Top 10 "Schoolhouse Rock!" Songs

Top 10 "Schoolhouse Rock!" Songs

“As your body grows bigger, your mind must flower!/
It’s great to learn, ‘cuz knowledge is power!”

ABC graced us with Schoolhouse Rock! back in the 1970s: a series of three-minute songs dedicated to educating the youths on math, history, language, science, and much more. It was a staple of Saturday morning cartoons, distributed intermittently between longer programming.

The show has come a long way from Saturday morning cartoons, though. The Schoolhouse Rock! team has had songs come out in five different decades over six different topics. The series has even spawned a stage show.

As it pertains to me on a personal level, I had the Multiplication and America Rock! sets on VHS when I was a kid. Without them, I wouldn’t have a lot of the knowledge I had as a kid. Thanks to Schoolhouse Rock!, I learned valuable lessons like multiplying by 5s, or what adverbs were, or how the government works.

If you're familiar with the show, hopefully you'll enjoy this list. If you're not familiar, maybe you still have that spark of little kid joy in you and you'll enjoy the songs when you hear them for the first time.

And so, for no other reason than wanting to pay some homage to a highly influential kids program, here are my picks for the top 10 songs from Schoolhouse Rock!.


Honorable Mentions:

"Fireworks"

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This New Orleans-inspired celebration tells the story of the signing of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress. “Fireworks” is one of three songs in the entire series to feature the vocals of Grady Tate (“I Got Six” and “Naughty Number Nine” are the other two), whose silky-smooth voice may not have the same bravado or range as someone like Jack Sheldon, but is able to ground this particular song in contrast to the horns and background vocals that fly above it. Favorite moments included the listing of the signers of the document (“Benjamin Franklin, Philip Livingston/John Adams, Roger Sherman, Thomas Jefferson”), and the rhyming of “Declaration of Independence” with “Seventeen Hundred Seventy-Six.” Those two don’t rhyme, but I’ll be damned if “Fireworks” isn’t one of the catchiest, most underrated songs in all of Schoolhouse Rock.

"Dollars and Sense"

Suppose you’re a country singer. Suppose you’re a musician of any kind. You’ll probably need to make money because the arts are among the least lucrative professions and have hardly any job security. This is where “Dollars and Sense” comes in, as Bob Dorough and Val Hawk teach us how banks calculate interest on deposits and how loans are given out. A word of common “sense,” though. If you’re going to buy an electric guitar, just make sure your farm has electricity. Or buy an acoustic guitar. Country singers play those, right? Just a thought.

"A Noun is a Person, Place, or Thing"

Lynn Ahrens is the best, isn’t she? She made Ragtime, Once on This Island, Anastasia, and a host of others, but Schoolhouse Rock is where Ahrens got her start in 1973. The study of nouns is a simple premise but can be complex to explain, and Ahrens constructs melodic phrasing that is easy to follow, so she can take you on a journey to meet many people (like a bandit, Mrs. Jones, a sea captain, or the Beatles), see many places (like Hudson Street, Liberty Island, or her neighborhood corner store), and many things (like Mrs. Jones’ dog, the Statue of Liberty, or a jukebox). I’ve always wanted to direct a version of Schoolhouse Rock Live!, just so I could open it with this song. ​

"Elementary, My Dear"

I respected “Elementary, My Dear” for going farther in its multiplication tables than most of the other songs on Multiplication Rock!. All the way up to 20? As in 2 x 20? That’s some intense action right there, as most of the other songs multiply only up to 12. I love that as the song continues, and each simple math question is answered and followed by an “elementary,” we get a cute little “clap-clap” to go along with it. As we count the animals on Noah’s Ark, we learn that every time you multiply by 2, you get an even number- something I sometimes find interesting even though I learned my twos tables many many years ago. Number are cool, aren’t they? ​

"Electricity, Electricity"

This one is in the same vein as “Conjunction Junction,” but I can see how its constant “Electricity, Electricity” after every line can get inside your head. It doesn’t want you to forget what this portion of Science Rock! is discussing, and that’s all well and good. The song makes some good points that I, who was not great with science in school, will hold onto forever, such as how electric generators have magnets and magnetic fields inside, and how currents transfer electricity to vessels to use it in a variety of ways (like in lightbulbs!). ​

"Interjections!"

FINE! (see what I did there) I added this one right at the very last minute. The refrain is obviously inspired by Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus,” a fitting set of interjections for this track from Grammar Rock! “Interjections show excitement or emotion. They’re generally set apart from a sentence by an exclamation point, or by a comma when the feeling’s not as strong.” That is an ACTUAL line from the song. I also love how much they toned down interjections at sporting events. “Aw! You threw the wrong way!” and “Darn! You just lost the game!” are tame compared to what we hear as adults. Shoutout to the guy who has the best part of the song: that one poor dude who meekly (but proudly) shouts “Hooray! I’m for the other team!”

The Top 10:

10. "My Hero, Zero"

Leave it to children’s television to show us that every number is important- and that even the numbers we think are valueless actually have more importance than we could possibly imagine. Enter: “My Hero, Zero,” which educates us not just on the number zero, but on all the powers of ten, and how they can add so much value to all the other numbers we know and love. Shoutout to The Lemonheads, who do a fantastic cover of the song for Schoolhouse Rock Rocks! ​

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9. "The Preamble"

Truthfully, I find “The Preamble” a little hokey for me, with its banjo and slower tempo than most of the songs on America Rock!. But I give this song sole credit for teaching me the opening section to The Constitution, and that is what lands it on this list. What I love most about Schoolhouse Rock! is that they don’t try and make up cheesy rhymes to get you to remember terms, dates, or meanings of things. Instead, the music is just so well-written and clever (and don’t get me started on the animation) that you end up remembering the songs as wholes. Their melodies get stuck in your head, and while you may be humming a tune, the information they’re trying to convey to you kind of neatly fits in the space. Is that what learning is? I think that’s what subconscious learning is. ​

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8. "The Shot Heard 'Round the World"

Ah, the American Revolution- one of my favorite eras in history. This one tells a story highlighting all the important parts of this country gaining its independence from Great Britain. From Lexington and Concord, to Washington’s crossing of the Delaware, to Valley Forge, to the Battle of Yorktown, “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World” makes it evident that the war wasn’t easy, but instead a hard-fought campaign that shaped the infancy of this country. The war-like snare drums and flutes during the song get me SO hype about fighting for independence.

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7. "Ready or Not, Here I Come"

I never would learned how to multiply by fives had it not been for this song. It’s such a simple concept, with the lines literally being “5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 (etc)” based on a game of hide and seek. The quick tempo and walking bass are features of music that I appreciate, both of which are featured in the song. Counting on fingers to determine how many fives are in a certain number was also incredibly helpful for me. One thing still boggles my mind, though. When those two kids run into each other between 40 and 45… do they switch clothes? Or do they swap bodies? These are important questions. They are. Educate me on THAT, Schoolhouse Rock.

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6. "Interplanet Janet"

It would be one thing to tell us about the planets in our Solar System from the perspective of an Earthling. It is quite another to give us the perspective of an extraterrestrial. And so, Interplanet Janet, brought forth from the mind of the mighty Lynn Ahrens, was born. With a catchy hook and quirky, colorful animation, “Interplanet Janet” takes us through the local planets, each one with its own adorable characteristics. Much like Janet herself is an astronomical wonder, so too is the universe, and Ahrens’ music and lyrics get us all riled up about the cosmos with its bouncy melody and rock n’ roll beat.

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5. "Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get Your Adverbs Here"

A father, son, and grandson masterfully take us through the world of adverbs, brilliantly utilizing another of Schoolhouse Rock’s timeless hooks. I, for one, had no idea that places and times could be adverbs, and thanks to Lolly, I can use my adverbs to accurately tell my friends where and when to meet me to go nut picking. There’s also something about the way the phrase “Everything described will be described some more” being so fun to sing along with. Is “Lolly” an all-timer? Indubitably. ​

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4. "Elbow Room"

This is a personal favorite of mine, as this melody just would not leave my head for years after I heard it for the first time. Lynn Ahrens wrote “Elbow Room,” but it’s performed by Sue Manchester. In this really cool country Western style, echoing the theme of Westward Expansion found in the song, we learn about the Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and Clark’s expedition, the transcontinental railroad, and more. The song builds and builds and builds in instrumentals and in scope until it reaches the present, where Ahrens suggests a newer, perhaps bigger (and darker?) problem: overpopulation. But humans have always found room to spread out before, and perhaps the Moon maybe is the next place for folks to settle down- although I doubt it will be with stagecoaches and horses.

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3. "Three is a Magic Number"

The pilot episode of Schoolhouse Rock! did not disappoint- Ever wonder where a number being called a “magic number” comes from? That was because of this right here. For an odd number like three, everything seems to fit together perfectly in this song. The melody is iconic, as is the multiplying by three, both forwards and backwards (football players and all). They all compliment each other, and everything seems to fit in place perfectly. We even get an incredibly poignant moment: “A man and a woman had a little baby… they had three in the family.” You can feel the magic in the song.

 

2. "I'm Just a Bill"

Everybody loves “I’m Just a Bill.” It’s been parodied time and time again. Thanks to the political climate we live in now, it’s even more of an educational tool- dare I say a reminder to those who may have forgotten how the government operates. The vocals on this song are done by the great Jack Shelton, who has this Droopy-Dog-esque quality to his bluesy singing and speaking voice. Even the animation is iconic- that sad little scrap of rolled up paper sitting on the Capitol steps will forever be ingrained in my mind. Now if only Schoolhouse Rock! would make a song about executive orders. May some kind of extension of the song is in order. Just me?

1. "Conjunction Junction"

The horns. The trains. The HOOK. “Conjunction Junction” is the best song Schoolhouse Rock has ever done: there is no question about that. The words “and,” “but,” and “or” are probably three of the most important words in the English language, as they do what Jack Shelton purports they do; they hook up words, phrases and clauses, allowing your sentences to grow and flourish. You know you’ve made it as a song when Schoolhouse Rock decides to make Conjunction Junction the setting for the show. As we hook up all the train cars at the station to make them run, the jolly music reminds us just how fun learning is. That, and it reminds us that jamming out to “Conjunction Junction” is absolutely acceptable because this song is a straight up bop.


If I've omitted one of your favorites, I can only apologize. This list should be full of all the positivity. Leave a comment down below.