My Disastrous Playlist

In my Geography course GGR378 Natural Disasters: Risk and Vulnerability, I have started using music to welcome students at the beginning of the class, and during the lecture breaks (it is a two-hour class session with a 10- to 15-minute break).

A fair bit of research has been done on the use of music in the classroom. Most of the published research is in educational/pedagogical and psychological journals. Much of it focuses on children, adolescents, and special-needs learners (see, for example, Hallam and Price, 1998). The adult-centered research tends to focus on the role of music in memory, skills acquisition, or test performance (see, for example, Furnham and Bradley, 1997). Another area of interest, for both children and adults, has been the use of music to create a setting that is conducive to learning, and to establish the mood of the classroom.

To that end, I started to keep my eye out for “disaster-themed” songs – earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, tsunamis, storms, floods, fires, even pest infestations – to fit the themes of my course. I was surprised to discover how many disaster songs there are out there. I’ve been collecting them on a separate playlist on my iPod.

Some disaster songs are obvious right from the title: “New Orleans is Sinking” by The Tragically Hip, or “Los Angeles is Burning” by Bad Religion, for example. Some are obvious, but metaphorical: “Hurricane” by Bob Dylan, “I Feel the Earth Move” by Carole King, or “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac or the Dixie Chicks (I’ve got both versions on my playlist). Others are more subtle; can you find the disaster references in songs like “Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out)” by Arcade Fire, “Warning” by Green Day, or “Decatur (or, Round of Applause for Your Step-Mother)” by Sufjan Stevens?

You need to use a bit of caution and set ground rules for the language and even the type of music you want to permit in the classroom; these are adults, but it is an academic setting, after all. I also find that you either need to present a wide diversity of music or be prepared for students to be somewhat disdainful of your choices. If you are going to play the Spice Girls, for example, you should probably do it with a certain amount of irony, or students will find you hopelessly out of date. You can expect that students will come up with suggestions to add to your playlist, once you tell them what you are up to.

Does anyone have any disaster-themed songs I could add to my playlist?

References:

Hallam, S., and Price, J. (1998) Can the use of background music improve the behavior and academic performance of children with emotional and behavioral difficulties? British Journal of Special Education 25, 2:88-91.

Furnham, A., and Bradley, A., (1997) Music while you work: The differential distraction of background music on the cognitive test performance of introverts and extraverts, Applied Cognitive Psychology, 11:445-455.

Barbara Murck is a Geologist and Senior Lecturer in Environmental Science at the University of Toronto, Mississauga as well as a Wiley author.