"School's Out" is a 1972 title track single released on Alice Cooper's fifth album. It is arguably Alice Cooper's most well-known song.
Cooper has said he was inspired to write the song when answering the question, "What's the greatest three minutes of your life?". Says Cooper: "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.
"School's Out" became Alice Cooper's first big song, reaching #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart and propelling the album to #2 on the Billboard 200 pop albums chart. The song reached #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. In 2004, the song was ranked #319 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
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, just as in Pink Floyd's 1979 hit "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)".
There is one difference between the LP and single versions. The "turn-off" effect used at the end of the album track (which is also the common radio airplay version) is not used for the 45, which simply fades out.
School's Out is a single by the band GWAR. It was the first release from their 2006 album Beyond Hell and is a cover of the 1972 song by the same name by Alice Cooper. 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.
