Playing Music in the Ivory Tower

Social Studies Review, Fall 2003 by Whitmer, John

Playing Music in the Ivory Tower

Most people don't associate popular music with academia. The last thing that most people expect to hear emanating from a university classroom or a college professor's office is the voice of Britney Spears or Eminem. Perhaps this is a consequence of rock 'n' roll's carefully crafted, post-1960s, antiestablishment image. There is no arguing the impact music has on culture and culture on society. Almost all institutions of higher learning mandate some form of music appreciation course for graduation. Yet, there is still a sense that popular music is not the proper material for higher learning and therefore does not belong in the college classroom. I would argue the exact opposite. Because most people have been influenced by music in one way or the other, students bring to the classroom those ideals, values, and perspectives fashioned by popular music. Therefore, if used properly, music can provide an avenue for discovering the world outside the classroom.

Music is an important part of my identity as a person and a professor. As a teenager, I developed an interest in music that had meaning-especially those songs with lyrics that had a social bite to them. It got me listening to more of what was being sung than how it was being sung. Since then, I have learned that how music is performed and when it is written are as important to a song's meaning as its lyrics. I have also learned that deconstructing the meaning of songs is a much easier historical task for students than, let's say, explaining the significance of the Declaration of Independence, because they have had practice doing it. In other words, music is a great tool for the teaching of history. But it also has its drawbacks.

As with all teachers, I am sure, I get nervous my first day of the new semester. I want to make a good first impression, and I want students to get excited about learning history. The last thing I want to do is to turn them off the first day. I have often begun semesters by playing music as an example of the importance of history. So it is imperative that the song I choose connect with the students. In the past, I have started my courses by playing Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire," which gives a year by year laundry list of pop icons and traumatic events experienced by the Baby-Boom Generation. For the years 1961-1962, for example, Joel sings: "Hemingway, Eichman, Stranger in a Strange Land/Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion/Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania/ Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson." While Joel makes historical knowledge hip for some, for others it's too much pop culture and not enough historical substance. I have effectively elicited serious historical discussion by displaying the songs lyrics on an overhead so that students can read along with the music and see the stanzas listed in chronological order. I then incorporate my day's theme of 'history as a story' by asking the students whose story Joel is telling. Most students get that he is describing the baby boomers, fewer understand that it is also their parents' story, and still fewer yet see it as Joel's own story. By the end of the discussion, they usually concluded that it is all of these. I then ask the students about the stanza describing the 1980s, the decade in which most of the students were born: "Foreign debts, Homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz/Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law/Rock and Roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore." They begin to comprehend an older generation's struggle with the problems facing this generation. In other words, they see how "The Fire" or the torch is being passed to the next generation: themselves. While this exercise is interesting for some, for an increasing number of today's students the song is just too plain old. After all, they were only four when the song was released in 1989, and who is Billy Joel anyways? Therefore, most students have placed the song on the "B" side: boring.

In passed attempts to spark an interest in the alternative crowd, I have played Midnight oil's "Short Memory." The song implores its listeners to remember European and American imperialism of the past: "Conquistadors of Mexico/The Zulu and the Navaho/The Belgians in the Cong/Short Memory." The final verse brings its listeners to what were contemporary political issues in 1983 when the song was released: "A smallish man Afghanistan/A watch dog in a nervous land/They're only there to lend a hand/The friendly five a dusty smile/Wake up in sweat at dead of night/And in the tents new rifles, hey, short memory." Students are usually interested in the song because they have heard of Afghanistan and quickly hear the song's message: the past repeats itself. The downside of the song is that it is so straightforward that it does not engender much discussion. While the group and the song appeal to a slice of students who like its sound, for most students it is old and its political message simply doesn't resonate. For these reasons, I had been wanting as of recent to do something new and contemporary. Not ironically, the answer came to me as I was listening to the radio.