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In this episode, we chat with Trevor Strong—writer, educator, and long-standing member of the musical comedy troupe The Arrogant Worms. Trevor introduces us to the musical comedy gem “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” by Tom Lehrer, a huge influence on Trevor’s own work. Trevor points out the song’s “gleeful” subversion of innocence as a template for his own (occasionally dark) repertoire. [Watch the song below.]

Trevor holds a PhD in Education. For his thesis, he explored the concept of “creativity” from a historical perspective, which yielded surprising results. Trevor walks us through it; it turns out that creativity is really quite a modern concept. 

It happens that Trevor himself is extremely creative, his work with The Arrogant Worms but a fraction of his output. His recent solo album, too many songs about cats, is a perfect example. He recorded it all in his own home, using a table as a drum and performing all the cat parts himself because (to quote the man himself) he was too cheap to hire a real cat.

We include one of the tracks (“Kitty Loves Me More Than You”) on the episode, which you can purchase for a buck on Trevor’s Bandcamp account (cuz we can all be cheap in our own way).

We highly recommend you check out the entire album. Yes, he did it at home, but it’s actually very well produced and, not surprisingly, quite charming and funny.