"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.
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.
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