Day Eleven: You're gona to get it through the head.

Possibly the only song to address the hate for students that was a bit more rife than it is now, back in 1994 I think I'm right in thinking students still got grants (as in they didn't have to take loans and swanned through) there was a lot of talk of 'tax dodger' and I think I remember the advent of 'student accounts' being marketed in kooky ways in magazines and on telly. I remember one in particular that had a guy with green hair that matched his lizard which was crawling up his arm. the tagline read along the lines of 'I'm unconventional, so why shouldn't my bank account be?'

Kind of glad that kind of marketing has disappeared, the brazenly 'Hey, we're cool too" that banks used to try, but I'm sure some people think they are the same as they've always been.

Actually, they've gotten worse haven't they? Condescending prattle about budgets and making overdrafts seem ok in the grand scheme of things. Don't get me started on those Halifax twunts pretending to be DJs (good fucking GOD).

Anyway, back to this song:



Song: Hey Student!
Album: Middle Class Revolt
Year: 1994

This song made it to number 2 in John Peel's festive fifty that year, which says it all. This is a great punk number, paced, direct and maybe with a little bit of tongue in cheek. The singalong chorus means its a live favourite for Fall fans.

Think my favourite lyrics are:

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.
I'm thinking like that when I sing this song

This is obviously a dig at the stoner students listening to grunge at that time, the stereotypical waster student which was lambasted in the press and hated by anyone with an honest job. I suppose the hate was justified in a way, lots of people losing their jobs from the knock-on effects of the 1980s while these kids got a free ticket to uni, doesn't seem fair, but I'm sure MES had other things on his mind.

Particularly love the reference to Shaun Ryder's face, certainly not a poster boy, so why MES thinks people had him on their walls I've no idea.

The chorus is hilarious: Hey student, you're gona get it through the head.

It's almost as if when walking down the street, MES is doing what I call the psychic one-inch punch in his head to every single one of these chumps he meets, knocking each one sprawling with mind bullets.

I'll forever sing this when I walk past a student now, the jaded 26-year-old I am...