Tuesday Top Ten: Back-to-School Songs

Today is the first day of school for Chicago Public Schools (and probably many other districts around the country), so I decided to have a school-themed music Tuesday Top Ten of songs that have "school" or "teacher" (or some variation) in the title or otherwise relate to school.

I am limiting it to songs that are focused on school or teachers, or that are set in schools.  I tried not to stretch it too much, since there are a lot of great songs that casually mention school, but school isn't really the focus of the song (Aerosmith's "Walk This Way" comes to mind).  I'm also not including songs about graduation.  Sorry, Vitamin C fans.  I am also specifically excluding Alice Cooper's "School's Out," since that is not really a back-to-school song.

So, here are my top ten back-to-school songs, with a playlist of all of them at the end (including honorable mention songs!):

Honorable mention (alphabetical by artist):  "School Love" by Anvil; "Grade 9" by Barenaked Ladies; "Girlschool" by Britny Fox; "Charlie Brown" by The Coasters; "Teach Your Children" by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; "Hey Teacher" by Louis XIV; "School" by Nirvana; "Don't Stand So Close to Me" by The Police; "Harper Valley PTA" by Jeannie C. Riley; "I Love College" by Asher Roth; "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" by The Yardbirds; "School Spirit" by Kanye West; "Principal's Office" by Young MC

10.  "Smokin' In the Boys Room" by Brownsville Station and/or Mötley Crüe

The whole song is about trying not to get caught smoking in a school bathroom.  It still amazes me that people used to smoke in school and get away with it (even when I was in high school).  I included both the original Brownsville Station version and the Mötley Crüe cover.

9.  "Teacher" by Jethro Tull

I've always thought this was a really underrated Jethro Tull song.

8.  "School Days" by Chuck Berry

This 1957 Chuck Berry classic was so good that Berry re-used the same music on his 1964 song "No Particular Place To Go."  Recorded at Chicago's fame Chess Records with Berry backed by blues legends Hubert Sumlin on guitar, Willie Dixon on bass, and Fred Below on drums, the song tells of a teenager basically doing everything he can to get through a school day, so that he can head straight to the juke joint after school, culminating with the anthemic line, "Hail, hail, rock and roll / Deliver me from the days of old."

7.  "Be True to Your School" by The Beach Boys

Ahh, the innocence of the early '60s, when your only concern is telling "some loud bragger" that your high school is better than his.  Interesting tidbit:  the song uses the same melody as Wisconsin's fight song, "On Wisconsin," which was also the same melody used in the school fight song for Hawthorne High School, where the Wilson brothers and Al Jardine went to school.  There are actually two versions of this song that the Beach Boys recorded, one with the cheerleading chants and one without, so I included both versions.

6.  "We're Going to Be Friends" by The White Stripes

Proving that he is a master songwriter, Jack White included this acoustic ballad on the same album as songs like "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" and "Fell in Love With a Girl."  The song is sung from the perspective of a young boy who has just begun school and wants to be friends with a girl named Suzy Lee.  The innocence of the song has always struck me, and I think the song works so well because everyone can relate to those early years of elementary school when you're starting to make friends and you're kind of nervous and excited at the beginning of each school year.

5.  "Rock 'n' Roll High School" by The Ramones

At my house, for reasons that are unknown to me, I often use the lead-in to this song to describe:  (1) "rock and roll breakfast" –- basically when I make breakfast for the kids and Jester is still sleeping, so we listen to rock and roll during breakfast; (2) "rock and roll dinner" –- the same concept as "rock and roll breakfast," except it's dinner instead of breakfast, and Jester isn't necessarily sleeping; and (3) my "rock and roll staircase" –- the walls along a flight of stairs in my house on which I have various rock and roll memorabilia and framed albums.  So, instead of just calling them "rock and roll [breakfast, dinner, staircase]," when talking to my kids, I often call them "rock rock rock rock rock and roll [breakfast, dinner, staircase]" like the intro and chorus in this song.  I apologize that you just wasted 20 seconds of your life reading this paragraph.

4.  "Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)" by Pink Floyd

Between "we don't need no education" and "hey, teacher, leave them kids alone," this has long been an anthem for students.  Personally, I have always loved the spoken-word line, "How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?!" not only because it seems to be in a Scottish accent, but also because of the incredulity with which the guy says it.

3.  "Wonderful World" by Sam Cooke

This song is all about the school subjects the narrator doesn't know much about.  He does know that one and one is two, which is amazing, considering his admitted lack of knowledge of history, biology, science, French, geometry, trigonometry, algebra, and the uses of a slide rule.

2.  "Jeremy" by Pearl Jam

This was the first Pearl Jam song I ever remember hearing, when I saw the video on MTV in the wee hours of the morning during a sleepover at a friend's house.  His name?  Jeremy.  Anyway, the song is about a kid who kills himself in front of all of his classmates at the front of the classroom, based on real events.  Eddie Vedder has said that the purpose of the song is to show that killing yourself doesn't change anything in the world, and the "best revenge is to live on and prove yourself."  Agreed.

1.  "Hot for Teacher" by Van Halen

There is no better song about school or teachers than "Hot for Teacher."