Scott King: Songs

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I wrote this song one night while on dorm duty after one of my students said, "Mr. King, like half of the kids think you're stoned when you're on duty." Once, years earlier at a different school, a rumor was going around that I was selling everything I owned to support my cocaine habit because one day some kid saw a guy come and buy a stereo I had advertised in the classifieds. The truth is, I was often exhausted on duty because it's hard for me to stay up late, and at the time of this particular student's intriguing question (a question I ignored, by the way, saying only, "Hmmm."), I had a newborn in the house who, like all newborns, was robbing me and my wife (but mostly my wife, truth be told) of needed sleep. Anyway, misperception is one of the hallmarks of the adolescent mind as it tries to understand the adult world and doesn't, while thinking that it does. I am thankful for my student's question, because it gave me something to do that night, and it resulted in one of my better songs, a humorous piece that combines the theme of adolescent misperception with the use of irony, and the double-word rhyming scheme ("patchouli" & "school he" -- something I learned by listening to Dave Carter).

DOWN AND LOW

The teacher's eyes were red
He must be smoking pot
He likes the Grateful Dead
He must be smoking pot
You see that old volkswagen there in the parking lot?
It belongs to that teacher who must be smoking pot

We heard it first from Jimmy, who heard it first from Joe, who said that Dave and Sally got all the down and low from someone they've forgotten, but man, he knew a lot about this certain teacher who must be smoking pot

He wears earrings and clogs, puts tie-dyed bandanas on his big white dogs
He smells like patchouli, and when he comes to school he always says, "Hey, Dude."

He's got John-Lennon glasses with modern clip-on shades
And didn't Lennon love the reefer?
You know that's what they say
In fact I heard him talking 'bout all the Beatles records that he's got
That's how I know this hippie teacher must be smoking pot

And he wears earrings and clogs, puts tie-dyed bandanas on his big white dogs
He smells like patchouli, and when he comes to school he always says, "Hey, Dude."

The teacher's eyes were red
He must be smoking pot
He loves that Grateful Dead
Well, he must be smoking pot
He gets so easily sidetracked, ask any kid he's taught
And someone said they heard somewhere that he was at Woostock

And he wears earrings and clogs...