I have noticed in the past that every so often people will put up a list of songs that match certain International Relations theories. One list that I like is by Michael J. Tierney which you can find here: http://mjtier.people.wm.edu/teaching/irplaylist.php.
Tierney for example cites “One is the Loneliest Number ” by Three Dog Night” as an illustration of Polarity and Imagine by John Lennon as an example of Norms and Ideas. While lists like this are fun I have thought about how this hobby might be used in the classroom to engage students. I have done so in a couple of different ways that students have enjoyed. The first has been to play a song in class or list it on blackboard and have the students debate briefly which theory is best tied to the song. This has had unusual outcomes. For example I had one student tell me that they struggled with what Post Modern analysis was getting at until we talked briefly about the song “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” by Wang Chung. Really. What got them thinking were the lyrics:
Turn up your radio
The words we use are strong
They make reality
What I thought of as a fun little game made the light bulb light up for this one student. I have also had students send me songs and their lyrics with a theoretical explanation about why that song is a useful primer on one theory or another. I have gotten passionate expositions on the NeoMarxist assumptions behind Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows” , (of course) Pink Floyd’s “Money”or the Hobbesian logic of the Rolling Stones “Sympathy for the Devil.” Realism also led a student to recommend a song by No More Kings I had not heard before but ended up really enjoying (note it is a lot better if you have seen the Karate Kid) called “Sweep the Leg.” Has anyone else used music in class in this way or others?