Teacher Songs #10: Crush

Van Halen - Hot For Teacher

After last week's post about my old Chemistry teacher, Mr. Dowling, Brian commented...

I took the bare minimum of sciences in high school and college out of pure laziness. The only teacher I remember from those classes was Mrs. Fischer, for reasons that had nothing to do with class content.

All of which brings us to the thorny issue of fancying your teacher... something which I have more songs about that any other issue in school...

Now I may be misremembering here, but the only teacher I can recall who made me come over all Prince...

Prince - Teacher Teacher

...was Miss Crosby from the Art Department. The "Miss" was important, I'm sure.

There were three art teachers I remember from school. Miss Roche wore dungarees and also taught what would now be called CDT. The big thing I remember from her lessons was making a letter opener out of blue Perspex... an object which would have high demand as a shank in any prison in the country. I still have that letter opener today, though it gets far less use than it did in the 80s and 90s. I don't even shank people with it any more.

Billy J - Teacher Teach Me

And then there was Miss Crosby, the archetypal "fit" teacher. That word seems rather archaic now - do people still say "fit"? It was the 80s and we were teenage lads. Everyone fancied Miss Crosby. I think it's fair to say that she was a big factor in my choosing to continue doing Art at A Level, even though I only got a C in GCSE. 

Level 42 - Lessons In Love

I didn't do very well at A Level Art (I got an E). Partly because the Art department expected you to spend all your time doing Art when I was far more focussed on my primary subjects (English Language & Literature). Don't take A Level Art as a third option. Nobody will thank you for it. And that's where I saw another side of Miss Crosby too - she could be lovely to those kids who spent every lunchtime in the Art room working on their projects... but those of us with less commitment, she tended to shun.

Oh, my broken Art!

Bob Seger - School Teacher

Also, we tended to see far less of Miss Crosby once we started A Levels (it was almost like she'd laid a honey trap and now we were caught in it - and the numbers for A Level art were good! - then her work was done). Instead, most of our lessons seemed to be with the third member of the Art Department, Mrs. Birkenshaw, an older lady who dressed liked Crystal Carrington in Dynasty (shoulder pads were big at the time, and no bigger than on Mrs. Birkenshaw). You could always tell she was coming from a mile off because her appearance was heralded by a choking cloud of Calvin Klein's Obsession... though she was no Isabella Rossellini.  

We used to stand in the corridor as she passed, humming the theme tune to Dynasty as loud as we could get away with... I don't think she ever twigged. Or maybe she did, and liked the attention.

Diana Ross - Oh Teacher

There's a lesson to be had here about the futility of fancying your teacher... but I doubt any of you need to be taught it. And just imagine what it's like to be on the other side of that equation...

38 Special - Teacher Teacher

More on that next week.

Teacher Songs #9: Chemistry Class

Semisonic - Chemistry

My high school Chemistry teacher was Mr. Dowling. He also taught Maths. He looked like Doctor Emmett Brown from Back To The Future.

Elvis Costello - Chemistry Class

That's all you need to know, really. I got a B in Chemistry, despite having very little interest in Science. I put that entirely down to him.

Today's post was just an excuse to play this video...

Teacher Songs #8: The Return Of Mrs. Tebb

I've written about Mrs. Tebb before.

She was the primary teacher, you may recall, who insisted I drink my free school milk even when I told her I didn't drink milk because it made me throw up. And Mrs. Kaye never made me drink it last year! "Drink your milk," ordered Mrs. Tebb. 

So I did. And I threw up.

The Beach Boys - Be True To Your School 

Maybe this set the tone of our relationship and explained why Mrs. Tebb didn't like me for the rest of the year. She thought she knew better than a 7 year old, but actually... guess what, Mrs. Tebb... sometimes you don't.

The Lemon Twigs - The Student Becomes The Teacher

Then last week, while discussing knocking down walls in Emergency Questions, Alyson jogged my memory about another incident - one in which I was far more culpable - which cemented the animosity Mrs. Tebb felt towards me. The time I pushed Andrew Lodge through the classroom wall.

I'm pretty sure it was Andrew Lodge, but I might be wrong about that. Either way, my apologies to him. And my apologies for the time that he attended my birthday party and I threw a dart in his eye, almost blinding him. Believe it or not, Andrew Lodge was a good mate of mine in junior school. But these things happened. 

Supertramp - School

Mrs. Tebb didn't have a classroom in the main school. She taught her class in a portacabin out in the school garden. It was a very nice portacabin in a very nice garden (we had school chickens too, provided by my mate Simon, whose dad was a chicken farmer). Far be it from me to suggest that the Head had arranged it that way to keep Mrs. Tebb away from Gen-Pop... or the other teachers... but if he had done that, I could easily understand why.

Jim Bob - The School Is Not The Building (It's The Children)

Anyway, as you entered the portacabin, there was a small cloak room, then a door that led into the main classroom. One morning, I was messing around with Andrew Lodge (or someone else whose name has been lost to antiquity, but Andrew Lodge is taking his place), playfighting, and... y'know, I had a bit of a temper when I was a kid, and maybe things got a bit out of hand... so I pushed Andrew Lodge straight through the cloakroom wall (which to be fair, was obviously made of an amalgam of tissue paper and spit) and into Mrs. Tebb's store-room. 

Looking back, I'm starting to understand why Mrs. Tebb didn't like me. She was never going to teach me love, to quote Rockpile...

Teacher Songs #7: Music Lessons

I was always quite musical in my youth...

Musical Youth - Pass The Dutchie

Not quite that musical, but I did play piano and tenor horn. I had my horn lessons on a Monday afternoon in school, which meant that I got to get out of Mrs. Green's Biology lesson for 15 minutes. I've mentioned Mrs. Green before: she was married to Mr. Green and she didn't like me. Perhaps one of the reasons for that was the look of glee on my face when I told her I had to go for my tenor horn lesson every week.

The Andrews Sisters - Music Lessons

There were only two music teachers at my high school, and they couldn't have been more different. Mr. Benson was a large African gentleman with a deep voice and a thick accent who liked to call kids who messed around, "You stupid-idiot-twit!" I recall this because he once caught me impersonating him and addressing said insult to one of my peers. I felt for sure I was going to feel his wrath... but he let it go. Perhaps because I was interested in music, unlike many of my classmates. I ended up taking the subject at GCSE, and although I only came out with a C, I like to think Mr. Benson was happy with that.

Radiohead - Anyone Can Play Guitar

Our other music teacher was Mr. Moon, a gentleman who was the complete opposite of Mr. Benson in every week. A tall thin, extremely pale white guy who struggled to keep control of the class and commanded none of Mr. Benson's respect. He appeared to know this too, which only compounded his bitterness. In fits of exasperation (when his hands alone would turn bright red), he would shriek at the class malcontents that, "If you don't stop messing around, I'm going to fetch Mr. Benson!"

New Seekers - I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing

To be fair, that usually did the trick.

Teacher Songs #6: Quixote

Our Head of English, back in High School, didn't know how to pronounce Don Quixote.

At the time, it was occasionally remarked that Mr. Slade looked like a member of ZZ Top. In retrospect, that makes him sound far too cool. He actually looked more like a member of the Doobie Brothers (but not Michael McDonald). No, even that's wrong. He looked like a member of a 70s folk band, and not a famous 70s folk band like Fairport Convention or Steeleye Span. He looked like he should have been in the Driffield Cobblers. Tinderbox Bartholomew. Or the Bolton Leech Collectors.

   

He had a beard, OK? And not a cool beard. One that could well be scratched, in thinking pose, chinny reck-on style. He also had a droning voice. 

We never studied Don Quixote by Cervantes, but we were all familiar with how to pronounce the name thanks to Nik Kershaw...

 

Rather a pretentious video that, it takes almost two minutes to get to the point and start the actual song. I can't help but feel Mr. Slade would approve: getting to the point was not something he overly concerned himself with. He would often go off on tangents, tilting at windmills, to stretch that particular idiom to breaking point... and one day in an A Level English lesson, he got onto the subject of Cervantes and his greatest creation... Don Kwix-oat.

Much tittering ensued from the Nik Kershaw fans in the class. Perhaps Mr. Slade was thinking of the pronunciation more commonly associated with the word "quixotic". Nobody dared ask him. 

Funny how these things stay with you...

Teacher Songs #5: Punchline

There's an old joke which goes something like this...

I used to hate school. Every morning, my mum would try to wake me up and get me out of bed, and I'd weep and wail and gnash my teeth and sob, "but Mum, I don't want to go - all the kids are horrible to me! They call me names and spit in my lunch and knock me over in the corridor... it's awful!"

And my mum would sit on the edge of my bed and take my hand in hers, offering these gentle words of persuasion, "Look, we've talked about this before, son. You've got to go... you're the teacher!"

It's a cracker, as Frank Carson would say. And such a good joke that the Super Furry Animals turned it into a song...

Teacher Songs #4: Season of Mists...

The Korgis - Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime

My first school teacher was Mrs. Kaye. She was a grand old dame, that's the only way to describe her. Posh, but lovely. Very theatrical. She wrote her own school plays, adapting Tom Sawyer, Charlie & The Chocolate Factory and The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe into scripts that could be performed by 8-10 year olds. I guess she saw some hidden talent in me as she cast me in major roles in the first two - Huckleberry Finn and Willy Wonka... though it was quite a come-down to only appear as Mr. Beaver in the latter. I've no idea what I'd done to deserve that.

The Rare Earth - Is Your Teacher Cool?

I've probably mentioned this before, but years later, when I decided I wanted to be a DJ and a couple of people at the radio station suggested that my Yorkshire accent was a little strong, I went back to Mrs. Kaye for elocution lessons. She'd retired by then, but was happy to get me to read Keats over and over, softening my vowels and slowing my inflection. I can't think about Mrs. Kaye without remembering those summer evenings in her conservatory, picturing ripe fruit, plump hazel shells and vines that round the thatch-eves run... the words from the poem somehow transforming her home into an idyllic country cottage, when it was probably anything but. 

Wide Boy Awake - Slang Teacher

Toyah - Elocution Lesson

Sleaford Mods - Elocution

Nat King Cole - The Rain In Spain

Teacher Songs #3: Home Economics

Bis - Home Economics

I don't remember my Home Economics teacher at all. Not her name, nor what she looked like. Maybe this explains why I'm hopeless in the kitchen and can only just manage to sew a button onto my shirt after stabbing myself in the finger a few times.

Alanis Morissette - You Learn

I can remember most of the other teachers I had at school by either name or face, but there's just a blank when it comes to Home Economics lessons. I vaguely remember having to take ingredients in when we were doing cooking... maybe we made an egg salad one time? Something with pastry? The only thing I definitely remember making was a blancmange. And it was horrible. I've not eaten blancmange since. Does anybody still eat blancmange? When was the last time you had one?

Blancmange - Living On The Ceiling

I wish I had paid more attention in Home Economics. I wish I'd taken it past the second year. Nowadays, boys might be more likely to do so, but back in the Neolithic era, it was very much seen as a girl's subject and the other kids had more than enough ammunition when it came to targeting me, I wasn't going to give them an easy goal like that.

Wings - Girls' School

Because I don't remember the name of my Home Economics teacher, I guess we'll have to call her Mrs Fucking MacMurphy...

Teacher Songs #3: A Right Sod...

A quick google search for "Geography teacher 80s UK" brought up a picture of Jarvis, wearing an outfit I'm sure many of you will remember your teachers wearing back in the day. Clearly though, if Jarvis was a teacher, he'd have been up on a disciplinary years ago, if this is anything to go by...

My Geography teacher was Mr. Green. He was a very scary individual, but I liked him. He had a wooden leg, so you could hear him coming down the corridor... clump, clump, clump... and knew to scarper if you were up to no good. His wife taught Biology. I was less fond of her, and she of me. I dropped Biology at the end of the third year as a result.

In our very first Geography lesson, Mr. Green told us all a story. I'm sure it was one he told to new classes at the start of every year. During teacher training, someone advised me to go hard in the first class - set your stall and show them that you'd take none of their nonsense, from the beginning. I'm not sure I've ever managed to do that, since it's not really my style. But you find what works for you.

Jethro Tull - Teacher

Anyway, Mr. Green's story went like this...

"I was standing in the lunch queue one day..."

It's worth pointing out here that Mr. Green was one of those teachers who would queue up for school dinners with everyone else. No jumping the queue or asking for priority treatment. That wasn't how he clumped.  

"And in front of me were two boys, chatting. Neither of them had seen me, so when one asked the other a question, his response was honest and direct. 'Who do you have for Geography?' the first boy asked. 'Mr. Green,' replied the second... 'he's a right sod, but you learn something.'"

Mr. Green took a pause gave us all a hard stare. "I let that go," he said. "It seemed fair."

 

Teacher Songs #2: Spineless Swines, Cemented Minds

More songs and stories about teachers, by a teacher. School's back now after a far too short Easter holiday...

Thank you for your suggestions last week. Our resident Maths teacher reminded of this sweet ode to teachers from Reg Dwight. "I think it is probably very inappropriate," says George. I think, in this day and age, most songs about fancying your teacher would be cancelled... but isn't that just part of adolescence?

I was sitting in the classroom
Trying to look intelligent
In case the teacher looked at me
She was long and she was lean
She's a middle-aged dream
And that lady means the whole world to me

It's a natural achievement

Conquering my homework

With her image pounding in my brain

She's an inspiration

For my graduation

And she helps to keep the classroom sane

Elton John - Teacher, I Need You

Meanwhile, The Blogfather weighed with a suggestion based on an artist we both used to cherish... until we all had to cancel him. JC says...

As much as I can't abide what he's turned into, Morrissey did pen a mighty opus about the profession.....turns out some clever clogs has recently made a video marrying the song to very old clips of 'Grange Hill'. Thought it might be of particular interest to you, Rol.

Morrissey - The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils

Those old Grange Hill clips certainly bring back memories. How times have changed, eh? Then again, Morrissey's lyrics reflect that...

Say the wrong word to our children...

We'll have you, oh yes, we'll have you

Lay a hand on our children

And it's never too late to have you

Mucus on your collar

A nail up through the staff chair

A blade in your soap

And you cry into your pillow

To be finished would be a relief

Because here (or 1995, when this was written), it's the teachers he feels sorry for... whereas just ten years earlier, he wrote a very different song in which his sympathies lay far more squarely with the pupils. 

Belligerent ghouls run Manchester schools

Spineless swines, cemented minds

Sir leads the troops, jealous of youth

Same old suit since 1962

He does the military two-step

Down the nape of my neck

I want to go home

I don't want to stay

Give up education

As a bad mistake

Mid-week on the playing fields

Sir thwacks you on the knees

Knees you in the groin, elbow in the face

Bruises bigger than dinner plates

Please excuse me from gym

I've got this terrible cold coming on

He grabs and devours, he kicks me in the showers

Kicks me in the showers and he grabs and devours

In 1985, I'd be 13, just starting my Second Year in High School. I'd grown up watching Grange Hill and was quite terrified of what to expect when I went to the big school, but as I arrived the winds of change were blowing. I remember an older kid getting the slipper when we were in the First Year, but that sort of thing had gone the way of the dinosaurs only a couple of years later. The schooldays Morrissey recalls in The Headmaster Ritual (and ones many of you may have been familiar with) were already on their way out by the time the album Meat Is Murder was released. 

But just because things change... it doesn't necessarily mean they get better.

Teacher Songs #1

I stumbled across this old Fist of Fun clip on the Tube of You last week, in which Stewart Lee and Richard Herring play two very different teachers. I'm sure we all recognise the stereotypes. It made me wonder, what type of teacher will I be remembered as? I'd like to think I'd be midway between the two... without the cringe on either side. But we can never knew how others might see us, particularly students...

I wonder what kind of teacher George was? Or Swiss Adam? 

All of this made me realise there was a series to be had in songs about teachers. Many of which would be cancelled if they were released these days. All the more reason to celebrate them!

Here are the three best teacher videos I could think of off the top of my head...

...but there's many more where they came from!