Hey! Student

(1)

Entirely fictuous...     (2)

When I'm walking down the street,
It's always you I seem to meet,
Long hair down and sneakers on your feet.
And write your letters to the Evening News (3)
I clench my fist and sing this tune    (4)

I said Hey student, hey student, hey student,
You're gonna get it through the head,
I said Hey student, hey student, hey student,
You're gonna get it through the head, I said...

When walking to work,
It's always you I seem to meet
Henna in your hair, standing in the heat (5)
As you serve and stand all about, poor kid--
I clench the knife before I flip my lid

I said Hey student, hey student, hey student,
You're gonna get it through the head,
I said Hey student, hey student, hey student,
You're gonna get it through the head, I said...

When walking down the street,
It's always you I seem to meet,
Long hair down and sneakers on your feet.
As you listen to Pearl Jam in your room. (6)
I pick up a knife and I sing this song

I said Hey student, hey student, hey student,
You're gonna get it through the head,
I said Hey student, hey student, hey student,
You're gonna get it through the head, I said...

I said walk some more! walk some more! walk some more! 
Wah wah wah!

When walking down the street,
It's always you I seem to meet,
Long hair down and sneakers on your feet.
As you stare in your room at Shaun Ryder's face (7)
Down long long long long days (8)

I said Hey student, hey student, hey student,
You're gonna get it through the head,
I said Hey student, hey student, hey student,
You're gonna get it through the head, I said...

I said walk some more! walk some more! walk some more! 
Wah wah wah!

I said woka-to-ma! Woka-to-ma! Woka-to-ma! 
Wah wah wah!

The dead brains of class A-D (9)
Born to live in Leigh-on-Sea (10)
Twin swastikas, court, swimming pool (11)
I pound my fist and I sing this tune

I said Hey student, hey student, hey student,
You're gonna get it through the head,
I said Hey student, hey student, hey student,
You're gonna get it through the head, I said...

I said Hey student, hey student, hey student,
Why don't you get it through your head?
I said Hey student, hey student, hey student,
You're gonna get it through the head, I said...

I said walk some more! walk some more! walk some more! 
Wah wah wah!

1. This is a rewrite of a 1977 Fall song called "Hey! Fascist," which had basically the same music and many of the same words. But it was apparently "Hey! Student" before it was "Hey! Fascist" as well as after (from Dan):

From United They Fall, by Chris Brazier (Melody Maker 31 December 1977, p9): I'd mentioned to them that I'd heard they used to refuse all college gigs, and to sing "Oh Student!" [sic] instead of "Hey Fascist!" Una: "I didn't think we'd been going long enough to have a history" (it's only eight months since Una and drummer Karl Burns joined and the band's life began in earnest). Mark: "One of the reasons we changed that was that it's become very trendy to bash students. The sentiment's still there maybe, but the main reason we changed it to "Hey Fascist!" was that we thought it was more relevant." So what does the song say now? "It's an anti-fascist song," says Una, "what else is there to say?" She glared at me with a challenging glint in her eye, as she did till at least halfway through the interview, when we finally decided we liked each other. I was glad she didn't know that only a few months before I'd been one of the reviled student breed.

Mark E Smith on students (more specifically, here, "mature students"), from a 1993 NME piece:

"It's just the rate of their proliferation that scares me. Have you seen how many people have gone back to school now? Dead weird, innit? It just keeps the unemployment figures down and produces millions of half-educated old coots. I've got nothing against students as such, it's just when you get old mates using words like 'constructively' and 'comprehensively'... It's all a fiddle to make us think they've cracked unemployment, the stupid bastards. There's nothing worse than a half-educated man. Never forget that."

According to Rip it Up and Start Again:

In a November 1981 NME piece, Smith declared, “”when the students got hold of rock’n’roll, that’s when it started going downhill”; in other pieces, he singled out The Soft Machine and the Canterbury scene as the sort of college gig circuit/student audience targeted progressive pre-punk fare he detested (overly “fancy music” in other words)...According to Baines, though, Smith changed the title to “Hey, Fascist” when “he realized that his audience was mainly students!”

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2. I was convinced of this by Carl. It used to read "anti-victuous," as though he started to say "anti-intellectuals" and swerved at the last moment. The Peel version opens with something about "burning into semi-reality..."

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3. The London newspaper The Evening News folded in 1980; there is also a Manchester Evening News. 

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4. Peel: "As you winge and groan in your little room/I feel a knife and I sing this song."

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5. Henna, a reddish brown dye made from the plant of the same name, has been used as a hair dye for some 6,000 years.

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6. Pearl Jam had number one albums in both 1993 and 1994. They were indeed a favorite on college campuses at this time. Peel: "As you listen to Pearl Jam in your videodrome..."

Videodrome is a 1983 movie by David Cronenberg. From the plot summary at Wikipedia:

"Max Renn is the president of CIVIC-TV, a Toronto UHF television station specializing in sensationalistic programming. Displeased with his station's current lineup (which mostly consists of softcore pornography and gratuitous violence), Max is looking for something that will break through to a new audience. One morning, he is summoned to the clandestine office of Harlan, who operates CIVIC-TV's unauthorized satellite dish which can intercept broadcasts from as far away as Asia. Harlan shows Renn Videodrome, a plotless television show apparently being broadcast out of Malaysia which depicts the brutal torture and eventual murder of anonymous victims in a reddish-orange chamber. Believing this to be the future of television, Max orders Harlan to begin unlicensed use of the show."

-drome is a combining form that means "place for running or racing."

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7. Shaun Ryder, the lead singer for the Happy Mondays, is, like Mark E Smith, from Salford in Greater Manchester. Peel: "As you masturbate with your Shaun Ryder phase..."

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8. A variant of this phrase is a favorite of Smith's, as he often proclaims during the first song of a set, "We are the Fall, down the long, long, days..."

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9. This is probably a reference to National Readership Survey demographic classifications (see also "Middle Class Revolt"). The categories are as follows:

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10. Leigh-on-Sea is in Essex, in Southern England.

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11. The swastikas and, incidentally, the swimming pools, are another leftover from "Hey! Fascist"; it is doubtful that the students MES is lambasting--or, for that matter, many of the class A-D folk mentioned here--would literally sport them, but there may be a metaphorical reason for leaving them in, or it could just be indiscriminate vitriol and/or laziness.

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Hey! Student: Fall Tracks A-Z