Saturday, November 27, 2004

Kids Hit Jackpot For Ditching Class (25 years ago)

One More Brick...
When I was a KidWonk, I liked to listen to just about any type of music from just about any era. This included the English group Pink Floyd. My favorite album of theirs was called The Wall. The two marching hammers that you see were developed to promote the album, and are used by TeachWonk when writing the Diaries.

The album features several unforgettable songs. To me, the best of the tunes was called "Another Brick In The Wall." A few weeks ago, out of the blue, TeachWonk and myself started discussing the songs. But neither of us could remember the title, as it had been many years, since we were in our "Retro" phases. One of our Faculty members, Temujin, over at
West Coast Chaos, came to the rescue when TeachWonk called the song by an incorrect name.

The song itself had a chorus with a bunch of kids singing, "We don't need no education... We don't need no thought control... No dark sarcasms in the classroom... Teacher, leave those kids alone. Etc." This song has served as an anthem for rebellious high school students ever since its release back in 1979.

Now we learn that after 25 years, the kids that were singing the chorus to that song are
suing to get royalties . We were surprised to learn that the kids singing that song were a real class of London school children who had "sneaked off" to the recording studio along with their teacher.

There was just one problem. The teacher had not gotten permission from his principal to do so. The kids sang their songs, the teacher was reprimanded, and the whole episode became something of a local legend.


Maybe I could get a little pocket money for my "singing" the part of Simon Zealot (several years ago) in my University's production of Jesus Christ, Superstar.