Songfacts®:

• This was the song that got the ball rolling for Extreme. It dates back to 1985, when Gary Cherone, Paul Geary, Hal Lebeaux, Peter Hunt and Paul Mangone were in a band called The Dream. Cherone, Lebeaux and Hunt wrote the song and started performing it in and around Boston, where they formed. Boston had a music video channel on the UHF band called V66 that played local videos, so they made a video for the song using family and friends as actors and sent it to the station, which gave it plenty of airplay. They also sent it to MTV, which had a show called Basement Tapes that played unsigned acts and had viewers vote for their favorites (by this time, the group had changed their name to Extreme). The "Mutha" video won, giving them a jolt of national attention.
  
  A year later, guitarist extraordinaire Nuno Bettencourt joined the band, replacing Lebeaux and Hunt, and Pat Badger replaced Mangone on bass. They kept playing Boston clubs and in 1987 got signed to A&M Records. In 1989 they released their debut album, Extreme, which included "Mutha (Don't Wanna Go To School Today)." It was released as a single but proved less popular than some of the other songs on the album, including "Play With Me" and "Kid Ego."
• The song fits the theme of playful, youthful rebellion that was big in 1985 - the previous year, Twisted Sister released "We're Not Gonna Take It" and Van Halen released "Hot For Teacher."
  
  In 1996, Gary Cherone took mic as lead singer of Van Halen, replacing Sammy Hagar. That arrangement lasted three years and one album: Van Halen III, released in 1998.