B-side "Gutter Cat" Recorded 1972 Label Warner Bros. | Format 7-inch single Length 3:29 | |
Released April 26, 1972 (1972-04-26) | ||
"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: Cooper, Michael Bruce, Glen Buxton, Dennis Dunaway and Neal Smith.
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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. 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. In Canada, the single went to #3 on the RPM Top Singles Chart following the album reaching #1. 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 a negative impression of rebelliousness against childhood education. Teachers, parents, principals, counselors, and psychologists also shunned that song and demanded several radio stations to 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 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."
Usage in popular media
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. 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.
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!"
The fictional music group Alvin and the Chipmunks covered the song at the beginning of their VHS Alvin and the Chipmunks - School's Out for Summer. The lyric "School's been blown to pieces" was changed to "School's ancient history".
Cooper performs the song as the closing act of his episode of 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
Daphne and Celeste version
Pop duo Daphne and Celeste released a cover of the song in 2000. The chorus is based on Alice Cooper's hit of the same name, and some other elements of that song have been retained, although much of the song is "original", in a pop rap style. 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, "Camp Song", is the only non-album D&C track available.
- "School's Out"
- "The Camp Song"
- "School's Out" (Gridlock Mix)
- "School's Out" (video)
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".