This song is about a young boy who is bullied at school and immerses himself in rock music to drown the pain. It is somewhat autobiographical. The album was exploring the fears of the average middle-class, Christian, conservative family, and one of them is that their child will become a "punk rocker."
Manson wrote about lunchboxes in this song because in Florida, where he was living at the time, the schools had banned metal lunchboxes because the children were hitting each other in the head with them. Manson used to have a metal KISS lunchbox which he used to defend himself at school.
The single was released on January 24, 1995 - the band's second single that year, the first being "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)." The single includes the album version of the song as well as four remixes: "Next Motherf--ker," "Brown Bag," "Metal" and "Highschool Dropouts" - and a cover of Gary Numan's "Down in the Park." Most of the remixes just change the intros or sound bites, and "Highschool Dropouts" is simply the radio edit, which mutes out the obscenities.
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