Please welcome yuval levin and john meacham. Hey guys, how are you . [applause] how are you. Good morning. Im the old guy up here. So history as you all know is about words. Thats why youre here. The stately rhythms of the declaration of independence. The cadences of the sconstitution but its also about sounds. About the muffled drama lexington cardboard and the sound of the surf at omaha beach. The sound of a minister at the march on washington calling on us to live up to the fullmeaning of our creed. Its also about music. Music is one of the most universal expressions. You can listen to a song with which you might disagree. More continually and more profitably than you could ever listen to a speech about something with which you disagree. Absolutely, its as sure as the patriots were carrying their swords and their guns, they were carrying their pins their pros and their poetry along with them to move this revolution forward. Henry David Thoreau once wrote when i hear music, i fear no danger and i am vulnerable, i see no folk and i am related to the earliest times much sums up i think what we wanted to write about. Is itdown and write this book. Is the row. Until about three weeks ago, mcgraw thought thoreau was a running back for la area so you are here and inflection point. In the life. The reason we won the national championship. Well done. I rooted for cleansing just to. [bleep] mcgraw off as it turns out we are an unlikely duo read im very fit. Very well known. I my good looks and singing voice. When we started to do this project, i was down in dallas and george w. Bush asked me what are you working on and i said im doing this project with tim mcgraw and bush went mcgraw , i like the wind so i was misinformed, i thought this was a project and then his sorry. [bleep] shows up. So here we are. This again, we are neighbors innashville. Kim asked me an important question and i hadnever thought about it. He asked giving the. That history had written about, had i ever considered the role music played in history and i was embarrassed to say i havent as david our stem once observed a great nonfiction project is one that a little bit like a liberal arts degree. You learn something about the world you are vaguely interested in but did not yet know and now as an artist, you are once of the culture but you also dont want to be a partisan. Know, look, i think music as a way like you said transcending party lines and transcending racial lines and transcending speech barriers, everything. It has a way of indicating that you cant communicate anyother way with. And i think it relates all the way back to the beginning of the spoken word. And the stories have been told throughout history throughmusic. Originally around the beginning. And for me, i want to be able to just move people buy the story that i tell you thats what ido with music. And part of being involved even writing this book was to be able to tell the story of how music propel that story forward. Every era in American Life , the tensions of that era can be found in music essentially self 1768 John Dickinson wrote the liberty song which was what, seven years, eightyears before the of independence. We all know Yankee Doodle dandy. Starspangled banner whichwas a broad nationalist him. The songs of the enslaved which are fundamentally religious songs about deliverance and one of the things we had to deal with was how do we deal with the e civil war . What steward called the possible conflict and tim grew up in louisiana. When he came to tennesseehe was excited because we had ri electricity. [laughter] this is the way it goes for the whole talk. It was very exciting, we had a hardback book,hes never seen it. Hopefully theres someone from louisiana here. Any louisiana ends . Way in the back, close to the bar. Well done. My roommate in college was jack daniels so im with you. We had to deal with dixie. And the south and if you think about the war, you can understand the intentions with dixie and the battle hymn of the republic. Your thoughts on dixie. Like john said i grew up in the deep south in louisiana and i grew up literally in the middle of cotton fields. My first memory is beingin house that used to be a barn in the middle of a cotton field. I grew up driving with Cotton Pickers and working in cotton fields and moving Irrigation Systems and an early time dixie was a part of our culture and part of what i heard growing up and still to this day when i hear the song dixie it still stirs something in my soul even though in my head i realize that its a song that was written for a different purpose than what i believed it to be written for. Again, as you said last night you dont have to push hard to find irony in americanlife. P dixie was written for minstrel blackface performers in new york city to sing about how the enslaved wish they could be back in slavery. Thats what the song was written for so one of the ways we have to find to deal with this was how do you tell that tensions of the story . When we did our book tour we had a performance thatwent along with it. But we had to go through the thought process of how you sing this song and deliver this song in a way that doesnt come across to anyone as being offensive . And the way we decided to come up with that is a song called a trilogy that we put together by Nikki Newberry and it combines dixie, battle hymn of the republic and it combines all my trials which is an old bahamian lullaby and the combination of those songs are i think really sets the thtone of what we were trying to say shows the art of those three songs together show the art of what it means. Heres somebody else who came from mississippi to tennessee and also found electricity. You may have heard of him. [music] that the wrong song. Thats why meacham shouldnt have this controller. I got the clicker, very n exciting. He may handle above but he cant handle anything electronic. Can you find american trilogy for me . Back there, wave at me because if i have to sing jamie is going to throw me out. No, number theres another story for that song. We will get there. American trilogy. We will home until then. Grabbed the guitar and bring it out. Know. Keep going. Its the first one. No, thats the last one. But i do know that song really well. We will get there. Its actually the second song on the list on the tape that you have i uathink area sorry guys. Its the only one we havent tried so far. We will keep going. We will get to it area. Thats not it. Thats not it. Thats not it. No hope. We live in hope. Okay. We will get to that. Soamerican trilogy was moving and you all enjoyed it. And it was one of the most moving things we did when we did our to her. It really was. One of the things that you find is when youre on the road with mcgraw is there are certain types offans. Mine are all slightly old. With a lot of gin blossoms and corn rims. He has a lot more diverse fan base than i do. So the if you push into on the tension front, so dixie, battle hymn of the republic, if you look at the depression you have brother can you spare a dime which is a very dark song. Versus happy days are here again, kind of the fdr optimism. God bless america, irving bl berlin. Woody guthrie explicitly wrote this land is your land as an answer to God Bless America area so this idea that we as you all may have noticed we are somewhat divided d politically in the life of the country but we always have been. Its a matter of degrees more than pints, we tended to think you crash into the 60s where really theres both the new music exploding and the cultural tensions of the world we live in. Red versus blue, becomes so real. And we tend to think of it when you talk about protest music or patriotic music , automatically you go to the 60s, especially when it comes to protest music. Some of the first music i remember growing up on, i was born in 1967. And growing up in the early 70s and listening to your parents music as youre riding around in the car, those first song that i remember were songs from the on late 60s era that my mom was listening to and its the first time as an artist it struck me music had more meaning than just something to enjoy, but theres more to music than that and the first time i remember in the living room saying these guys have something to say, theyre not just playing a cute little song. Theyre trying to Say Something and not really connected with me and i think part of the reason i became an artists hearing those songs from the 60s but also when we started this project it made me realize that the song from the 60s, the fortunate son and protest songs like that draw a direct line all the way back to the liberty song which was by dickinson and 1768 or whatever it was and what he was trying to say so protest songs have been there all along, we just know more about it because of the 60s. And protest andpatriotism when you think about it are two sides of the same coin, two wings of a bird. Make your metaphor. So in january 1966, and sullivan comes on the air. He had imagine this was a great show, he had dinah shore. The four tops at the frosty the snowman voice and i guy named barry sadler who was a green beret. This songbecame the number one song in america in 1966. Number. But this is the trilogy. Rewind area okay. Okay, does it have green beret mark. Its right before this one. Green beret. Was incredible about the song is that you can john is that sadler standing there ramrod straight, performing the song about a green beret and fighting and its so ht patriotic, so moving and everybodys gathered around. Its like there was sort of a magnetic poster or that era. Remember john wayne, who made green berets. He was kind of, remember that was a vietnam movie that was really a world war ii movie. It was an attempt to have moral clarity about green g berets so and the tension with that of course is our friend Merle Haggard reed. Okie from musto he and i grew up loving Merle Haggard as wellagain, back to louisiana. I stepdad over an 18 wheeler when i wasa kid. I was five and six years old he drove an 18 wheeler and i spent a lot of time riding around in the 18 wheeler with a cab in that thing with an eight track player listening to eight tracks of Merle Haggard and charlie pride and all these great Country Singers. George jones and that was my education inCountry Music. I come by it pretty honestly. Not only riding in the truck and hearing the songs but the jukebox at truck stops at four in the morning, places like that. I grew up with that as part of my dna and my first memory , my mom tells me my first introduction to music she worked at a bus stop cafeteria in louisiana before she met my stepdad and i was in a playpen right by the jukebox and i wouldsit in the playpen every dayall day while she worked and listen to the jukebox. They actually wanted to keep you in a playpen. Lets see if we can do okie. Give me okie from muskogee, can you do it . All right. Play that one. [music] this is a sad ballot ofthe green berets. My soldiers from the sky, fearless men who jump and die. Men who mean just what they say. Those great men of the green beret. Silver wings upon their chest , those are men, americas best. 100 men will test today, the lonely streets of the green beret. This is so interesting, so a number of you were singing along. Fascinating. And that song, the 1966 number one song in america by 1968, you couldnt have releasedthat. Thats how quickly the war changed. For folks. So Merle Haggard was riding along on a bus one day. A im sure drinking protein shakes and healthy vaping. Im sure there was hydration, a lot of water and , they passed a road sign about muskogee oklahoma. Lets see if we can. Now were talking. [music] thats my kind of music, little Merle Hoggard. If i have to put a list together of what of my favorite artists, who would be at the top of the list as a country artist it would be Merle Hoggard hebecause of the re for one thing but his talents, his writing ability the way he spoke nto the common man and the way he performed songs, he had one of the greatest voices i think every Country Singer including myself, especially the lineage of countrysingers and the style that ive seen , i think can directly launch themselves back to Merle Haggard who goes back the brakeman, the singing brakeman. Merle went back and forth on whether that was charity or whether it was a red state and its ended on the protein shakes. Which one sold ticket at which time. Exactly, but nixon took advantage of this. In fact, when the only two places Richard Nixon in march 1974 could safely go. One was the Economic Club in chicago and the other was the grand anold opry in nashville. And he shows up and as you all may know, nixon was terribly clumsy and you see roy a half used to doa thing with a yoyo and that was a disaster. Friends go cross is to have to when he was working for nixon , when mixing would put a metal on someone, it was often reminded him of, because nixon would slice his head open and the blood would come out so the guys got a flashback so they had to put scotch tape on the metals. So he shows up and the, hes greeted by a song written just for the occasion to that theme. Because atthat point, everythings falling apart. For him and he was going to the base. And that was years ago. 45 years ago. There was very much a concerted effort on the part of at that point the Republican Party in the same way the Democratic Party was reaching out to the counterculture. When you look at the walk march on washington bob dylan was there, peter paul andmary , really remarkable. You had an answer to this. So if youre discovering of where things are, this is a perennial story. And then we crashed into the 1980s with president reagan and the whole notion of mourning in america. And two different songs that are really two sides of that coin. You can listen to Lee Greenwoods god bless the usa and it can move you and you can listen to Bruce Springsteen in the usa and you can be a big fan of that and they both have different meanings and they come from different places. Reagan wanted to adopt the springsteen song, bruce wouldnt have anything to do with it because i think they didnt quite understand or get what the song was saying from bruces point of view. You and springsteen i often think of in the same. I do to him as a matter fact. Does anyone else . I put myself with springsteen. Last when we were putting this thing together and we were actually playing songs and we get her 2 hour shows, but ended up being 2 and a half hours sometimes. But we were going to do, i was going to do born in the usa and i told john i said he wanted me to do born in the usa and i told john the story and i told the story throughout the tour that we did. I promised myself i would never do a Bruce Springsteen song ever because i tried it once and there was this thing called granny care which is a concert make you a couple nights before the grannies honors of a huge influence in music, a big superstar and somebody thats been around for a long time and hasnt had the american music. One year they were doing Springsteen Springsteen happened to be afriend of mine and faith and i would do tougher than the rest. So we said sure wed be glad to do tougher than the rest and we learned tougher than the rest and we show up in some of the biggest names in the music business, theres staying, neil young, john legend and this was the biggest names and we were proud to be part of that group so we sang tougher than the rest and its hard for me to match my wifes folders because shes such a fantastic singer but we got through it and we got back to the table and bruce is congratulating me and thanking us for doing it and he says by the way andof the show im going to get up and sing i forget the name of the song now. Anyway, glory days. Im going to sing glory days and would you advocate mine. Need me, cant you tell us and mark. Faith and i said all the artists will get up behind me and all sing the chorus of glory days if you dont mind coming up and i said we will sing the chorus of glory days, that will be fantastic to be on stage with statement bruce and neil young and all those guys, i cant wait so im sitting right right beside bruce and he starts playing and starts doing glory days and he calls all artists of so were all standing behind bruce and i had my cowboy hat on, my wife is beside me, bruces right there singing and hes starting to get to the second burst and he looks back at one of the artists, im not going to name the artist but he looks back and says do the second burst andits like no, i dont want to do that. Looks at anotherartist , do the second verse. At this time im starting to get a little embarrassed for my friend that nobodywants to sing the song and he looks at me and says cowboy hat, on the microphone comes in the second verse. I didnt know the second verse. And i didnt want to be the third person to say no to Bruce Springsteen though i thought how hard can it be . I know the song, everybody in the Music Industry is here, why dont i step upthere and act like i know what im doing. The lyrics are on the teleprompter but i cant find the melody to save my life so i get two lines into it and im all over the place and messed up and bruce pushes me out of the way and starts singing the song. I turned the red, embarrassed and i know ive ruined my career and i step back in line beside my wife and my wifedoes one of these on me. Literally moves away from me while im red so thats why i never ever do a springsteen song the rest of my life. There you go. Plus no one can do Bruce Springsteen. [music]. Is easy to get caught up in this its such a great song and its easy to get caught up in the hands of notion of that chorus. Sort of your chest and be patriotic red but when you listen to the verses you realize itscoming from a different point of view. Word reached president reagan in the fall of 84 that this sosong had come out and he said this was his favorite Bruce Springsteen song to which the White House Press corps always respectful asked what his previous favorite Bruce Springsteen song had been. Three days and the word came back it was born to run. And no one is sure whether president reagan had heard that he was in new jersey, it was a swing state and it was the core remember of what we now think of as reagan democrats so the fact that a republicanwas carrying new jersey was a big deal. Bruce springsteen came straight out of constituency that president reagan was trying to affirm in 1984 so he gives a couple of speeches. Where he says new jerseys own Bruce Springsteen is this patriotic song what the. Patriotic song is about a guy getting killed in caisson and not being able find a job so it was big push back. George will have written a column, this is how Ronald Reagan learned about Bruce Springsteens through george well, that explains a lot. About america. And george is the only person present company included but ever wore a bowtie in a doublebreasted laser to a Bruce Springsteenconcert. I dont think its that striking but apparently it is. So there was another song, that merv griffin had discovered. Lee greenwood had been a car dealer in vegas and about 1982 83 came to nashville, name for himself. With this song, play on merck show merv s although very close to reagan said a videocassette, he explained to your grandchildren later what those are areas of greenwood singing it. And it became the reagan. And had amazing power today. Such a great song, one of the best songs and itstill strikes me every time i hear it. Because i associate with rolling up and being a Country Music fan and hearing that song and very patriotic and being very moving, restoring certainly Lee Greenwood is a fantastic singer and writer so even today when i hear thesong it still moves me , although sometimes it bothers me. [music] Lee Greenwood, what a incredible song that to a great country. Patronage is such a great country to do it in a popular way with a song like that. It was incredible assignment is incredible whenyou hear itself such a great piece of music. Inextricably linked to the 80s and then to september 11. In many ways and president reagan, i never let president reagan to my great regret that i did get to know mrs. Reagan a little bit and. [laughter] need help anybody here aboutthat. I have stars from barbara bush, you all have scars from nancy. But her president reagans transformative power is so amazing, as jimmystewart once said if ronnie had married nancy the first time you would have won an academy award. Which is probably true red but reagans visual imagination was so important and so he as you know, his phrase was the shining city on a hill. Well, the only guy i know who can improve on jesus because sitting on a hill is from the sermon on the mount in the new testament and the addition of the word shining is so important and that that i actually not, i have heard ministers from voltage say as jesus said, i shall be as a shining city upon a hill how that was rendered in the original aramaic i dont know what i got to miss reagan a little bit late in her life and we were at lunch one day and as you know he always knew more. Sometimes it was evenaccurate. And so i was always embarrassed that she knew far more about what was going on in washington that i so i had just heard a minister say this couple of weeks before about jesus and a shining city on a hill so i was once with her and sheordered the third of the cobb salad at the bel air and not. I said maam, its incredible. President reagan improves leon jesus and without blinking said yes you. May we all someday be lovedas nancy davis love Ronald Reagan. Turned out. , what greenwood did was capture a moment where patriotism from the battle of the green berets until about greenwood had fallen into kind of squares bill. Thats what op was about. And it was really an affirmative cultural statements that patriotism could be popular again. It is always a pleasure to sing that song when john and i do our things together it was the highlight of the evening to do that song and perform that song. And that is what music does. Music has always been a part of in my life is in marks moments of your life and sometimes you will hear a song the puts you back into the situation and sometimes it could be a mundane situation, everyday situation ebut here i have the song lisa y Jesse Coulter and it puts me in a hammock in seventh grade with my math homework on my chest but thats what music does break when john and i puts together and started talking about the idea it also music shows up and plays big huge parts of pivotal moments in our country and in our lives in a lot of ways. You know, back to the Second World War for example,or Irving Berlin wrote God Bless America and in the first world war. Thought it was too sentimental so we put it in a drawer pulls it out in 1940, 41 and it becomes the song it became but do you know the churchill story about berlin . Very quickly, the great philosopher, british philosopher, zion bullen was an attache in the embassy in washington and would write these marvelous reports about the american political situation backck in the Prime Minister wod read them. He would put out the word that when mr. Berlin visits london i want to see him. Mr. Berlin comes to london and they set up lunch and it is just the Prime Minister and mr. Berlin and they are discussing american politics and mr. Berlin leaves and one of churchills assistance says to him how was lunch and churchill said all i know is he writes much better about politics than he talks. It was Irving Berlin who had mistakenly come to lunch. [laughter] its amazing we all arent speaking german. As it turns out. The other great churchill story which has no relevance whatever but you will like is churchill was in the mens room of the house of commons one day standing at a long trough doing what one does and at leave the socialist labor rightparenthesis minister comes in and churchill steps away. Atlee looks at him and says are you feeling standoffish today winston and churchill said no, but every time you see Something Big you want to nationalize it. In[laughter] im usually very highbrow but this is just bringing it out. [laughter] so, what we are an undivided era of music has represented, illuminated, try to assuage our divisions of the past so what do you see the role in this era or your craft . For my craft . For me, sometimes music is there just to make you feel good. I think that right now we really need that and i also think we need music to for people to hear and get both sides, and a matter what side of the aisle you fall on, no matter what type of music that you like, something that has a way to stir your soul and let you see insight into another point of view. Music has a way of doing that and for me when those thoughts come along or when that inspiration comes along i try to do that and sometimes i try to make a song that makes you laugh or cry and one of the songs that for me, is one of those transcend ore transcendent. Human sent you mixed up transcendent and hes teaching me capillary at the same time. I got my very own history professor when i wrote the book with john meacham. I am like a human wikipedia and about that accurate. [laughter] that was a very george w. Bush moment so he may be president next. [laughter] do you all know the story of a strategically . Very quickly, i dont know if i told you this but so you have to be pretty competent confident in yourself or george w. Bush is to have a confident at your president ial library on the confidence of he invites will ferrell and Lauren Michaels to come down to the library in dallas and they are sitting around backstage before they go on and bush says i made this pretty easy for you all and they say what you mean, mr. President , i gave you strategic re [laughter] michael and farrell look at each other and said should we tell him. Mrmr. President , we made that up and bush was crushed. He thoughtht he had said it. [laughter] but he fought back and said well, you did not make under [inaudible] [laughter] what did you say . What i was trying to say in my louisiana language was tha that simultaneously translation. Music crosses all boundaries for the one that i noticed when i seen that no matter what audience i am singing to is when i do a song live like you were dying. G. That song is one of those songs that i feel like im privileged and blessed to be the vessel for that song. I dont feel like thats my song but if you like its a song that is meant for everyone and everybody finds a way to relate to that. That is what great music does and im fortunate in my crew that im able to have songs like that as part of my repertoire and as an artist that is ultimately what you want to do is move people and bring them together in a way they may not have been involved with a song like that or a message like that. Do you have everything about the difference between a political song and a cultural one . I dont. I dont think i think about good songs and things that move you. Would doecessarily would song different but just to be political. I would do song this meant to move you and whether that has a political angle to it may be but if it is a wellwritten song, a song that has an emotion and can connect not just one side but of society but also society. Thats important andnd i adme that. And it would be more cultural than political. Yeah, one of the things, remember we are the sum of our parts per our dispositions apart are enormous but one of the uncomfortable realities of this era is that politicians are far more often mirrors of who we are other than molders. If we really wanted Something Different they would give us Something Different that is the nature of the enterprise and if you can create art or create a climate in which may be you spend more time listening to those better angels as opposed to the worst instincts we can nudge things forward a little and that is about as best we can do. You can get to 51 of the time doing the right thing and thats a heck of a good day. I dont make it very often. Particularly when im with tim mcgraw. [laughter] thats why i keepn hoping that faith will show up. [laughter]h quick story, one of the last times i saw the senior president bush was in maine three summers ago and a buddy of mine in nashville hadas just released a song and i played it on my phone for president bush and he listened to it and at that point it was difficult for him to talk. He had parkinsons but was very quiet about it and so when he spoke he was you listened and we played this and then he said, beautiful, beautiful. Heres a song that is about us. There is a light that goes by the front door dont forget the keys under the mat childhood, always staying humble and kind go to church because your mama says to visit grandpa every chance you get it wont be a waste of time and to be always humble and kind my friend, tim mcgraw, ladies and gentlemen. If i could, i wish i could take credit for writing that song but lori mckenna wrote that song is great songwriter in her own right but she sat down to aow you how great song comes about. She sat down in her living room and has five children and her husband was a plumber and she sat down on her living room because some of her kids had moved away into two kids left at home and she wanted to write a message to her kids about how to treat people whenbo they go outf the house and leave home. She sat down and wrote this note really for her children knowing she only had two left at home and she wanted to read it to them and she sat down and wrote in 30 minutes. That is the power of music. Absolutely. Thank you, sir. [applause] weeknights this week, we are featuring book tv programs showcasing what is available every weekend on cspan2. Tonight books on the middle east. Michael rubin and brian talk about the instability in the middle east and where u. S. Actions against iran may lead. Then talks about the decadelong rivalry rivalry between iran and saudi arabia and after that, a retired career Court ForeignService Officer who served in the middle east for 25 years talks about this policy in the region and the recent confrontation between the u. S. And iran. Watch what tv this weekend, every weekend on cspan2. [inaudible conversations] good evening