Blue Scholars - Commencement Day lyrics

"Hey, Pete why do we even
Write songs like this
Man people ain't gonna change"
"Oh, I don't know, Bill you know, uh
There may be somebody out there listening
You never can tell, you know"

To the graduating class of 2000 whatever
Congratulations past due, you deserve better
Looking dapper in a cap and a gown
You got fam snapping pics
Clapping loud in the back of the crowd
Now the band playing "Pomp and Circumstance"
Got you amped, feeling like a champ
Class is out of session at last
You've been patiently waiting
Twelve years in the making
Anybody who has doubted you
Was sadly mistaken
With a paper with your name in
Old English for the taking


So moms can bring it home
To frame it and display it
With the grade point average
Hanging over your head
"Brother, Sister, please
Don't believe the bullshit they said"
Fuck the pledge of allegiance
And arrogant teachers
But peace to the people who don't ever preach
Up in the front of the classroom
All day long planting seeds of revolution
We dedicate this song

It goes one for the student
Who refuses to submit
Two for the teachers who
Are underpaid and shit
It's the next generation of miseducated youth
Who demonstrate the truth and manage
To make it through
It goes three for the stripes
Giving young bloods life
And four for the years
You've spent stifled inside
It's the next generation
Of miseducated youths
Next time, ask 'em for proof

Now to the knuckleheads clowning in
The back of the class
To the teacher's pet monkey in
The front kissing ass
But most of all everyone else
Who sat between them
And questioned all the falsehoods
That teachers believe in
Up in hallways in herded in
Locker territorial-ism
Up in the assemblies, nobody would listen
Instead, rock the mixtape
And Walkman discrete with the headphones
Threaded from the pocket through the sleeve
You received education through the
Music you heard
Cafeteria tables enabled beats to occur
Where students separated in cliques
The state of the nation
Manifested up in high school politics
History repeated, you read it to regurgitate
Slave-owning, dead white men
Folks you know they make
Curriculums to design obedient drones
Bring your paper but please
Leave your lyrics at home

It goes one for the student
Who refuses to submit
And two for the teachers who
Are underpaid and shit
It's the next generation of miseducated youth
Who demonstrate the truth and manage
To make it through
It goes three for the stripes
Giving young bloods life
And four for the years
You've been stifled inside
It's the next generation
Of miseducated youths
Next time, ask 'em for proof

Ay yo, we made it, 45 caliber proof
And your teachers don't believe that
You can handle the truth
But the truth is that these hoots
Can't stand it when you
Begin to question the conditions
And backward traditions
As you recognize the threshold
Of negative stress
The crossroad between complete
Failure and success
It's so necessary, you pay attention in class
Never tell you the conditions in
Which to apply the math
Only sixty-five percent of your peers
Freshmen year, are still here
And half that total will move on
But three out of four will
Drop out in two years
Add it up and it equals
Some shit has gone wrong
Now the snakes gave you education
Budget rollback "No Child Left Behind" is
Just a backdoor trap
As you stand at the summit
Future facing the wind now it's time to let
Your true education begin

It goes one for the student
Who refuses to submit
Two for the teachers who
Are underpaid and shit
It's the next generation of miseducated youth
Who demonstrate the truth and manage
To make it through
It goes three for the stripes
Giving young bloods life
And four for the years
You've been stifled inside
It's the next generation
Of miseducated youths
Next time, ask 'em for proof
Ask 'em for proof