School's Out (song)

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School's Out
Alice Cooper
publication May 20, 1972
length 3:31
Genre (s) Hard rock
Author (s) Alice Cooper
Glen Buxton
Michael Bruce
Dennis Dunaway
Neal Smith
Award (s) RS500 : 326th place
album School's Out

School's Out is a song released on May 20, 1972 by the American hard rock band Alice Cooper from their album of the same name .

background

According to Cooper's own statements, the song was created in search of a signature melody or hymn that would clearly be assigned to the band Alice Cooper. The Rolling Stones had Satisfaction and The Who had My Generation . While the band has often been associated with their hit I'm Eighteen , this didn't satisfy them. While writing the song, the band members asked themselves which two moments are particularly important for a child or a teenager. On the one hand it is Christmas morning and on the other hand it is the last day of school.

“I went back to my school days and looked at the clock. Three minutes until the start of the three-month summer vacation. The seconds passed. I remembered well how expectant I had been. Could we write a song that captured those last, crucial three minutes of the last day of school? We could."

- Alice Cooper

The song was written by the whole band. Producer Bob Ezrin took care of the fine-tuning . He also had the idea of ​​using children's voices in the song - an idea that he also pursued in other songs such as Lou Reeds The Kids , Kiss ' God of Thunder or Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall .

reception

Allmusic 's Greg Prato calls School's Out one of the most defiant rock anthems of all time with a great riff .

For Rolling Stone's Ben Gerson , the song is what appears to be a continuation of Chuck Berry's inspirational pieces, with Cooper announcing that school will be closed not just for the summer, but forever. The song line “School's been blown to pieces” reaches the peak of escapism . Lines like “Well, we've got no class, and we've got no principles” work on their own, but sound too embarrassed and too witty to pass as a battle cry. For him the song is meaningless both musically and lyrically.

successes

Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Singles
School's Out
  DE 5 07/31/1972 (28 weeks)
  AT 12 January 15, 1973 (4 weeks)
  UK 1Template: Infobox chart placements / maintenance / NR1 link 07/15/1972 (12 weeks)
  US 7th 07/29/1972 (13 weeks)

The song School's Out and the album of the same name marked the breakthrough for Alice Cooper. In Germany the song reached number 5 and stayed in the charts for a total of 28 weeks, while in Austria it reached number 12. The best placement was in the UK , where the song held # 1 for three weeks. In the US, Alice Cooper also reached a top 10 position and stayed in the charts for 13 weeks. Further top 10 placements were achieved in Norway, the Netherlands and Ireland.

The song was from Rolling Stone to the list of the 500 best songs recorded and performed ranked 326th

Use in media

School's Out was used in a wide variety of media, including a. in the movies Scream! , Confusion , Rock 'n' Roll High School and I Love You, Beth Cooper . In the episode Crisis in Kamp Krusty of the TV series The Simpsons , the song can be heard in a dream sequence by Bart Simpsons, in which the school building is destroyed on the last day of school. The song was also featured in an episode of the television series Everyone Hates Chris and found further use in the video game series Guitar Hero and Rock Band . It can also be heard at the beginning of the Family Guy episode "her little Peter is coming".

Cover versions (selection)

literature

Alice Cooper, Keith Zimmerman, Kent Zimmerman: Alice Cooper, Golf Monster: My Life Between Golf and Rock 'n' Roll. Kosmos Verlag, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-440-11607-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. a b rollingstone.com: 500 Greatest Songs of all Time
  2. ^ Pat Gilbert: Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion , p. 284.
  3. ^ Cooper, Zimmermann, Zimmermann: Alice Cooper, Golf Monster: My Life Between Golf and Rock 'n' Roll , p. 115.
  4. ^ Guardian.co.uk: Hey, what's that sound: children's choirs and kids singing
  5. ^ Allmusic.com: Review by Greg Prato
  6. ^ Rollingstone.com: Review by Ben Gerson
  7. Charts DE Charts AT Charts UK Charts US
  8. norwegiancharts.com: placement in Norway
  9. dutchcharts.nl: placement in the Netherlands