Meyer & McGuire
Songwriter Notes
Song
of the Month #17 - “High School”
(Track #9 on the Home Town CD)
Lyrics: If your web browser does not support the Flash Player* included with the Lyrics, or you are uncomfortable
allowing/downloading the plug-in/add-on, you can still listen to this song
while you read. Just go to our Downloads
Page and click on the
link, “Buy Home Town Songs from Napster”. Then, click on
"High School." You can listen to it for free (not
available outside the USA).
*Not being a
techie, I use the term “Flash Player” loosely.
In
the fall of 1974, I started teaching English at the local high school in
Canandaigua, New York. Like most young
teachers, I entered the job thinking every kid would eat up my pearls of wisdom
with great alacrity. Well, needless to
say, I was wrong. In fact, if I did make
the priority list of any kids, it was way down at the bottom of page two or
three of their directory. Before me, of
course, came sex, drugs, rock-n-roll, sports, parties, dances, jobs, cars,
clothes, etc. At first, this rejection
was very hard to take, but as time moved along it was mitigated by one simple
truth. I really enjoyed being around
these kids, and I sensed they enjoyed being around me. I often found myself deeply engrossed in
their horrific and hilarious stories.
Hey, who wouldn’t! A description
of a fight at Sonnenberg (the local park) easily had it all over a lesson on
coordinate conjunctions.
Despite
my intense desire to just hang out and share stories with these kids, I worked
as hard as I could at keeping us both on task in the classroom, and while I was
not a great teacher, I was a fairly good one.
Tom Brina, a close friend of mine from college, describes me as a great
“utility player,” and I thoroughly agree with his assessment. For those of you who are not into sports, a
“utility player” is the guy who fills in for A-Rod or Jeter when they are
injured, or runs for Giambi in the late innings after he gets a single. Tom also describes me as a great guy to have
around the clubhouse, another accurate appraisal. According to Tom, if I were in the
locker-room with the Yankees after they were swept by the Red Sox, I would be
the guy who could make them double over with laughter. Therefore, if you understand Tom’s analogies,
you will understand my roll as a teacher.
I taught whatever needed to be taught, and I kept the spirits of my kids
and colleagues up whenever I possibly could.
I was good, but not great.
“High
School” could and would not be written by a great teacher, because a great
teacher would not experience the events that generated the song. A great teacher would rarely hear, “I don’t
know. Would you please repeat the
question? I didn’t read the assignment. I left my note cards at home. My book is in my locker. When are we going to read something
interesting? I hate English. Why do we need vocabulary? What is a verb? Why do you have to ruin every story by making
us search for the theme? Why can’t I put
on my makeup during class? When is this
class over?” In addition, a great
teacher would seldom hear his or her voice echo from the back wall of a
classroom filled with a group of students who looked like a herd of deer caught
in the headlights. Conversely, a good,
average or below average teacher experiences these conditions on a daily
basis. As a result of being part of the
latter group, I was able to take these details and turn them into a song.
One
afternoon in the late ‘70s, I was practicing my guitar in my classroom well
after the students had gone home for the day.
While I was playing I thought about some of my friends who went to SUNY
New Paltz, a college about thirty miles south of my home town in Saugerties,
New York. When they were there, they
developed a little ditty that went like this:
“New
Paltz, New Paltz, that’s the place for me
New
Paltz, New Paltz, that’s where I wanna be
I
don’t wanna work, and I don’t wanna study
Just
wanna party with my buddies
New
Paltz, New Paltz, that’s the place for me.”
Jokingly,
I replaced the words New Paltz with the words high school, and I started
singing it. For a laugh, I began to
scratch out some verses to go along with this corny little chorus, and in no
time, I created five verses. They
reflected comments I had heard kids make about their classes. In jest, I played this stupid little song for
my classes a few days later, and it was a hit.
In fact, most of them sang along with the chorus, a behavior rarely
demonstrated by most adolescents.
“High School” is pure Americana. It is a country folk song that brings a smile
to your face and easily elicits a chuckle or two as you listen. While the lyrics are not profound, they are
unforgettable. Lightheartedly, they poke
fun at the high school scene, a place that evokes both good and bad memories
for nearly everyone. With a guitar, a
banjo, a bass, drums, backup harmonies, and a variety of sound effects, John
and Joe Dady help me in creating a healthy dose of irony in this humorous
presentation. While not coming close to
Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant,” it moves along in a similar style. Hope you have time to check it out! I like it, and I hope you do, too.
When I recorded the song, I did not
dedicate it to any one person or group for one simple reason. I did not want to insult anyone by honoring
them with such a commonplace piece of writing.
However, although it is not a great song, it’s one many still want to
hear after all these years. It’s the one
you find yourself humming for days after you hear it. So, I still keep it in the repertoire. In reflection, I suppose I should have
dedicated the song to the hundreds of kids who made it happen. Their flippant, witty, and sometimes painful
comments were the catalyst for its development.
Today, even though three decades have past, I am still subject to their
frivolity and humor when I meet them in the local taverns around
Canandaigua. But, things are different
now. I no longer have to try to get them
to do something. I can just sit and
enjoy their stories. They have become
the family Siobhan and I never had, and we cherish the time we spend with them.
I recorded this song in 1993 at The Garage, a little
studio in Rochester, New York. The
Garage, as I have told you before, is owned and operated by John and Joe Dady,
two quintessential musicians. When you
record with them, you can always count on great coffee, good stories, and an
aching stomach from laughing. I highly
recommend John and Joe if you are interested in recording. Also, The Dady Brothers, John and Joe’s
group, have many recordings of their own, and they tour the United States and
Ireland. Check them out on the web at www.dadybros.com.
Well,
there you have it. I’ll have another
song of the month for you next month. If
you have any comments or suggestions, please pass them on to me. This is a work in progress, and I am always
looking for new ways to improve it.
(E-Mailed 8/18/08)
E-mail us at McRiley@Frontiernet.net