Today's music teachers and teacher educators are just as likely to overlook, downplay, or ignore music's many social and political meanings, thereby implying to their students that its only "legitimate" meaning is to be found in "the quality of its making" rather than also in its relation to politics and other forms of experience. Even music education philosophers and scholars who acknowledge music's social contingency and potential for social agency sometimes seem reluctant to illustrate its social and political significance much beyond its production. This article seeks to draw needed attention to some of music's social and political meanings by way of illustrating how it contributes to the shaping of people's perceptions and understandings of their world. It presents a historical and political analysis of the events surrounding the hijacking of composer Aaron Copland's music by right-wing extremists during the early Cold War. This is intended as a potential curricular model or exemplar for teachers seeking to promote historical and critical awareness of music in their classrooms. Then, it explains and models how music, rather than being used as a tool for indoctrination or as a diversion from problems, can also be used to provoke thought by challenging students' preconceptions and understandings. The third and final section of this article concludes with a more general and extended discussion of music's complexity and plasticity of meaning as they relate to education. The suggestion is made that teachers conceive of curriculum for the masses less in terms of developing expert knowledge and skills and more in terms of helping students to appreciate how music has always overlapped and interacted with other modes of experience to shape individual and collective consciousness.