Grade 9

Grade 9 is a song written and performed by Barenaked Ladies, and is the third track on their full-length debut album ''Gordon. ''

Trivia & Notes

 * The song contains numerous allusions to other well-known compositions:
 * At 1:57, the band plays the main chord progression to Rush's "Tom Sawyer" (which, like Gordon, was also recorded at Le Studio).
 * After the second-to-last chorus, the band plays a riff based on "Linus and Lucy" by the Vince Guaraldi Trio.
 * Immediately afterwards, Ed plays a guitar lick similar to the main riff from Rush's "The Spirit of Radio".
 * Though it may be unintentional, the song's main riff and chord progression sound very similar to that of "Science Friction" by XTC.
 * This was the only song until "Why Say Anything Nice?" from 2007's Barenaked Ladies Are Men to feature a writing credit for Tyler, and the only song until "Food Party" from 2008's Snacktime! to be credited to the entire band (at the time).
 * When performed live, the line about "watching Wrath of Khan" is sometimes changed to "watching Chaka Khan", "rugger pants" is sometimes changed to "rubber pants", and "high school dance" is sometimes changed to "south of France".