Satirist, songwriter, pianist, and mathematician Tom Lehrer (1928–2025) came up with one of the less inspirational—and funnier—variations on the familiar “Life is like…” formula:
In his spoken introduction to his song “We Will All Go Together When We Go” on his 1959 live album An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer, he related a story about an old acquaintance named Henry—spelled “HEN3RY,” with the 3 silent.
He said HEN3RY particularly enjoyed giving helpful advice to people who were happier than he was.
According to Lehrer, one of HEN3RY’s supposed pieces of wisdom was: “Life is like a sewer: what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.”
Lehrer then explains that this is precisely the sort of positive thinking needed in those trying times, when the threat of nuclear war between the United States and Soviet Union loomed over the world.
He then launches into “We Will All Go Together When We Go,” which he jokingly describes as a modern “survival hymn.”
The song is one of Lehrer’s darkest exercises in black humor. Its cheerful premise is that there’s a bright side to nuclear annihilation: if everybody gets wiped out together, at least nobody will be left behind to mourn.
And the sewer line is a perfect example of his method. For a moment, it sounds like one of those earnest sayings about getting back from life what you put into it.
Then you realize what Lehrer has put you into.
You can hear Lehrer deliver the line—and the song it introduces—by clicking this link or the video image below.
Here are the opening lyrics of the song, as recorded live for the album over two nights, March 20 and March 21, 1959, at Sanders Theatre at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts:
“When you attend a funeral
It is sad to think that sooner or
Later those you love will do the same for you
And you may have thought it tragic
(Not to mention other adjectives)
To think of all the weeping they will do
But don’t you worry
No more ashes, no more sackcloth
And an armband made of black cloth
Will some day nevermore adorn a sleeve
For if the bomb that drops on you
Gets your friends and neighbors too
There’ll be nobody left behind to grieve[Verse 1]
And we will all go together when we go
What a comforting fact that is to know
Universal bereavement, an inspiring achievement
Yes, we all will go together when we go”
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