"I'm Just A Bill" (1976)
This Day in Esoteric Political History
Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia
4.6 • 982 Ratings
🗓️ 27 March 2025
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It's March 27th. This day in 1976, Schoolhouse Rock premieres the song "I'm Just A Bill," an animated look at the process by which legislation gets passed -- or languishes in the halls of Congress.
Jody, Niki, and Kellie talk about how the song came together, the legislation at the heart of the process, and whether lawmaking still happens the same way.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to This Day, a history podcast from Radiotopia. My name is Jody Avergan. |
| 0:10.2 | This Day, March 1976, the song I'm Just a Bill debuts in episode five of season three of Schoolhouse Rock. |
| 0:19.2 | Schoolhouse Rock was a series of three-minute animated segments that were squeezed in among |
| 0:23.6 | ABC's Saturday morning cartoon programming. |
| 0:26.9 | It appeared on ABC from 1973 through 1985. |
| 0:31.3 | And I think it's safe to say that I'm Just a Bill is probably the breakout star song of the whole series. |
| 0:36.5 | It continues to have a life today. |
| 0:38.0 | It pops up on social media from time to time. |
| 0:40.3 | It gets memed. |
| 0:41.4 | S&L lampooned it. |
| 0:42.5 | Not that long ago, about 10 years ago. |
| 0:45.1 | As you may know, it's a song that tells the story of how a bill becomes a law. |
| 0:50.1 | I've got to climb a lot of steps to get to this capital building here in Washington. |
| 0:54.2 | Well, I wonder who that sad little scrap of paper is. |
| 0:58.7 | I'm just a bill. |
| 1:00.4 | Yes, I'm only a bill. |
| 1:02.7 | And I'm sitting here on capital here. |
| 1:05.1 | Local residents take it to the representative who writes it up and sends it to committee |
| 1:08.6 | where it can then go to the House for a vote, |
| 1:14.1 | then the Senate, then the president, who hopefully doesn't veto it. |
| 1:24.4 | You probably know the song, but listeners, do you know what the bill in I'm just a bill was actually intended to do? So take a second and try and guess or see if you |
| 1:28.4 | remember. But it is actually a bill about making school buses stop at railroad crossings, |
... |
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