Good Morning, School Girl

Early rock and roll singer and pianist Larry Williams recorded "Little School Girl" on January 6, 1958 at Radio Recorders in Hollywood, California.[9] Although it uses some of Williamson's lyrics and melody, music writer Gene Sculatti notes the more dance-inspired version.[9] Specialty Records released the song as the B-side to "Ting-A-Ling", with the writer credit listed as "L. Williams".[9]

In 1961, Don Level and Bob Love, as the rhythm and blues duo "Don and Bob", recorded a different version of "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" for Argo Records, a Chess subsidiary.[10] Although they use the phrase "good morning little schoolgirl", the song has different chord changes and lyrics, including references to popular dance styles of the time.[11]

When the Yardbirds were looking for a song to follow up to their first single, "I Wish You Would", they chose the Don and Bob tune.[11] The group's guitarist Eric Clapton explained in an early interview:

[The Yardbirds were] working about every single night of the week. Trouble was finding new material for a disc. We remembered this 'Good Morning Little School Girl' from a rather obscure R and B artiste—a friend of ours had it on a long-player. So we rushed in and recorded it.[12]

The single was released on October 20, 1964, in the UK, where it reached number 44 in the singles chart, the band's first record to do so.[13] Epic Records, the Yardbirds' American label, did not issue the single in the US, but in 1965 included the song on their first U.S. album, For Your Love. Later, in his autobiography, Clapton described the early recordings:

[They] sounded pretty lame. We just sounded young and white, and even though our second single, a cover of a rock version of 'Good Morning Little Schoolgirl', sounded much better, I felt just that we were falling short of the mark in some way. This was not something I felt just about the Yardbirds, but about other bands that I admired, like Manfred Mann, the Moody Blues, and the Animals, all of whom were far better live than they were on recordings.[14]

The group recorded a live version at the Marquee Club in London, which was released on the British debut album, Five Live Yardbirds, in December 1964.[12] On the live version, Clapton and bassist Paul Samwell-Smith provided the vocals instead of lead singer Keith Relf.[15] The Yardbirds single version was credited to "Demarais" or "H.G. Demarais" (Dee Marais, a Shreveport, Louisiana, record label owner/distributor and business associate of Leonard Chess), although some later reissues list Sonny Boy Williamson as the songwriter.[16] Album credits for live version are either listed as Demarais or "Level–Love".[17]

Numerous artists have recorded or performed the song through the years, usually with the title "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl".[2] In 1967, the Grateful Dead recorded a version for their self-titled debut album based on Wells' arrangement. Ron "Pigpen" McKernan provided the vocal and harmonica, which an AllMusic reviewer called a "greasy harp-fuelled take".[18] The song was a staple of their early live performances.

English group Ten Years After updated the song with a blues-rock arrangement for their 1969 album Ssssh. In an album review, Jim Newsom noted the seven-minute version included "reworked lyrics leaving little doubt as to what the singer had in mind for the title character".[19]