Three Is a Magic Number

"Three Is a Magic Number" is the pilot episode of the Schoolhouse Rock! series and the first episode of the program's first season, "Multiplication Rock." The title song, written by Bob Dorough, and accompanying animated video were created after ad agency co-chairman David McCall observed that his son had learned every Rolling Stones lyric but could not remember multiplication tables. The episode first aired on February 3, 1973.

Though the song is not as iconic to the Schoolhouse Rock series as later episodes such as "I'm Just a Bill" and "Conjunction Junction" (ranking as only the show's seventh most popular episode according to the 30th Anniversary VHS), it has proven, thanks to its more passive approach to teaching about the multiples of three than later episodes, to be more popular as a standalone album. The music video for this version features clips from the original show.

Perhaps the most well known cover was done by the band Blind Melon, which also features one of the last vocal recordings of the band's vocalist Shannon Hoon. This version also appeared in films such as Never Been Kissed, Slackers, and You, Me and Dupree.

Jeff Buckley also recorded a cover version of the song.

The song is parodied by Jack Black in the movie School of Rock, when Black accidentally refers to the number 9 as "a magic number".

De La Soul interpolate both the original melody and snippets of lyric from this song into their track "The Magic Number", as featured on their debut album 3 Feet High and Rising. A version by Jon Carter, modeled after the De La Soul version, was used in channel idents for BBC Three from its launch in February 2003 until January 2008.

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