Schooling: A Recurring Theme in Rock

In the history of popular music, there have been many subjects: politics, relationships, but perhaps the most peculliar of them all is schooling.

While the Fab Four mention schooling in their song Getting Better from their critically-acclaimed Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band record I used to be cruel in my school/The teachers that taught me weren't cool, Alice Cooper's School's Out is perhaps the earliest example of school being the subject matter in rock. Of the album's title track, Cooper once said that the slowest three minutes of his life were the last 3 minutes of the last day of school. Well it sounds rather cheery, the lines No more teachers' dirty looks, and Out for summer out till fall/We might not go back at all tend to slightly allude to the concept of corporal punishment, which would be revisited by other artists.

In 1973 was the next school-themed song. One-hit-wonder Brownsville Station's Smokin' in The Boys' Room basically about trying to avoid discipline (possibly corporal punishment) for violating the school's no-smoking policy by hiding in the boys' restroom to smoke. In 1985, Motley Crue covered the song. It was issued as a non-album single, making it to #16 on the US Bilboard Singles Chart.

1974 was the year when Supertramp released not one, but TWO school-related theme songs on their breakout Crime of The Century. The opening track, aptly titled School, addresses the concept of basically how school is biased and influences the school system has on our youth. The follow-up track, Bloody Well Right, also tends to address schooling partially by assuming that schooling depends on social class and genetics. So you think your schooling's funny/I guess it's hard not to agree/You say it all depends on the money/And who is in your family tree.

On an unrelated note, the third track, Hide in Your Shell, contains a theme of isolation. Pink Floyd's Roger Waters was inspired by the songs on this album, which leads us to...

The Wall
This has got to be the daddy of school songs and is definitely Floyd's signature song. The song, Another Brick in the Wall, is divided into three parts. The second part begins with Happiest Days of Our Lives. In it, Waters basically takes the role of the movie's character, Pink, and addresses the listeners of how teachers were very brutal well his generation was growing up. The second stanza clearly suggests that based on the way the teachers were brought up and the people they lived with influenced their attitude towards the children But in our town it was well known when they got home at night their fat, psychopathic wives would thrash them within inches of their lives. The scream that begins ABITW Part 2 is sampled from their 1972 song, Careful With That Axe, Eugene.

About the children's voices. Bob Ezrin, also responsible for producing the aforementioned Alice Cooper LP seven years ago, always loved using children's voices in such songs. The children were brought in from the choir of Islington School and overdubbed fifty times. They were told to actually SHOUT the lyrics, not physically sing them. The children were not paid for their time due to a lack of a binding contract; however, they were given free copies of The Wall album, and the school received a lump sum of E1000 (1,000 British Pounds).

There have been several other minor school-related hits, but those discussed above are the primary. I will not go into greater lengths, so feel free to comment on any ones I may have forgotten or overlooked.