Best Songs About School: 20 Classics That Come Top Of The Class

19: The Stranglers: School Mam (1977)

The final track on The Stranglers’ second album, No More Heroes, the menacing, bass-heavy School Mam was inspired by frontman Hugh Cornwell’s time working as a supply teacher while the band were first getting off the ground – time well spent, as it resulted in one of the punk era’s best songs about school. The track’s character was based on the college’s tyrannical principal (“She was a complete ogress – when you went into her office, the chair you’d sit in had been sawn off at the legs, so that you were lower and had to look up at her,” Cornwell recalled in Jim Drury’s The Stranglers: Song By Song), but the track itself was a fantasy scenario influenced by the equally dark and hypnotic song The Gift by The Velvet Underground.

18: XTC: Playground (2000)

One of many sublime pop songs from XTC’s final studio album, Wasp Star (Apple Venus Volume 2), the angular Playground examines whether or not school days really are the happiest days of our lives. Evocative without ever being didactic, Andy Partridge’s spot-on lyric suggests that kids never completely grow up even when they become adults, with the astute final couplet suggesting, “You may leave school, but it never leaves you.”

17: MC5: High School (1970)

MC5’s second album, Back In The USA, may have lacked the polemics of the band’s fiery debut, Kick Out The Jams, but it contained no shortage of the best MC5 songs[https://www.thisisdig.com/feature/best-mc5-songs/] and, helping the band sell overseas, was arguably the better album, too. In the sleevenotes for the MC5 compilation The Big Bang! Best Of The MC5, guitarist Wayne Kramer made it clear that that, in England, “people really liked Back In The USA – you can hear what The Clash, Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe got out of it”. That influence is highly detectable in High School: a proto-new-wave rave-up which makes all things academic seem like the best fun ever.

16: The Beach Boys: Be True To Your School (1963)

A response to “some loud braggart” trying to throw shade at The Beach Boys’ school, Be True To Your School mounts a spirited defence of Hawthorne High by insisting that it’s “No.1 in the state”. Cheekily cribbing the melody of the University Of Wisconsin’s fight song, Oh, Wisconsin!, to stoke a campus rivalry, the Wilson brothers, plus cousin Mike Love and schoolfriend Al Jardine, wear their letterman jackets loud and proud on this 1963 single, flaunting their decals and encouraging the pom-pom girls to cheer on a bout of fisticuffs with a bunch of rival sports jocks. “Come Friday we’ll be jacked up on the football game,” the Boys sing, “And I’ll be ready to fight/We’re gonna smash ‘em now!”

15: Bowling For Soup: High School Never Ends (2006)

There’s no denying it: school is everyone’s introduction to the myth of meritocracy. Campus politics – like office politics – is basically a popularity contest full of winners and losers. With witty self-awareness, pop-punk band Bowling For Soup cottoned onto this fact for their 2006 single High School Never Ends, gleefully pointing out how they had to suffer the superficiality of their classmates (“All the total dicks, all the stuck-up chicks”) for four long years before realising that the real world functions in exactly the same way. Graduating into an adult-run shitshow full of wannabe prom queens, nerdy chess captains, class clowns and narcissistic quarterbacks, High School Never Ends ranks among the best songs about school for reminding us that a diploma won’t put a stop to all the petty dramas grown-up life throws our way.

14: Nada Surf: Popular (1996)

A blast of spoken-word alt-rock that comes across like a sarcastic sermon on the mount for misfits and nerds, Nada Surf’s 1996 hit, Popular, finds singer Matthew Caws becoming every school’s favourite agony aunt. Lifting lyrics from a teenage guide to popularity dating back to the 60s, Caws rants about navigating the pitfalls of high-school romance, from breakups to personal hygiene, and satirises the futility of trying to fit in. From the “head of the class” to the “cheerleading chick”, popularity is seen as the locus guiding everybody’s actions. Social hierarchies never sounded more superficial than they do on this entry among the best songs about school.

13: Deftones: Back To School (Mini Maggit) (2000)

Deftones have made no secret of their love-hate relationship with Back To School (Mini Maggit). Frontman Chino Moreno even called it “a calculated song, that had been built up with only one aim in mind – it should be a single”. Nonetheless, the song blazed a trail, cracking the Top 40 of Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart and, with help from a suitably anarchic video, it significantly raised the band’s profile. Even at the time it was nifty enough, but two decades later, this enduringly angsty anthem remains one of the very best songs about school.

12: Paul Simon: Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard (1972)

Aided by quirky cuíca percussion, this delightfully absurdist folk/samba fusion hit by Paul Simon seems to tell the cryptic story of a wayward kid who is apparently up to no good. Exactly what he’s done wrong to upset his teachers is a mystery, except that it happened in the schoolyard while hanging out with Julio, and mama says “it’s against the law”. Chased down by a papa who wants to “stick him in the house of detention”, the kid goes on the run in fear of his life. Whether we’re talking about a case of mistaken identity or a simple act of school-based miscreancy is unclear, but what’s obvious is that Paul Simon’s Me And Julio Down by the Schoolyard deserves its place among the best songs about school.

11: My Chemical Romance: Teenagers (2006)

Despite its upbeat T. Rex-style guitar riff, Teenagers, by My Chemical Romance is a dark but undeniably clever lyrical commentary on the fear of school shootings in North America. With a narrator threatened by the “lies in the books to make a citizen out of you”, the song references “another cog in the murder machine” who sleeps with a gun under his pillow, apparently driven to violence by the “boys and girls in the clique” who torment him at school. “It’s about a really big problem in America where kids are killing kids,” MCR’s frontman, Gerard Way, later said. “The only thing I learnt in high school is that people are very violent and territorial.” One of the most chilling and thought-provoking entries among the best songs about school, Teenagers uses a jaunty rock riff to smuggle in a very serious message about the dark side of school bullying, warning us about its potentially tragic consequences.

10: The Police: Don’t Stand So Close To Me (1980)

Before joining The Police, Sting spent time as an English teacher, though he later stressed that Don’t Stand So Close To Me (which dealt with the fallout from an inappropriate relationship between a teacher and a student) was anything but autobiographical. Nonetheless, Sting’s vivid storyline – which namechecked Vladimir Nabokov, author of Lolita – and the music’s inherent tautness made for a fantastic single. It duly rewarded The Police with their third UK No.1 hit and a Grammy Award.

9: Brownsville Station: Smokin’ In The Boy’s Room (1973)

Fed up with everybody at school getting on their case, Brownsville Station penned the controversial hit Smokin’ In The Boy’s Room, provoking the ire of parents across the land by describing a naughty schoolboy sneaking off to have a cheeky cigarette in the toilets. Becoming a mid-70s rock’n’roll anthem for errant knuckleheads with nicotine addictions, the song not only captured the rebelliousness of youth but also evoked a spirit of teenage defiance that celebrates mischief for mischief’s sake (“Now, teacher, don’t you fill me up with your rules/But everybody knows that smokin’ ain’t allowed in school”).

8: Chuck Berry: School Days (1957)

Perhaps the definitive rock’n’roll hit on our list of the best songs about school, Chuck Berry’s 1957 single School Days takes a novelistic view of a day in the life of a schoolboy. From putting up with an annoying kid poking him in the back in class, to struggling to find a seat in the lunchroom, it’s a relief when the boy can finally clock out at and meet his girl. As he plays some singles at the juke joint, the listener discovers that it’s not school that inspires the song’s protagonist but (of course) rock’n’roll. That’s right – throw out your textbooks, everyone; today Chuck Berry will be your teacher!

7: Supertramp: School (1974)

The opening track on Supertramp’s 1973 concept album, a critique of the British education system they called Crime Of The Century, School is a five-minute epic that tore up the rulebook. Conveying the disorientation of youth and how hard it is to navigate right from wrong, the song’s lyrics are aimed squarely at the hypocrisy of pedagoguery, walking the fine line between education and indoctrination (“Don’t do this and don’t do that/What are they trying to do?/Make a good boy of you/And do they know where it’s at?”). “What they teach us in schools is all very fine,” Supertramp vocalist Roger Hodgson later told Louder Sound, “but it’s what they don’t teach us in schools that creates so much confusion in our being. They don’t really prepare us for life in terms of teaching us who we are on the inside.”

6: Madness: Baggy Trousers (1980)

Breaking free from detention like a rabble of artful dodgers, Madness drew upon the chaos of frontman Suggs’ high-school years for their 1980 hit Baggy Trousers. Evoking a culture of wilful disobedience and the pure anarchy of unruly pupils, Suggs paints a fun but vivid picture of playful sedition (“Naughty boys in nasty schools/Headmaster’s breaking all the rules/Having fun and playing fools/Smashing up the woodwork tools”). Ranking highly among the best songs about school, Baggy Trousers is a savage indictment of the UK education system as a whole, where getting away with blue murder is so rife it seems to be on the curriculum. As Suggs soberly concludes, “All I learnt at school was how to bend, not break the rules.”

5: Pink Floyd: Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2) (1979)

Arguably one of the most unlikely smash hits of all time, Pink Floyd’s Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2) was culled from a three-part suite from the band’s widely acclaimed 1979 concept album, The Wall. Taken on its own merits, however, the song was a highly accessible pop track which even tapped into the disco craze of the times.

Producer Bob Ezrin’s belief that Pink Floyd should embrace the genre initially met with some resistance (“I listened to loud, four-to-the-bar bass drums and stuff, and thought, Gawd, awful!” guitarist David Gilmour told Guitar World), but it worked perfectly when married to Roger Waters’ outspoken lyric, which railed against abusive schooling. The song’s abrasive “Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone!” refrain also chimed with students everywhere, and Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2) sold over four million copies, immediately joining the assembly of the best songs about school.

4: The Smiths: The Headmaster Ritual (1985)

The former Smiths frontman, Morrissey has openly admitted that he constantly lived in fear of the violent teaching staff at his alma mater, St Mary’s Secondary, in Manchester. In return, he gave those “belligerent ghouls” both barrels when he recalled his traumatic experiences for the Meat Is Murder highlight, The Headmaster Ritual. Standing among the best Smiths songs, his vivid lyrics (“Midweek on the playing fields/Sir thwacks you on the knees/Knees you in the groin”) can be appreciated by anyone who was bullied at school, but it really hit home thanks to the band’s steely backing track, with Morrissey later describing Johnny Marr’s contribution as “a live-wire spitfire guitar sound that takes on all-comers”.

3: Van Halen: Hot For Teacher (1984)

Morrissey may have despised his school, but Hot For Teacher suggests that Van Halen’s school days may just have been the best of their lives. A dynamite amalgam of glam rock and hard-headed metal, the song itself was already packed with radio-friendly pizzazz, but – with help from a few strutting supermodels – its brilliant Hollywood-style video really sold it to the masses. Based on this evidence, it seems that you may not become an academic, but you’ll certainly get an education at Van Halen High.

2: Ramones: Rock’n’Roll High School (1980)

Rock’n’Roll High School is undeniably one of the best songs about school, but it has something of a convoluted history. Ramones initially recorded it with Road To Ruin producer Ed Stasium, but that version remained unheard until the release of the group’s 1988 compilation, Ramones Mania. Stasium’s recording of Rock’n’Roll High School was instead tweaked by producer Phil Spector for the soundtrack album to Allan Arkush’s film of the same name. Spector then completely re-recorded the song for Ramones’ fifth album, End Of The Century, famously driving guitarist Johnny Ramone to distraction by repeatedly requesting he play the song’s opening chord over and over again in his quest for perfection. Nonetheless, Rock’n’High School survived to become one of the best Ramones songs of all time, and it still gives us a taste of bubblegum pop-punk at its most flavourful.

1: Alice Cooper: School’s Out (1972)

Released on 26 April 1972, as the lead single of the album of the same name, School’s Out was an instant smash for Alice Cooper, who, expecting the song to go right to the top, famously declared, “If that’s not a hit, I need to be selling shoes somewhere.”

With hindsight, there wasn’t much chance Cooper would ever end up hawking brogues. Based around a crunching riff devised by the late Glenn Buxton, School’s Out was about as barnstorming as rock anthems got – and, with sentiments such as “School’s out forever/School’s been blown to pieces!” it couldn’t fail to hit a nerve with bored and frustrated kids the world over. Accordingly, the song raced to No.7 on the Billboard charts and made Alice Cooper a star. It now pretty much writes its own entry at the top of our list of the best songs about school.

Original article: 3 September 2021

Updated: 2 September 2024. Extra words: Luke Edwards