehrer had written a song specific for New Zealand. This excited me: I'm a wordy piano comedian from New Zealand! I'm probably the best placed out of anyone to get to the bottom of this story and cover this song. After a not insignificant amount of research assistance from Ashlee at Auckland Libraries, I put together the above historical picture.

A few further thoughts:

I have no way of independently verifying that Tom Lehrer did indeed write these lyrics. It's possible that John Berry wrote a Lehrer-esque pastiche for his Auckland Star column and stretched the truth in his subsequent book. I came across the newspaper column before the book, and the phrasing of "has mailed to Auckland Star 'Show Folk' columnist John Berry" struck me as a nod and a wink to the reader that what followed was not true Lehrer. However, on the balance of probability, I think Tom Lehrer did indeed write them.
I haven't been able to find any trace of an audio recording of any of Tom Lehrer's New Zealand shows. Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision has no record of one - unsurprising given the NZBS of the time would not have been inclined to record someone so scandalous for broadcast. As for private bootlegs, it's possible one exists but I've seen no trace of it.
I don't think Tom Lehrer sang "Oh, Mr Nash" in a live show. The chronology is such that he had five opportunities to do so in New Zealand (16-23 April in Christchurch, Dunedin, Wellington and Auckland). I haven't dug through all of those cities' daily newspapers from the time for concert reviews - the microfiche is easily found in New Zealand libraries but my US location makes me geographically challenged, and I've already spent enough money on library research assistance. However, given John Berry's comprehensive retelling of the genesis of these lyrics in Seeing Stars, it's likely he would have mentioned if they had been performed in New Zealand.
"Oh, Mr Nash" has little relevance outside New Zealand and South Africa so it's highly unlikely to have been performed in any other country.
Assuming Lehrer never sang the song live, I don't think he ever set it to music outside of singing it to himself while driving. As he described it to John Berry, he left the tune open.

To cover the song, I needed to make some decisions about musical setting. As the basis of the melody, I adapted "On the Ball", an old New Zealand rugby song. Then, just as Lehrer's "Wernher von Braun" quotes the Deutschlandlied and "Ach, du lieber Augustin" to evoke Germany, I added some further quotes of my own: the national anthems of New Zealand and South Africa, plus "Waiata Poi", a song which filters Māori dance through a late Victorian sensibility.

Just as tomlehrersongs.com has a comprehensive collection of his officially released songs with lyrics and sheet music, I've produced the same set of resources for Oh, Mr Nash (New Zealand, 1960):

Lyrics: view or download PDF
Sheet music: view or download PDF

And with that, I emerge from this 1500-word rabbit hole of research. Kia kaha.