This being June and the time of year that kids get out of school, I remembered how my brother and my friends and I used to blow off steam by singing what we called anti-school songs. You remember these…
Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream,
Throw your teacher overboard and listen to her scream!
Or, my personal fave,
Deck the halls with gasoline, fa la la la la, la la la la,
Light a match and watch it gleam, fa la la la la, la la la la,
Watch the textbooks turn to ashes, fa la la, la la la, la la la!
Aren’t you glad you played with matches? fa la la la la, la la la la!
Nowadays, schools are soooo paranoid about weapons and violent behavior, this kind of stuff would get a kid either arrested or permanently suspended. But I remember how we’d laugh and feel some of the school-induced stress melt away. I think we should preserve this almost-lost art for a future, less-paranoid time. Anybody got any new ones to add to my “archives”?
I don’t care about history
cuz that’s not where I wanna be
I just wanna have some kicks
I just wanna get some chicks
well the girls out there knock me out you know
cruisin around in my GTO
I hate the teachers and the principal
don’t wanna be taught to be no fool
rock rock rock rock rock ‘n’ roll high school
This bit about the .44 is new to me, at my school we just “hit her in the butt with a rotten coconut”. Then again I went to Catholic school.
Anyway the first verse went:
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school
We have tortured every teacher we have broken every rule
And tomorrow afternoon we plan to hang the principal
Our truth is marching on.
And here’s another song:
*We had joy, we had fun
Selling liquor on the run
In the basement of St Ambrose school
Run run run
I think I hear a nun
Grab all the liquor you can hold
If she grabs you by the ear
Say “Sister have a beer!”
In the basement of St Ambrose school*
"The silicon chip inside her head
gets switched to overload.
And noone’s gonna go to school today
she’s gonna make them stay at home.
And Daddy doesn’t understand it
he says she’s always been good as gold.
And he can see no reason,
cause there are no reasons,
what reasons do you need to be shown.
(Tell me why)
I don’t like Mondays.
(Tell me why)
I don’t like Mondays.
(Tell me why)
I don’t like Mondays.
I wanna shoo-oo-oo-oot the whole day down.
In fifth or sixth grade Keith Stevens taught me the following while we washed dishes in the lunchroom:
*From the halls of Montezuma
To the shores of Tripoli
We will fight our teachers in battle
With spitwad artillery
We will fight for linger recess
We will keep our desk a mess
We are proud to claim the title
Of “Teacher’s little pest.”*
as well as the “Glory glory hallelujah” song NothingMan relates. Except, for some reason, we added a parenthetical line:
*Glory, glory, hallelujah -
Teacher hit me with a ruler,
There’s a girl behind the door with a loaded .44,
There’s a boy behing the gate with a loaded .38,
And she ain’t my teacher no more . . . *
I agree; it’s not nearly so amusing now as it was way back then.
And, Connor, where did that one come from? It’s the wrong tense to be self-deprecating, and too vitriolic to be tongue-in-cheek.
Ah, and to think that I could’ve gotten in trouble for singing these songs today…makes me feel about 12 years older.
And for the holiday break ripoff songs:
“Joy to the world
my teacher’s dead
we bar-e-qued her head!
And flushed it down the potty”
…and I forget the rest
Three cheers for our U.D. High!
You bring the whiskey, I’ll bring the wine.
Send the sophomores out for gin,
Don’t let a sober senior in!
We’ll never stumble, we’ll never fall!
We sober up on wood alcohol!
While the U.D faculty lies drunk on the barroom floor!
Upper Darby (Pa.) was my alma mater. My folks would be so proud.
“joy to the world
the teachers dead
we bar-be qued hr head,
what happened to her body,
we fushed it down the potty
…and thats the end of her
…and thats the end of her
…and thaaaaats the end of her”