Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Burning of the School (updated)

This is widely reported to be the most wide-spread of all playground songs. Personally, though, I never heard it as a kid.

The tune "Battle Hymn of the Republic" is, like most folk songs, essentially a parody itself, a rewrite of the marching song "John Brown's Body Lies a Mouldering in the Grave," which, after nearly 150 years, is still the catchiest song ever written about mouldering, and which, itself, was written to the tune of another song.

There's no official version of "The Burning of the School" - the first two lines usually go:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school
we have tortured all the teachers we have broken every rule
we hung the secretary and we'll drown the principal
our truth is marching on!

The third line varies, but common versions are:

We have plans to hang the principal tomorrow after school
and
we cheated (principal's name) in a dirty game of pool

The fourth line, too, has a million variations, everything from "our truth is marching on" to "us brats are marching on."

The chorus is sometimes simply "glory glory hallelujah," but many change it to one of a hundred variations on:

Glory, glory hallelujah
teacher hit me with a ruler
I bopped her on the bean
with a rotten tangerine
and she ain't gonna teach no more"*

This part I did hear - the version I knew ended with "her brains came marching out," and I learned it from my mother, who would have learned it in the 1960s. The first two lines were recorded in England in the 1950s.

* - the last line of this version connects it to the ww2 era soldiers' parody Blood on the Risers.


Of course, these are just a few. Kay Shapero collected SEVERAL variations, particularly to the "I bopped her on the bean" line:


Hid behind the door with a loaded .44
Met her at the bank with a German army tank
Met her in the tub with a German navy sub
Met her in the attic with a loaded automatic
Hit her in the seater with a .50 millimeter
I shot her in the butt with a rotten coconut
I shot her in the hand with a loaded rubber band
I met her at the door with a hungry dinosaur
Teacher came in late so we sent her to Kuwait

The last line of the chorus also mutates:

-And my Teacher don't teach any more!
-And my Teacher ain't a Teacher any more!
-And we ain't seen the ol' bitch since!
-The school is burning down!
-Our troops are marching on!
-As we go marching on!

When i started this site, I had assumed that there must be more verses of this song floating around someplace, but I've never found any. So I've written my own - here's my version (with a slightly revised third line of the first verse):


Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school
we have trampled all the teachers and we've broken every rule
we won the deed and title in a dirty game of pool
our school is burning down  (that's the original schoolyard version, though the third line varies a lot)

my verses:
We pelted all the recess aides with bouncy rubber balls
and took three cans of gasoline with which we decked the halls
and they we played with matches and set fire to them all
our school is burning down

We hacked the school computer and erased our failing grades
We slashed at all the spelling books with rusty razor blades
And threw all that was left onto the bonfire that we made
our school is burning down

The records that they had on us were only dirty lies
We never made explosives from the janitor's supplies
at least not til this morning, now imagine their suprise!
our school is burning down

The fire alarms are blaring now, and this is not a drill
if you haven't heard our story yet, we guarantee you will
we're the ones who turned the gym into a charcoal grill
our school is burning down

The hopscotch court's the only way that anyone can tell
the school was ever standing here, we did our job so well
and now the hopscotch players can hop all the way to hell
our school is burning down

We made darn sure that everybody got what they deserved
we forced all of the lunch ladies to eat the food they served
when we go to trial, can we be graded on the curve?
our school is burning down

Get an mp3 at smartalecksguide.com: