"Reading, writing, arithmetic are the branches of the learning tree," she's told. This chart-topping smash finds the Jackson 5 schooling a young girl in the fundamentals they're convinced her education somehow failed to cover. With "Schoolboys in Disgrace," the Kinks' Ray Davies devoted an entire concept album to the education system, setting the scene with the wistful nostalgia of "Schooldays" before concluding, nine songs later, that "even aborigines need education." But "The Hard Way" advanced to the head of the class in part because it was blessed with the kind of guitar riff that defined their early hits, only faster, and in part because the lyrics, sung from the perspective of a disillusioned teacher, played so well to Davies' strengths ("I'm wasting my vocation teaching you to write neat / When you're only fit to sweep the streets"). "It's the morning of your very first day / You say 'Hi' to your friends you ain't seen in a while / Try and stay out of everybody's way / It's your freshman year and you're gonna be here for the next four years in this town / Hoping one of those senior boys will wink at you and say 'You know I haven't seen you around before.'" The Kinks, 'The Hard Way' "You take a deep breath and you walk through the doors," she sings. But it starts with a richly detailed verse about that all-important first day of your freshman year at high school. This wistful ballad finds the singer looking back while still in her teens yet coming away with surprisingly grown-up reflections on the battle scars of young romance. In which the poet laureate of pre-Bob Dylan rock and roll takes young listeners through what he feels is a typical school day, learning American history and practical math while dealing with the botheration of having a guy who won't leave you alone sit behind you in class and a teacher who "don't know how mean she looks." Two months after being released as a single, it served as the opening track on a classic debut titled "After School Session." The single peaked at No.
#Lyric some kind of wonderful movie
Meanwhile, Joey Ramone sets the tone with an opening verse that effectively sums up the high-school experience for young punks everywhere: "Well I don't care about history / 'Cause that's not where I wanna be / I just wanna have some kicks / I just wanna get some chicks." This song was made to order for a very silly must-see movie of the same name.
punk approach this song with the youthful abandon of actual schoolkids, filtering a classic old-school rock-and-roll vibe through buzzsaw guitars. With Phil Spector producing, the kings of U.S. Alice Cooper, 'School's Out'Ĭooper's greatest hit sets the tone with a punkish guitar riff as memorable as anything the kids had heard since "I'm Eighteen," following "School's out for summer" with "School's out forever" because, as the singer reveals in a textbook example of knowing your audience, "School's been blown to pieces." Having school kids join the taunting bridge of "No more pencils / No more books" was a brilliant idea, if not as brilliant as "We got no class and we got no principles / And we got no innocence / We can't even think of a word that rhymes." Ramones, 'Rock 'n' Roll High School'
Whatever your relationship with school is, chances are you'll hear some of your own experiences in at least a handful of these songs, from the Beach Boys' celebration of school spirit to Taylor Swift recalling how her first day as a high school freshman felt.
You could say Berry's song was a "textbook example" of this type of song, in fact - if you're the type of person who would say that sort of thing. Now that the kids are back to school (in some form or another), here's a playlist of 30 classics devoted to "school days," as Chuck Berry put it on a timeless 1957 single. View Gallery: 10 great concert movies you can buy or rent right now
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