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School's Out (song)

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"School's Out"
Song
B-side"Gutter Cat"

"School's Out" is a 1972 song first recorded as the title track single of Alice Cooper's fifth album and written by the Alice Cooper band.

Inspiration and writing

Cooper has said he was inspired to write the song when answering the question, "What's the greatest three minutes of your life?". Cooper said: "There's two times during the year. One is Christmas morning, when you're just getting ready to open the presents. The greed factor is right there. The next one is the last three minutes of the last day of school when you're sitting there and it's like a slow fuse burning. I said, 'If we can catch that three minutes in a song, it's going to be so big.'"

Cooper has also said it was inspired by a line from a Bowery Boys movie. On his radio show, "Nights with Alice Cooper", he joked that the main riff of the song was inspired by a song by Miles Davis.[1] Cooper said that guitarist Glen Buxton created the song's opening riff.

The lyrics of "School's Out" indicate that not only is the school year ended for summer vacation, but ended forever, and that the school itself has been blown up. It incorporates the childhood rhyme, "No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks" into its lyrics. It also featured children contributing some of the vocals. "Innocence" in the lyric "...and we got no innocence" is frequently changed in concert to "intelligence" and sometimes replaced with "etiquette." The song appropriately ends with a school bell sound that fades out.

Later performances saw Alice Cooper incorporate parts of the first verse in "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2", a song by Pink Floyd (also about school, and produced by Bob Ezrin) into "School's Out."

Release and reception

"School's Out" became Alice Cooper's first major hit single, reaching #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart and propelling the album to #2 on the Billboard 200 pop albums chart. Billboard ranked it as the No. 75 song for 1972.[2] In Canada, the single went to #3 on the RPM Top Singles Chart[3] following the album reaching #1.[4] In Britain, the song went to #1 on the UK Singles Chart for three weeks in August 1972. It also marked the first time that Alice Cooper became regarded as more than just a theatrical novelty act.

The single version of the song is a slightly sped-up mono mix of the album version with one major difference — the "turn-off" effect used upon the school bell and sound effects at the end of the album version is not used on the single version, allowing the school bell and effects to simply fade out.

Some radio stations banned the song from their airwaves, stating that the song gave the students an impression of rebelliousness against childhood education. Teachers, parents, principals, counselors, and psychologists also shunned the song and demanded several radio stations ban the song from ever being played on the air.

In 2004, "School's Out" was ranked #319 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In 2009 it was named the 35th best hard rock song of all time by VH1[5] and the song appeared on the TV show American Idol in 2010. The Guardian placed it as number 3 on its list of "The 20 best glam-rock songs of all time."[6]

The song has been used in movies including Scream, Dazed and Confused, Rock 'n' Roll High School and I Love You, Beth Cooper.

In 2004, the song was also used in a Staples television commercial for the back to school retail period in which Alice appeared as himself.[7] A young girl with black hair, obviously disappointed that school is starting soon, says, "I thought you said 'School's out forever.'" Alice (who's pushing a shopping cart full of her school supplies) replies, "No, no, no ... the song goes, 'School's out for summer.' Nice try though." The song was also used in a 2009 Arby's commercial.

The title of the 1992 Degrassi movie, School's Out, comes from this song.

In 2012, the song was featured in musical TV series Glee, episode "Choke" (aired on May 1), in its third season. The song was performed by Mark Salling as his character Puck.[8]

The Simpsons episode "Kamp Krusty" had an excerpt of the song's refrain used during Bart's dream sequence with the destruction of Springfield Elementary on its last day of school before summer vacation, and in the episode I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can, Principal Skinner sings his own version - "School's back in session, let's begin our lesson!"

Cooper performs the song as the closing act of his episode on The Muppet Show where he dances with various large Muppet monsters who gleefully act out his lyrics, including causing numerous explosions. The song was also performed in the finale of the ninth season of American Idol by Idol contestants and Cooper himself.

The live version from Classicks is featured as downloadable content in Rock Band 3.

Cover versions

Daphne and Celeste version

"School's Out"
Song

Pop duo Daphne and Celeste released a cover of the song in 2000, although much of this cover is original, in a pop-rap style. The chorus is based on that in Alice Cooper's version, and some other elements of it have been retained as well. The single is remixed from the version released on their album We Didn't Say That!, removing a prominent synthesizer line from the chorus among other, more minor changes. The B-side, "The Camp Song", was the only non-album D&C song available until the release of their fourth single almost 15 years later. School's Out was their first and only single released in Japan.

Track listing
  1. "School's Out"
  2. "The Camp Song"
  3. "School's Out" (Gridlock Mix)
  4. "School's Out" (video)
"School's Out"
Song

Gwar version

"School's Out" was also covered by the band Gwar. It was the first release from their 2006 album Beyond Hell. It was released as a digital download through services such as iTunes and eMusic, and as a promotional CD sent to radio stations. The band has stated in several interviews that they had not intended on recording a cover song for Beyond Hell, but the record company insisted that they do a cover that might get some airplay, and would be accessible to a wider audience than their first choice for a single, "Eighth Lock". [citation needed]

Other covers

Chart performance

References

  1. ^ Originally stated May 4, 2008; clarified as just a joke on June 3, 2008.
  2. ^ Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1972
  3. ^ a b "Item Display - RPM - Library and Archives Canada". Collectionscanada.gc.ca. Retrieved March 27, 2014.
  4. ^ "Item Display - RPM - Library and Archives Canada". Collectionscanada.gc.ca. Retrieved March 27, 2014.
  5. ^ "spreadit.org music". Archived from the original on August 27, 2010. Retrieved February 7, 2009. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  6. ^ Savage, Jon (February 1, 2013). "The 20 best glam-rock songs of all time". The Guardian. Retrieved February 5, 2016.
  7. ^ "Staples Unveils Back-to-School Commercial Starring Alice Cooper; 'School's Out' - Or Is It - For Veteran Rocker in New Ad Campaign". Business Wire. July 8, 2004. Archived from the original on July 15, 2012. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  8. ^ "Glee Songs Report Card - Season 3 Episode 18 - Choke". Top40.about.com. January 7, 2014. Archived from the original on January 13, 2016. Retrieved March 27, 2014. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  9. ^ "Les Savy Fav covers "School's Out" by Alice Cooper on a yacht". Retrieved April 6, 2013.
  10. ^ ""Go-Set Singles Chart Page with "School's Out" Peak Position"" Retrieved on November 5, 2009.
  11. ^ ""Austrian Singles Charts Search for Alice Cooper"" Austriancharts.at. Retrieved on August 10, 2009."
  12. ^ ""German Singles Charts Search for Alice Cooper"" musicline.de. Retrieved on August 11, 2009."
  13. ^ ""Irish Singles Charts Search for Alice Cooper"" irishcharts.com. Retrieved on August 11, 2009."
  14. ^ ""Norwegian Singles Charts Search for Alice Cooper"" norwegiancharts.com. Retrieved on August 11, 2009."
  15. ^ ""Dutch Singles Charts Search for Alice Cooper"" dutchcharts.nl. Retrieved on August 11, 2009."
  16. ^ Flavour of New Zealand, 9 October 1972
  17. ^ Rice, Jo; Tim Rice; Paul Gambaccini; Mike Read (1979). The Guinness Book of British Hit Singles (2nd ed.). Enfield, Middlesex: Guinness Superlatives Ltd. p. 56. ISBN 0-900424-99-0.
  18. ^ "Alice Cooper - Charts & Awards - Billboard Singles" Allmusic. Retrieved on August 10, 2009."
  19. ^ "Top 100 Hits of 1972/Top 100 Songs of 1972". Musicoutfitters.com. Retrieved October 7, 2016.
  20. ^ "Cash Box YE Pop Singles - 1972". 50.6.195.142. Archived from the original on October 22, 2014.
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