Composed by Sir Edmund Elgar, "Pomp and Circumstance" was originally used when Elgar received his honorary doctorate from Yale University in 1905, and the tradition caught on throughout universities. Colleges and high schools continue to carry on this tradition. It isn’t a piece that conjures memories, but it gives the ceremony the respect that it deserves. It represents the sense of accomplishment and pride that each student should feel.
R. Kelly penned this 1996 classic song for the children’s movie “Space Jam,” but it became far more popular than the movie. It is symbolic of the confidence and pride that young people should feel in themselves at graduation and speaks to the metaphor as graduation as a time for young people to take flight and soar.
Green Day's 1990s song, ”Time of Your Life,” about the forward motion of life has become a great melancholy anthem for graduates to reflect on their time in school. The lines "It's something unpredictable/But in the end it's right/I hope you had the time of your life" sum up the feelings that many students feel about their time in school and about their classmates as they move into their next phase of life.
Of course, all good things must end, and even the end of good things can be a relief. The idea of not studying, taking tests, being on a crazy schedule are all welcome thoughts. Alice Cooper’s 1970s anthem celebrating the end of the rigors of school is a classic, irreverent tribute to the end of school. With lines like “No more pencils/No more books/No more teacher’s dirty looks,” it may seem like an unhappy anthem, but most graduates see the song as a symbol of the release of the stress and anxiety that school can sometimes instill in us.
Sarah McLachlan's 1997 ballad "I Will Remember You" is a reminder that, even though people move on and sometimes in drastically different directions, if someone touches your life, you will stay in each other's memories.
The Smashing Pumpkins' "Today" gives a great sense of the happiness of graduation. The simple lyrics "Today is the greatest day I've ever known" pretty much say it all.