#4 - Billboard Top Tracks Chart / 1984 (10 weeks on the chart)
#16 - The Record (Canada) / November 26, 1984 (11 weeks on the chart)
#25 - Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart / November 1984 (12 weeks on the chart)

Teacher Teacher spent 12 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart, peaking at #25 the week ending Nov. 24, 1984.   Bryan and I had two more songs on the chart that same week:  Bryan's version of Run To You was at #34 (it would later peak at #5, in January 1985) and Joe Cocker's version of Edge Of A Dream was at #93 (it had peaked at #69 the week before).

Don Barnes: vocal
Jeff Carlisi: guitar
Donnie Van Zant: guitar
Larry Junstrom: bass
Jack Grondin: drums
Steve Brookins: drums

Produced by Rodney Mills and 38 Special.  Recorded by Rodney Mills and Greg Quesnel at Studio One (Doraville, Georgia).

	38 Special

Bryan Adams and I wrote Teacher, Teacher for the MGM film "Teachers" starring Nick Nolte, Judd Hirsch and JoBeth Williams.

Bryan had always wanted to write a song with a double title -- like David Bowie's Rebel, Rebel or Moon Martin's Bad Case Of Lovin' You -- and this presented us with the perfect opportunity.

We didn't actually see the film until after we'd written the song, but we'd read the script, and that was enough to get us started. In fact, for the initial lyric draft we simply drew upon our own experiences with teachers.

My school years were less volatile than Bryan's (he dropped out of school in Grade 10), but between us we'd encountered our fair share of educators -- some of them inspirational, some of them bona fide "nut-jobs". In other words, there was no shortage of material for our lyric.

Teacher, Teacher was recorded by ".38 Special" (nicely done, I thought) and appeared in the "Teachers" film and also on the soundtrack album.

I didn't meet the band at the time, but a year later I got a call from .38 Special vocalist Don Barnes, asking if I’d consider co-writing with them. Don and guitarist Jeff Carlisi flew up to Vancouver a couple of times after that, and I joined them once in Atlanta. Altogether we wrote a dozen songs (several remain unrecorded).

Don and Jeff are great guys, very talented and very funny ... we had a lot of laughs working together.

Two years later -- in October 1986 -- I got a call from the manager of "The Romantics", a Detroit group who'd had a huge hit in 1980 with What I Like About You ... a record I really liked (I still like it!).  He asked me if I'd be interested in writing songs with the band and possibly producing their next album.

I was curious enough to drive to Washington state to see them perform at a college in Bellingham. They put on a great show, and I met the band backstage afterwards.

Unfortunately things "went south" almost immediately.

Drummer Jimmy Marinos mentioned how closely Teacher Teacher resembled What I Like About You, the insinuation being that Adams and I had ripped them off. The other band members joined in the verbal beating, and it got rather awkward, me defending Teacher Teacher while "The Romantics" ganged up on me!

Somehow I managed to escape their dressing room unscathed, but needless to say, I "passed" on the opportunity to work with the band. Surprisingly, a few year later I received calls from the band's management and record company, wondering if I might still be interested.

If anything, the two songs -- Teacher Teacher and What I Like About You -- share a common musical heritage with a much earlier song, Bend Me Shape Me by the group American Breed (it reached #5 on the U.S. charts on December 2, 1967). 

An even earlier example is Neil Diamond's Cherry Cherry which peaked at #6 on the U.S. charts in August 1966.