Them Changes

As of this year, “I Got Rhythm” is in the public domain, so no more making up a funny new name when you record it. What else is in the public domain (since 2020) is everything Tom Lehrer ever wrote, which he did on purpose. A friend was contrasting that with Bob Dylan’s selling his back catalog to Sony for maybe 200 million dollars but I stepped up and defended Dylan. I said, “Look, Lehrer had the advantage of a math professor’s pension while Dylan has to scrape by on a folk singer’s wages.” That pretty much ended the conversation.