Happy Halloween everyone! This song was released in 1986 but the song would have fit well with his seventies output. I heard the song a lot in my area at the time.
The song was on the album Constrictor released in 1986. The song peaked at #80 in the UK. The song was written by Alice Cooper and Kane Roberts.
Alice Cooper’s real name is Vincent Furnier. Alice Cooper was the name of the band, but the name became so associated with the lead singer that he took it.
The band did a good job spreading the rumor that “Alice Cooper” was the name of a girl who was accused of being a witch in the 1600s, saying she contacted them through an Ouija board. Furnier later explained that he made it up when he was thinking of a sweet, innocent-sounding name that would contrast against their shocking stage show.
Cooper ran for President in 2016 with the slogan “A Troubled Man For Troubled Times” which I loved.
His “platform” were these talking points
Getting Brian Johnson back in AC/DC
A snake in every pot
No more pencils, no more books
Adding Lemmy to Mt Rushmore
Rename Big Ben “Big Lemmy”
Groucho Marx on the $50 bill
Peter Sellers on the £20 note
Cupholders required for every airplane seat
Ban on talking during movies in movie theatres
Ban on taking selfies, except on a designated National Selfie Day
Cooper is a big family man which contradicts his reputation. Cooper is a born-again Christian and believes in the devil enough to have genuine supernatural fear. He’s never taken a satanist stance and warns other bands against it. When he was a kid, his family was poor and there were very few presents. Now, Cooper goes crazy on Christmas, buying lots of gifts for his family.
Alice Cooper:“When I moved to L.A. with this little wimpy garage band, the first people we met were the Doors. Then we met Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin. All of the people who died of excess were our big brothers and sisters. So I said to myself: How do you become a legend and enjoy it? The answer is to create a character as legendary as those guys and leave that character on the stage.”
Teenaged Frankenstein
I’m the kid on the block With my head made of rock And I ain’t got nobody I’m the state of the art Got a brain a la carte I make the babies cry
I ain’t one of the crowd I ain’t one of the guys They just avoid me They run and they hide Are my colors too bright Are my eyes set too wide? I spent my whole life Burning, turning
I’m a teenage Frankenstein The local freak with the twisted mind I’m a teenage Frankenstein These ain’t my hands And these legs ain’t mine
Got a synthetic face Got some scars and a brace My hands are rough and bloody I walk into the night Women faint at the sight I ain’t no cutie-pie
I can’t walk in the day I must walk in the night Stay in the shadows Stay out of the light Are my shoulders too wide Is my head screwed on tight? I spent my whole life burning Burning, turning
I’m a teenage Frankenstein The local freak with the twisted mind I’m a teenage Frankenstein These ain’t my hands And these legs ain’t mine
Here are a few short Keith Moon stories. If you want an entertaining book…get Full Moon by Keith Moon’s assistant. Peter “Dougal” Butler.
I didn’t get all the Keith Moon posts out yesterday so I wanted to post this today…I made sure all of these were short so it would not take too much time.
Helen Mirren’s Keith Moon Story
Alice Cooper “If you could live with him…he was the best drummer of all time”
This song has some of my favorite vocals by Alice Cooper. It was released in 1971 on the album Killer. The album contained this song, Under My Wheels, and Desperado.
Be My Lover peaked at #49 in the Billboard 100 in 1972. I thought this was more successful than that. I first heard it on my Alice Coopers Greatest Hits that I had at one time.
The album peaked at #21 on the Billboard Album Chart and two singles from the album made the Hot 100 chart.
On a side note…Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols called Killer the greatest rock album of all time.
Be My Lover
She struts into the room Well I don’t know her But with a magnifying glance I just sort of looked her over, hmm We have a drink or two Well, maybe three And then suddenly she starts telling me Her life story She says
Baby, if you wanna be my lover You better take me home ‘Cause it’s a long long way to paradise And I’m still on my own
Told her that I came From Detroit City And I played guitar In a long-haired rock and roll band She asked me why The singer’s name was Alice I said listen, baby You really wouldn’t understand
And I said
Oh baby, if you wanna Be my lover You better take me home ‘Cause it’s a long long way to paradise And I’m still on my own
Oh baby, if you wanna Be my lover You better take me hoooooome ‘Cause it’s a long long way to paradise And I’m still on my oooooown
This song was an anthem for teenagers when it was released in 1971 . It remains one today.
Eighteen peaked at #21 in the Billboard 100 and #7 in Canada in 1971.
Most of the band’s support was in the midwest, and they often toured with Detroit groups like the Stooges, the MC5, and Bob Seger. They were usually very low on the bill, but when this song came out, they moved up a few rungs.
Neal Smith (drummer in the Alice Cooper Band) said: “The first show we did after they started playing ‘I’m Eighteen’ was the Detroit Auto Show. It was the big teen event of the year. It was the very first time we played a song where the crowd went crazy. That’s what we were trying for the whole time.”
John Lydon auditioned for The Sex Pistols by singing along to this song for the group’s manager, Malcolm McLaren. This took place in a pub, when Lydon was hanging out after closing and McLaren asked him to mime some songs. Lydon said that the jukebox was filled with “that awful ’60s mod music,” and that “I’m Eighteen” was the only song on it he could tolerate. McLaren gave him the job and renamed him Johnny Rotten.
From Songfacts
This song is about the feelings of a frustrated teenager, which described many of Alice Cooper’s fans. 18 was an interesting age in America at the time, as in many states, you had to be older to vote or drink alcohol, but you could be drafted to fight in the Vietnam War. The group’s drummer, Neal Smith, told us: “It was a song about growing up in the ’60s, with lines in it like you could go to war but you couldn’t vote. We had no idea it would become an anthem; we were just thinking it would be a cool song.”The band (“Alice Cooper” was the name of both the lead singer and the group at the time) wrote the song in the summer of 1970 when they were living in a dorm house in Cincinnati. Their drummer, Neil Smith, told us how the song came together: “We were getting a lot of work in Ohio and Michigan; we were working and writing all the time. We had access to a club and we rehearsed there if we weren’t playing a show. Mike Bruce (guitarist) had this idea for a song called ‘I’m Eighteen.’ At first it was almost like a Pink Floyd kind of thing. We’d always been two guitars, bass, drums and the lead singer. Michael was well versed as a keyboard player. So we got a Farfisa organ and he wrote the song on that. The intro was kind of a melodic, haunting tune that built and built.”“I’m Eighteen” was eight minutes long in it’s original form. The group had an elaborate stage show with lots of gore and histrionics, so they wrote longer songs that would give them time to build a story with their visuals.
An 8-minute freakout was fine for a live performance, but the group needed a hit: their first album had made #199 on the charts, and their next one didn’t chart at all. They were signed to Frank Zappa’s Straight Records label, but when Zappa’s interest waned, the Straight’s parent company, Warner, took over the band and made them produce a 4-song demo to prove their worth. They went to the producer Jack Richardson, who had worked with the Guess Who, looking for help. Richardson wanted nothing to do with them, but he dispatched a young producer working at his Nimbus 9 studios named Bob Ezrin to see the band perform. Ezrin went to New York and saw them perform this song at a club called Max’s Kansas City. The band was so raw that Ezrin thought Cooper was singing “I’m Edgy,” but he saw lots of potential in the group and in the song.
Alice Cooper recorded their four-song demo with Ezrin at RCA Studios in Chicago, and “I’m Eighteen” was the standout track. With Ezrin at the controls, they polished the song down to 2:56. The label was impressed, the song became a hit, and Ezrin continued to work with the band, helping them craft radio-friendly rock songs without compromising their caliginous image. Neal Smith told us, “We were playing every night on stage. We knew how to get a crowd excited. We were like a pot ready to boil over. But the heat wasn’t hot enough yet. We always worked with a total group effort, everybody collaborating, everybody making suggestions. But Bob became like the 6th member of the band. He was the one person who had the final word.”Cooper was not really 18 at the time. He was 23 when they recorded it.This song was released in November 1970 as the first single from Love It To Death, which came out in January 1971. The song got a lot of early support on the Windsor, Ontario radio station CKLW, whose signal went into Cleveland.
Lydon, who was always a huge fan of Alice Cooper, narrated a 2000 BBC documentary on Cooper and wrote liner notes for his 1999 boxed set. Creed covered this on the soundtrack to the 1998 movie The Faculty.In 1998, the publishing company that owned the copyright of this song sued Kiss, claiming that “Dreamin’,” from their Psycho Circus album, resembled this too closely. The case was settled a year later.Alice told Mojo magazine December 2010 how producer Bob Ezrin contributed to this song: “Eighteen was a jam that we’d warm up with, it wasn’t even a song, and Bob said, ‘That’s a hit.’ ‘How?’ we said. He kept saying, ‘Dumb it down. Make it simpler.’ He’d add a piano on the bassline, and we’d go, ‘You can’t put a piano on an Alice Cooper song.’ But he was absolutely correct. When we got done listening to Eighteen, we just could not believe it.”The single was issued with the title “Eighteen.” On the album, it’s listed as “I’m Eighteen,” which is how it’s most commonly known.Anthrax recorded this song for their first album, Fistful of Metal (1984). It was the only album Dan Lilker played on with the band, and his performance on the song was sometimes cited by Anthrax members as a reason for his departure, since it took him a long time to get it right.
In our interview with Lilker, he explained that the producer, Carl Canedy, made lots of little changes during overdubs, which caused problems. “After a while I would get confused and play a note the wrong way,” he said. “It took 25 or 30 takes for me to play that right because he kept changing the part – which was about a good 20 of them – and then I would f–k up, because all the tiny little changes that would mess me up. So a song that sounds relatively easy was actually very difficult.”
Eighteen
Lines form on my face and hands Lines form from the ups and downs I’m in the middle without any plans I’m a boy and I’m a man
I’m eighteen And I don’t know what I want Eighteen I just don’t know what I want Eighteen I gotta get away I gotta get out of this place I’ll go runnin in outer space Oh yeah
I got a Baby’s brain and an old man’s heart Took eighteen years to get this far Don’t always know what I’m talkin’ about Feels like I’m livin in the middle of doubt Cause I’m
Eighteen I get confused every day Eighteen I just don’t know what to say Eighteen I gotta get away
Lines form on my face and my hands Lines form on the left and right I’m in the middle The middle of life I’m a boy and I’m a man I’m eighteen and I LIKE IT Yes I like it Oh I like it Love it Like it Love it
Eighteen! Eighteen! Eighteen! Eighteen and I LIKE IT
Since I posted Paul McCartney’s Concert for Kampuchea yesterday I thought I would concentrate on the festival John Lennon popped up at in 1969… The Toronto Rock and Roll Revival. Unlike Kampuchea which was spread out on multiple days and nights, this festival was held on one day September 13, 1969.
John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band just played fifties songs plus John’s new song that Beatles rejected…Cold Turkey. The reason for the fifties’ songs was because the band had limited time to rehearse and they wanted to do songs they all knew.
It was a great festival lineup but it’s remembered mostly by John Lennon’s participation. The Doors were the headliners and John only agreed to do it
The concert was conceived by promoters John Brower and Ken Walker with financial backing from Eaton’s department store but stymied by poor ticket sales, the venture began to lose support. The festival was almost canceled but Brower called Apple Records in the UK to ask John Lennon to emcee the concert. Lennon agreed to appear on the condition he would be allowed to perform.
The Lennons flew in from England with a makeshift band that included Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann, Alan White, and Yoko. They arrived at the backstage area at about 10 p.m, while Cat Mother and the All Night Newsboys were singing Good Old Rock ‘n’ Roll to an audience of about 20,000.
Lennon was quoted as saying “I threw up for hours until I went on” because it had been three years since he played live in a concert setting. The band went on and did a good job…ragged but it was a hastily assembled band with only a rehearsal on the plane ride and backstage.
John Lennon:“The ridiculous thing was that I didn’t know any of the lyrics. When we did Money and Dizzy, I just made up the words as I went along. The band was bashing it out like hell behind me. Yoko came on stage with us, but she wasn’t going to do her bit until we’d done our five songs….Then after Money there was a stop, and I turned to Eric and said, ‘What’s next?’ He didn’t know either, so I just screamed out ‘C’mon!’ and started into something else.”
Little Richard: “I remember the show that people were throwing bottles at Yoko Ono. They were throwing everything at her. Finally, she had to run off the stage. Oh, boy, it was very bad.”
John Lennon:And we tried to put it out on Capitol, and Capitol didn’t want to put it out. They said, ‘This is garbage; we’re not going to put it out with her screaming on one side and you doing this sort of live stuff. And they just refused to put it out. But we finally persuaded them that, you know, people might buy this. Of course it went gold the next day.”
John Lennon and Yoko’s setlist
Blue Suede Shoes.
Money (That’s What I Want)
Dizzy Miss Lizzy.
Yer Blues.
Cold Turkey.
Give Peace a Chance.
Don’t Worry Kyoko (Mummy’s Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow)
I remember the first time I heard this song. On Radio? On Record? Nope… Alice Cooper performed the song on The Muppet Show in his 1978 season three appearance, doing it as a duet with Beakie, a bird-ish Muppet who was actually the embodiment of Miss Piggy after she was transformed by Cooper.
This was the lead single off the 1977 album Lace and Whiskey, which was the shock-rock legend’s third album as a solo artist following the breakup of the original Alice Cooper band in 1974. Cooper decided to change up his sound a bit on this collection and soften his image.
This song was un-Cooper like although a couple of years before he did release a softer ballad Only Women Bleed.
The song peaked at #9 in the Billboard 100 in 1977.
Alice Cooper on his ballads: “I did those songs totally out of spite,” “I kept reading so many interviews and articles that I said I was never considered musical. Best rock show they ever saw, but musically lacking. ‘They aren’t as good as ELP.’ Of course not,” he laughed, “we didn’t want to be.”
Alice and Beakie
From Songfacts
A very romantic soft rock song by the Grandfather of Goth. It is every man’s love song to his significant other – celebrating the everyday pleasures of two people sharing their lives together.
This love ballad was a significant departure from Cooper’s usual dark-themed rockers. It was the last in a trilogy of ballads Cooper recorded, following “Only Women Bleed” and “I Never Cry” He has described this genre as “heavy metal housewife rock.”
This song was written by Cooper and the renowned rock guitarist and songwriter Dick Wagner. During his long and distinguished musical career, Wagner has played lead guitar and written songs for many big-name bands and artists. In addition to Cooper, some of the other notable musical acts he has worked with include KISS, Lou Reed, Peter Gabriel, Tori Amos, Frank Sinatra, Meat Loaf, Etta James, Ringo Starr, Guns N’ Roses, Rod Stewart, Air Supply and Tina Turner. Wagner contributed to several Alice Cooper albums, both as a guitarist and songwriter; he and Cooper usually collaborated on ballads. In addition to “You and Me,” other rock ballads Wagner co-wrote include “I Never Cry” and “Only Women Bleed.”
He considered it a concept album based on a 1940s-era detective he called “Inspector Maurice Escargot.” For his 1977 tour, Cooper divided his show into three sets: Oldies, Hell, and Lace And Whiskey. This third part he performed in his Escargot character.
Lace and Whiskey was produced by Bob Ezrin, who co-wrote most of the album’s tracks with Cooper and Dick Wagner. He also played keyboards on the album. Ezrin is a well-known figure in the music industry, particularly in the rock world. He was one of the most commercially successful producers in the 1970s and has done production work for a slew of top artists and bands, including KISS, Pink Floyd, Lou Reed, Rod Stewart, Jane’s Addiction, Hanoi Rocks, Deftones, Berlin, Nine Inch Nails and Peter Gabriel. Ezrin produced eleven albums for Cooper, including the hugely successful LPs Billion Dollar Babies and School’s Out.
This song climbed to #9 on the US Billboard Hot 100, marking his last Top-10 on the chart until “Poison” in 1989. The song also hit #23 on the Adult Contemporary chart, and # 3 on the singles chart in Australia.
You and Me
When I get home from work, I want to wrap myself around you. I want to take you and squeeze you Till the passion starts to rise.
I want to take you to heaven. That would make my day complete.
[Chorus] But you and me ain’t no movie stars. What we are is what we are. We share a bed, Some lovin’, And TV, yeah. And that’s enough for a workin’ man. What I am is what I am. And I tell you, babe, Well that’s enough for me.
Sometimes when you’re asleep And I’m just starin’ at the ceiling, I want to reach out and touch you, But you just go on dreamin’.
If I could take you to heaven, That would make my day complete.
[Chorus]
You and me ain’t no super stars. What we are is what we are. We share a bed, Some popcorn, And TV, yeah. And that’s enough for a workin’ man. What I am is what I am. And I tell you, babe, You’re just enough for me.
When I get home from work, I want to wrap myself around you. I like to hold you squeeze you Till the passion starts to rise.
I want to take you to heaven. That would make my day complete.
I had this single in the 70s. I was a kid and I knew every word. I had no clue what it meant…just thought it was a pretty song and the words were powerful. On my single, it was listed as “Only Women” it was shortened from “Only Women Bleed” by the record company because of protests by feminist groups.
Alice Cooper is singing about how women bleed from the heart, mind, and soul. Several feminist groups protested this song, but it was actually a sympathetic look at domestic abuse. It’s a rare song where Cooper doesn’t try to shock.
This ballad was on Alice Cooper’s Welcome To My Nightmare album. The song peaked at #12 in the Billboard 100, #1 in Canada, and #21 in New Zealand in 1975.
The song was written by Cooper and Dick Wagner. Wagner had the melody since the sixties but didn’t like the lyrics. He played the riff for Cooper, and the two developed new lyrics for the song.
The song was produced by Bob Ezrin using a demo that was recorded at the home studio of Micky Dolenz of The Monkees. Cooper and Wagner were able to walk to Dolenz house to record the demo.
Dick Wagner: “It’s really a song about domestic violence. It was misunderstood when it first came out. It was supposedly about a woman’s period, but it wasn’t. It was about a woman’s subservient position in society to a man. I’m a firm believer that women are the superior sex. ‘Only Women Bleed’ was a liberating kind of song.”
From Songfacts
Contrary to what many listeners believed, this is not about menstruation and it does not advocate domestic violence.
Alice Cooper and his guitarist Dick Wagner also wrote the ballads “You And Me” and “I Never Cry” together. Alice called this style “Heavy Metal Housewife Rock,” and explained in an interview with Creem: “I did those songs totally out of spite. I kept reading so many interviews and articles that I said I was never considered musical. Best rock show they ever saw, but musically lacking. They kept saying I was a performer but didn’t write anything. So I said, ‘Oh yeah? Yeah? Wait till you hear this!'”
Cooper performed the song with a single dancer, and it remained a part of his stage show for many of his concerts in the ensuing years. Alice told Mojo: “I didn’t realize it would end up as a woman’s anthem. I just needed a ballad for Welcome to my Nightmare.”
Dick Wagner wrote what would become the music for this song in 1968 when he was with a band called The Frost. Wagner wasn’t happy with the lyrics he wrote for the song, so he never recorded it. When he teamed up with Cooper in 1975, he played the music for Alice, who attached it to a title he was looking to use: “Only Women Bleed.” Based around that title, he and Wagner came up with the rest of the lyrics.
Only Women Bleed
Man’s got his woman to take his seed He’s got the power – oh She’s got the need She spends her life through pleasing up her man She feeds him dinner or anything she can
She cries alone at night too often He smokes and drinks and don’t come home at all Only women bleed Only women bleed Only women bleed
Man makes your hair gray He’s your life’s mistake All you’re really lookin’ for is an even break
He lies right at you You know you hate this game He slaps you once in a while and you live and love in pain
She cries alone at night too often He smokes and drinks and don’t come home at all Only women bleed Only women bleed Only women bleed Only women bleed Only women bleed Only women bleed Only women bleed
Black eyes all of the time Don’t spend a dime Clean up this grime And you there down on your knees begging me please come Watch me bleed
Only women bleed Only women bleed Only women bleed Only women bleed Only women bleed Only women bleed Only women bleed
My last Halloween post…hope you enjoy the day and especially the night!
This song peaked at #45 in the Billboard 100 in 1975. The album of the same name peaked at #5 in the Billboard Album Charts in 1975. Alice Cooper (Vincent Furnier) parted with The Alice Cooper Band to make this album solo.
When Alice Cooper released Welcome To My Nightmare in February 1975, he was already one of the most famous rock celebrities on the planet. Between 1971 and 1974, the Alice Cooper Band, which consisted of Cooper himself (born Vincent Furnier), guitarists Glen Buxton and Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway and drummer Neal Smith, had notched up an impressive run hit albums.
Alice Cooper: “People would come and see us play and just assume that as I was the lead singer then I must be Alice Cooper,” he explains today. “But originally the band was simply called the Alice Cooper Band. But because everyone thought I was Alice I decided it would be easier and better for the band to simply start calling myself Alice.Of course, later, when I would go solo for Welcome To My Nightmare, I’d really become Alice Cooper.”
From Songfacts
This was the centerpiece to Cooper’s 1975 tour, which opened with this song and set the stage for the macabre scenes that followed. Cooper approached the song as a production number, and that’s how he performed it. For the tour, the musicians were hidden in the back of the stage while Alice performed with various dancers and props. He would emerge in a haze of smoke, singing this song on a bed; the rest of the show was based on the idea that we were seeing his nightmares brought to life.
Any meaning in the song is up to the listener, as Alice explained, “I project images to the audience and they make up their own story to fit it. I have no message at all. I never did.”
In 1975, Cooper turned the stage show built around this song into a concert movie called Alice Cooper: Welcome to My Nightmare, and a TV movie called The Nightmare. The famous horror movie actor Vincent Price played “The Spirit of the Nightmare,” narrating the show. The movie was a precursor to long-form music videos, as it was a theatrical production set to music. The most famous long-form video arrived in 1984 with Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” also featuring narration from Vincent Price.
Welcome To My Nightmare
Welcome to my nightmare I think you’re gonna like it I think you’re gonna feel like you belong A nocturnal vacation Unnecessary sedation You want to feel at home ’cause you belong
Welcome to my nightmare Welcome to my breakdown I hope I didn’t scare you That’s just the way we are when we come down We sweat and laugh and scream here ‘Cause life is just a dream here You know inside you feel right at home here
Welcome to my breakdown Whoa You’re welcome to my nightmare Yeah
Welcome to my nightmare I think you’re gonna like it I think you’re gonna feel that you belong We sweat laugh and scream here ‘Cause life is just a dream here You know inside you feel right at home here Welcome to my nightmare Welcome to my breakdown Yeah
Loved this song as a student. I would make sure to fire it up on that last day in May and most of my friends would be shouting it. Cooper (Vincent Damon Furnier) wrote this song with his guitarist Michael Bruce. At the time, “Alice Cooper” was the name of the band, not just the lead singer, and all members contributed to their songwriting. Bruce also wrote the group’s songs “Caught In A Dream” and “Be My Lover,” and co-wrote “No More Mr. Nice Guy” with Cooper.
I’ve always liked Alice Cooper. He wasn’t just a show (uh…Kiss) he had some good hard rock and even pop music. I saw him open for the Rolling Stones in 2006 in Churchill Downs and I’m not saying he was better than the Stones but the sound was much better for his set. With his makeup…he doesn’t age.
The song peaked at #7 in the Billboard 100, #1 in the UK, and #3 in Canada in 1972.
From Songfacts
The title (and song) were inspired by a warning often said in Bowery Boys movies in which one of the characters declares to another, “School is out,” meaning “to wise up.” The Bowery Boys were characters featured in 48 movies that ran from 1946-1958. They were young tough guys in New York City who were always finding trouble. The movies ran on American TV throughout the ’60s and ’70s, eating up a lot of air time on independent stations. It was one of these TV viewings that Cooper saw. In the film, the character Sach (Huntz Hall) did something dumb, which prompted one of the other guys to say, “Hey, Sach, School’s Out!” Cooper like the way the phrase sounded and used it as the basis for this song.
This is a fixture at Cooper’s concerts. He says the difference between him and guys like Marilyn Manson is that he leaves the crowd in a good mood. His shows are meant to be fun, not depressing.
This was released in the summer of 1972, when school really was out. It’s since become an anthem for summer vacation.
This was Cooper’s biggest hit; it was especially popular in the UK where it topped the chart for three weeks. A concert staple, it is usually the last song he plays at his shows.
The chorus of children who sing on this was put together by producer Bob Ezrin. In 1979, Ezrin used another kid’s chorus when he produced “Another Brick In The Wall (part II)” for Pink Floyd. He liked the idea of hearing children’s voices on songs about school. In this song, they sing the children’s rhyme “No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers’ dirty looks.”
In a 2008 Esquire interview, Cooper said: “When we did ‘School’s Out,’ I knew we had just done the national anthem. I’ve become the Francis Scott Key of the last day of school.”
The album opened like a school desk and contained a pair of paper panties. This is the kind of “added value” you just don’t get with CDs.
Soul Asylum covered this for the 1998 movie The Faculty.
Cooper recorded a new version of this with Swedish pop group The A-Teens in 2002. It was an odd pairing, but the A-Teens claimed Cooper did not scare them. Cooper said that was because they had never seen his stage show. The lyrics of the new version were altered from “School’s been blown to pieces” to “I’m bored to pieces.”
Cooper starred in a TV commercial for Staples where a young girl is forced to shop for school supplies while a Muzak version of this song plays. She looks at Cooper and says, “I thought you said School’s out forever.” He replies, “No, the song goes, ‘School’s out for summer. Nice try, though.” At this point, the real version of the song kicks in.
On May 13, 2009, Cooper performed this song at the Arizona State University graduation ceremonies with his son Dash’s band, Runaway Phoenix. Alice wore his varsity letter sweater from Cortez High (Class of ’66) for the performance, which preceded a speech by US President Barack Obama. Cooper’s son Dash was attending the ASU journalism school.
This was slated for the 1992 film Wayne’s World, where Cooper was to perform it before meeting Wayne and Garth backstage. Shortly before filming began, Cooper’s manager Shep Gordon changed the playbook and told the film’s producers that Alice would be performing a new song instead: “Feed My Frankenstein.”
Schools Out
Well we got no choice All the girls and boys Makin’ all that noise ‘Cause they found new toys Well we can’t salute ya can’t find a flag If that don’t suit ya that’s a drag School’s out for summer School’s out forever School’s been blown to pieces
No more pencils no more books No more teacher’s dirty looks yeah Well we got no class And we got no principals And we got no innocence We can’t even think of a word that rhymes School’s out for summer School’s out forever My school’s been blown to pieces
No more pencils no more books No more teacher’s dirty looks Out for summer Out till fall We might not come back at all School’s out forever School’s out for summer School’s out with fever School’s out completely
PowerPop... An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture 