The Smiths “The Headmaster Ritual” b/w “Oscillate Wildly” 1985. From their second LP Meat Is Murder, “The Headmaster Ritual” was not released as a single in ‘85 so my best guess is that this was released at some point after the roaring success of their ‘86 album The Queen is Dead. “The Headmaster Ritual” is a strident protest against corporal punishment in the English classrooms (a popular theme in the early 80′s, Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” for example), specifically his experience at Stretford St. Mary’s school. During a filming of The Oxford Road Show, Morrissey stopped outside the gates of the school and proclaimed, “Five years of education here proved to have no effect on me whatsover…except in a very adverse sense. Not to be recommended.” Morrissey attended the school from 1970-75. His English teacher, Aileen Power, recalled, “In ‘The Headmaster Ritual,’ he sings about the brutality of his schooldays, but that’s dramatisation. He was never in trouble, but the strap was used – probably too much. There was a coldness – if you were going to be punished, you went silently to the housemaster. It was quite brutal.”

Allmusic’s Steward Mason describes “The Headmaster Ritual” as a “song [that] basically sums up the entirety of their 1984 self-titled debut before the rest of the album branches out into new musical territory. More than any other Smiths song, it redefines the word ‘jangly’; Johnny Marr’s overdubbed guitars have the shimmer of 100 Rickenbacker 12 strings through 100 Vox amps, playing a circular riff that’s as much overtones and harmonics as it is actual notes. Rather than a proper chorus, the song features interludes of Morrissey wailing and ululating wordlessly along with Marr’s guitars; indeed, the second half of this nearly five-minute song consists of nothing else, and it has the hypnotic power of a classic Krautrock track. Lyrically, the song provides some of the earliest hints that perhaps Morrissey doesn’t wish to be taken quite as seriously as he had been; the deliberately over-the-top verses castigate the staff and faculty of Britain’s school system as ‘Belligerent ghouls’ and ‘Spineless swine,’ and one verse features the contents of a forged note excusing young Stephen from gym class. It’s all quite silly, and deliberately so; that a large portion of the Smiths’ audience never quite got the joke of lyrics like these is the band’s tragedy.”

Belligerent ghouls
Run Manchester schools

Spineless swines
Cemented minds

Sir leads the troops
Jealous of youth
Same old suit since nineteen sixty two

He does the military two-step down
The nape of my neck

I want to go home
I don’t want to stay
Give up education
As a bad mistake

Mid-week on the playing fields
Sir thwacks you on the knees

Knees you in the groin
Elbow in the face
Bruises bigger than dinner plates

I want to go home
I don’t want to stay

Da-da-da
Da-da-da
Da-da-da
Da-da-da
Da-da-da
Da-da-da
Da-da-da
Da-da-da
Da-da-da
Da-da-da

Belligerent ghouls
Run Manchester schools

Spineless bastards all

Sir leads the troops
Jealous of youth
Same old jokes since nineteen- oh- two

He does the military two-step down
The nape of my neck

I want to go home
I don’t want to stay
Give up life
As a bad mistake

Please excuse me from gym
I’ve got this terrible cold coming on
He grabs and devours
He kicks me in the showers
Kicks me in the showers
And he grabs and devours

I want to go home
I don’t want to stay

The b-side, “Oscillate Wildly” is an instrumental that appears on some Smiths’ compilation albums like Louder Than Bombs and The World Won’t Listen.