Rousseau’s Aunt Rodie

Last year I discovered, much to my surprise, that the tune to Go Tell Aunt Rodie, played by every young violin student of the Suzuki method, was composed by none other than Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In the Presbyterian Church of Canada’s Book of Praise the tune is called ROUSSEAU, while Cyberhymnal calls it GREENVILLE. Sensing a unique paedagogical opportunity, I quickly set the opening words of Rousseau’s Social Contract to this tune, which is available here and which I recently distributed to my Modern Political Theory students for their general edification.

Now I need to come up with something for Recent Political Theory next year, which prompts me to wonder whether John Rawls might have written any music.