It all started two years ago, on June 1, 1997 when a column by Mary Schmich appeared in The Chicago Tribune. Her atempt at being a graduation speaker, the coulmn--advice for the class of '97--began with the almighty words, "Wear Sunscreen."

The article Schmich wrote "One Friday afternoon while high on coffee and M&M's" soon became popular among readers. Friends e-mailed it to friends who e-mailed it to friends and before long the newly began internet chain-letter was all around the world.

However, somewhere along the line the word became credited to Kurt Vonnegut, who supposibly gave it to the the graduating class at MIT. Schmit was quite supprised when she saw this but not as supprised as Vonnegut who has never even spoken at MIT.

The words wern't put to music until Baz Luhrmann had them read by Lee Perry and dubed over a remix of a song from Romeo and Juliet. It had been two years sinse the origional acticle was published so the first of the song was changed to "The Class or '99" It song came out in the album "Something for Everybody", and wasn't widely popular until a radio station somewhere in the country took out the part from Romeo and Juliet and played just the speech on the air. The song took off, an instant hit.