i was in early middleschool when this came out and the vibe i got was that people were like "haha absurd meme song"

im happy i heard it a hundred times because it opened my eyes to a lot of things i wasn't getting in school

"the school books say it can't be back again" was one of the lyrics straightforward enough that it helped me untangle the other lyrics, like "build a tent and say the world is dry"

(at the time, my understanding was that racism ended in america in the 1860s and again in the 1960, both being ancient history)