A Song We Used to Sing in My Schooldays

I don't know that it had a title, but it was sung to the tune of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, and since it has a spanking reference, I thought it might be of some interest to the LSF readers. We would sing it a lot on the school bus. Perhaps some of you sang the same song, or at least some version of it.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school.
We have tortured every teacher, we have broken every rule.
We have ransacked the schoolhouse, and we shot the principal.
Us brats are marching on.

Glory, glory hallelujah!
Teacher hit me with a ruler.
So I hit her across the bean
With a rotten tangerine.
And teeth came marching out.

We certainly knew a version very similar to this. Including the ruler line. That was in the 1970s in Connecticut, where teachers had not wielded rulers in schools for a long while already.

We had one about copycat sitting on the teacher's lap. It was never made clear whether he was over it or on it. I tend to think over, because after all he was copying.

We had one similar, too. I remember the first two lines of the chorus for ours, but not the rest. The other parts don't sound familiar.

I have dim memories of something quite similar and it was also sung to the tune of "Battle Hymn of the Republic" but I can't really recall most of the words.

We had "...teacher hit me with a ruler/ the ruler broke in two/ so she hit me with her shoe/ and we all went marching on."

By the time my oldest niece was in school (She graduated HS in '78) she had learned a version that ended, "So I met her at the door/ with a loaded .44/ Now she ain't the teacher any more." Her dad (my oldest brother) overheard her, and came up with his own ending, which I probably shouldn't repeat here. It's slightly R rated.

On a similar note:

Oor wee schule's a great wee schule,
It's built o' bricks an' mortar
And the only thing that's wrang wi' it
is the baldy-heided maister.
He goes to the pub on Saturday nicht,
he goes tae church on Sunday,
And prays to the Lord to gie him strength
tae belt the weans on Monday!

Ours was similar (back in the 60's)
...
Glory, glory hallelujah!
Teacher hit me with a ruler.
So I hit her in the bean
With a rotten tangerine.
And I ain't seen the old goat since.

Back in my elementary school days, we were apparently somewhat more militaristic, not to mention physically stronger, since the expression "rotten tangerine" was replaced by "German submarine" in the version I recall.

Swinging a u-boat, that would've actually been quite a strain--fortunately, it was only a silly song... --C.K.