Song 20:
"Adult Education” by Hall & Oates
Peak: 8
Year: 1984
Year end position: 70
Alphabetical Songs by Artist: 1/22
Chronological Songs by Artist: 16/22
Video?: Yes
Spotify?: Yes
Up until now,
we've only had 2 songs by acts that I considered in my "Hall of Fame"
(meaning they've had 10 or more songs make it into the top 20). Today
we have the third, and they are by far the biggest we've had on the blog. For those that have forgot or skipped some
entries, The Jackson 5 (13 songs) and Dion (10 songs) were the other two. Hall & Oates had a grand total of 22
songs make it into the top 20. For some
perspective, that makes them currently tied for 27th place all time with old
time acts Connie Francis, Perry Como and Paul Anka. I was a little surprised to see that of the
acts in the top 27, only 8 had their careers start after Hall & Oates (in
1976). Then again, 22 songs in the top
20 is a lot of songs. It usually takes a
long time to amass that many songs (unless your name is Taylor Swift).
"Adult
Education" came out in what is probably the late period of Hall &
Oates career. After a total of 5 songs
making it into the top 20 in 1984-1985, they only had 2 more top 20 songs over
the last 5 years of their productive career.
The fact that this was an added song on a "Greatest Hits"
album should give an indication of a few things. The first is that they had enough hits to
release a greatest hits album while they were still releasing popular
songs. The second is that they were
cashing in. A friend of mine once told
me his theory about "Greatest Hits" albums: once a greatest hits album appears, the act
is essentially throwing in the towel.
Typically, that is correct. It is
fair to say that when this greatest hits album came around, Hall & Oates
were at the tail end of their career, but certainly not done by any
stretch. They did manage 7 more songs
after that, which is as many as Robert Palmer and the Steve Miller Band in
their whole careers, so let's not sell Hall & Oates short.
"Adult
Education" is probably a lesser Hall & Oates hit. They had 14 other bigger hits throughout
their career, so you can be forgiven for not remembering it. The lyrics are mostly referring to scenes
from a high school. There are references
to lockers, home rooms, teachers, underclassmen and student bodys. It seems like the theme of the song is summed
up in the line, "Believe it or not there's life after high
school". It makes me think that the
adult education is not necessarily about educating adults, but about education
in how to be an adult. It paints a
pretty bleak picture of high school. It
even goes so far as saying it's a "bad situation". Maybe it's more about feeling stuck in High
School and really wanting to be an adult.
One other feature I like about this song is the chorus of kids singing
"Oh Yeah". I think that gives
a little credence to my theory that the song is about kids since, you know,
there they are on the song. Maybe it was
just a cool production trick. It's kind
of hard to know for sure.
There is a video
for this song, and it is totally incomprehensible. I am not one to bash songs or videos on this
blog, so I will let none other than John Oates explain it.... " That
was a mistake from the beginning. That was stupid... We literally showed up at
the shoot and saw this enormous post-apocalyptic New York set, all these extras
with torn clothes and crazy s--t, and we just went along for the ride. But as
we were doing it, we were thinking, this is really stupid. That’s one of the
dumbest things we’ve ever done."
I'll admit that I was baffled when I watched this video, so I'm glad
that I wasn't alone with that feeling.
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