Host three as you all know is about words. The rhythms of declaration of independence, the pages of the constitution but is also about balance. It is about the drama and the sound of the surge the sound of a minister, the march on washington calling on us to live up to the full meaning of our creed is also about music and music is one of the most universal expressions you can listen to a song which you might disagree more congeniality and more profitably than he could ever listen to a speech about something with which you disagree. Tim as sure as the patriots are carrying their swords in their guns, they were caring appends in the pros in the poetry along with them to move the revolution forward and to move our country forward. Henry David Perrault once wrote that when i hear music i fear no danger, i see no photo and relating to the earliest times i relate them to the latest and the pretty much sums up and think what we, wanted to write about. Jon until about three weeks ago, mcgraw thought pro was a running back for leu. [laughter]. So you are here in an inflection point. Tim is the reason we won the national championship. Jon i would do that just to pass mcgraw off as it turns out. We are unlikely duo. I am very fit. [laughter]. And very well known for my good looks and singing voice. And when we started to do this project, i was down in dallas and george w. Bush asked me what he working on. Noticeable in doing this project with Tim Mcgraw Tim mcgraw and he said i like that. So i was misinformed. That this was a different project and then historian showed up. So here we are. And this, were neighbors in nashville. Tim asked me a very important question that i never thought about it. He had given the period of history i have written about that i ever considered the role of music played in the history. I was embarrassed to say that i had not and david once observed that a great nonfiction project is one that is a little bit like a liberal arts degree. You learn something about a world they are vaguely interested in but did not yet know. And now as an artist, you are of the culture but you also dont want to be a partisan. Tim no, look at think music has a way like you said, transcending through the party lines and transcending the racial lines and transcending speech barriers. Everything it just has a way of communicating that you cannot communicate in any other way. And i think it relates all of the way back to the beginning of the spoken word. In the stories have been told throughout history through music. Around fires originally. And for me, i want to be able to move people by the stories that i tell us what to do with music in the tell stories. And part of being involved with you in writing this book was to be able to tell the story of how music helped propel that story forward. Jon so every era in life can be found in the tensions. In 1778, not John Dickinson broke lubrizol which was what seven years or eight years before the declaration declaration of independence. We all know the Yankee Doodle dandy. The starspangled banner which was this broader nationalist thing. The songs of the enslaved. They are fundamentally religious songs about deliverance then one of the things we had to deal with was how do we deal with the civil war read what he called the irrepressible conflict. And tim grew up in louisiana. When he came to tennessee he was excited we had electricity. [laughter]. And i know yall doubly that. Tim if this goes this way through the whole talk i dont know. Jon and he saw hardback books. A big moment for him. Tim hopefully there is someone from louisiana here. Jon look at that, way the back. [laughter]. Well done. No problem there. My roommate in college was jack daniels. So im with you. We had to deal with dixie. In the south and if you think about the civil war, you can understand that the tensions with dixie and the republican republic. Your thoughts on dixie. Tim like johnson, a group in the south and in the deep south of louisiana and i literally grew in the middle of cotton fields. My first memory is being in a house that used to be a barn that was in the middle of a cotton field. I grew up driving Cotton Pickers and working in cotton fields and moving Irrigation Systems and Irrigation Systems and formerly time, dixie was part of our culture and what i heard growing up and social the state, when i hear the song dixie, there is something in my soul. Even though, in my head i realized that was a song that was written for a different purpose than what i believed it to be written for. Jon written for again, as we said last night, didnt have to push very hard to find iranian American Life pretty dixie was written for menstrual blackface performers in new york city singing about how informally enslaved wish they could be back in slavery. That is what the song was really written for. So one of the ways we had to find deal with this was how do you tell the tensions of the story. Tim absolutely and we had a performance that went along with it. And how you do that. We had to go through the process of how do you sing the song of deliver the song in a way that doesnt come across to anyone as being offensive. In the way we decided to come up with that is a song called the trilogy. About breaking new barriers in a combined dixie the battle of the hymn of the republic and it combines all my trials which is no be hermione blow by the combination of those songs, i think really sets the tone of what we are trying to say and shows the art of those three songs what it really means three and appears that somebody else found a way to tennessee and also have electricity. You may have heard of him. The fighting souls tim that is the wrong song. Jon that is the wrong song. It. Tim they should not have the controller or the quicker. He may can handle a book but not anything electronic. Jon can you find american trilogy for me. Back there wave at me. If i had to sing, jamie will throw me out. [laughter]. Tim no. Jon no speech of theres another story for that song. Jon will get there. American trilogy. We will home until then. Tim grabbed the guitar in bringing out. [applause]. Jon no. Tim no. Keep going. Jon is the first one. Tim no. But i do know that song very well. [laughter]. Jon thank god, we will get there. Speech of it is actually the second song on the list. The only one you have not tried so far. [laughter]. Jon we will keep going. Tim no thats not it. Jon no. Tim that is not it. [laughter]. Jon no hope. Do we live in hope. So we will get to that. So the american trilogy was really moving. And you will enjoy it. Tim was one of the most many things that we did when we did our movie as well. Jon yes. [laughter]. And one of the things that you find is when youre on the road with mcgraw, is our certain types of fans. Mine are all slightly well, old. [laughter]. With a lot of gin blossoms and horn rams. And he is a lot more diverse and base than i do. We can push in two on the tension front, so dixie the ballot 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 aga again. And lots of optimism. God bless america, Irving Berlin, and Woody Guthrie explicitly wrote this land is your land as an answer to God Bless America. So this idea that joe may have noticed with some but divided politically in the life of the country but we always have been. It is a measure to what degree more than time that we tended to think. In the new crash into the 60s where theres both the new music exploding in the cultural tensions of the world we live in red versus blue becomes real. It. Tim we tend to think of the 60s, when we think about protesting is a patriotic music. It automatically go to the 60s especially when it comes to processing. Some of the first music that i remember growing up, group born in 1967, and bring up in the early 70s listening to your parents music is riding around in the car did this for songs that i remember our songs from the late 60s era. The my mom was listening to. It is the first time as an artist in astronomy that music had more meaning than just something to enjoy. Is there something more to music than that. I remember thinking these guys really have something to say. Theyre not just playing a cute little song just trying to entertain you predict which really trying to say something. That really connected with me in this part of the reason why i became an artist. Hearing those songs from the 60s but also only started this project made me realize that the songs from the 60s, unfortunate protest songs like that, draw a direct line all of the way back to the liberty song. 1768 or whatever that was. The dickinson somebody was trying to say. Songs have been there all along we just know more about it. Jon the protestant patriotism any think about it are two sides of the same coin. Two wings of bird. Picture metaphor. Seven january 1966, and solomon comes on the air and i imagine this is a show. Dinosaur, the four tops, the frosty the snowman voice, the comedian and a guy name barry sadler was a green beret and the song became the number one song in america in 1966. Tim no. Jon no. Betook but this is the trilogy. I think. Jon it remind. Okay. Tim note. [laughter]. Jon green beret. Tim Sergeant Sadler standing there performing the song about a green beret and fighting and it is so moving and so patriotic and everybody just gathered around in sort of the magnetic post for people of that era. Jon remember john wayne, who made green beret right, remember as a vietnam movie it was really world war ii movie. An attempt to sort of have that moral clarity about green beret. In tension with that of course is a friend Merle Haggard. Tim for muskogee. I grew up loving Merle Haggard as well. But back to louisiana, my stepdad drove 19 miller when i was a kid. I was five and six years old and he drew drove in 19 miller. I 18 wheeler. I spent a lot of time there with an eight track player and listening to Merle Haggard. All of these great Country Singers. George jones and that is my education and hundred music. I come by it pretty honestly. Nunnally does does riding in the truck and hearing the songs but as a jukeboxes, and truck stops at four in the morning and places like that i grew up with that is part of my dna. My mom tells me my first introduction to music, she worked at the bus stop cafeteria before she met my stepdad which was a young single mom and i was in a playpen right by the jukebox. [laughter]. I was said that they can everyday all day long in the submit jukebox. Jon actually they want to keep you in playpen. Speech of something of a pen but i dont know if a playpen. Jon lets try to do it again. [laughter]. Tim can be okay for muskogee can you do it. Tim all right. He got one. Tim and solomon. Fighting soldiers from the skies fearless men who will jump and die. Menu mean just what they say, those brave men are the green beret. Silver wings on the chest days on end americas best 100 men will test today, green beret jon this is so interesting. A number of you were singing along. That is fascinating. That song, 1956. Number one song of america. In 1968, you could not have released that. That is how quickly the war changed for folks. So merle heger was riding along on a bus one day and im sure breaking protein shakes. [laughter]. And healthy vaping. [laughter]. Im sure is a lot of hydration and water. In the past the sign on the roadside, about muskogee, oklahoma. So lets see if we can find it. Now we are talking. We dont smoke marijuana in muskogee. We dont take her trips on lsd. We like living life we like Holding Hands we dont lets are hair grow long and shaggy like the hippies out in San Francisco do. I am proud to be a gnocchi from muskogee. Tim now that is my kind of music Merle Haggard. If i have a dip in the list together, and my favorite artists who would be at the top of that list in the country artist would it would be Merle Haggard because of the storytelling and his talent in his writing ability in the way he spoke to the common man in the way he performed songs. He had one of the greatest voices. I think every Country Singer especially myself, and the lineage in the style, i think they can directly mark themselves back tomorrow haggard. He goes back to the greatness. Jon merle went back and forth on whether that was a parody or whether it was a red state anthem. And it did on the printing shakes. [laughter]. Tim which one at which time. This. [laughter]. Jon nixon, took advantage of this. In fact, they only two places richard nixon, in march of 1934 consiglio. One was the Economic Club in chicago and the other was the grand old opry in nashville. And he says that and if you all may know that nixon was terribly clumsy. And roy used to do thing with a iago and that was a disaster. When nixon would put a metal and someone, it would often remind them of combat because he was licensed and open and blood would happen. So we had flashbacks of the finally just had to put scotch tape on the metal thing. Sue shows up and he is greeted by the song written just for that occasion and to that theme. Because at that point, everything is falling apart for him. He was going to the base. And that was years ago pretty 45 years ago. So there is very much a concerted effort on the part in the point, the Republican Party in the same way that the Democratic Party was reaching out to the counterculture. When you look at the march on washington, bob dylan was there been a polymeric, really remarkable. You had an answer to this. So if you are despairing of where things are, this is a perennial story. And then we crash into the 1980s. With president reagan and the whole notion of morning in america and two different songs that are really two sides of that coin. Tim you can listen to with god bless the usa and it can really move you and you can listen to Bruce Springsteen, born in the usa and can be a big fan of that in the can both have different meanings and they come from different places. In fact reagan, wanted to adopt the springsteen song and bruce would not have anything to do with it because i think they didnt quite understand or get with the song was saying from bruces point of view. Jon you and springsteen i often think of is in the same. Tim i do to as a matter of fact. Jon does anyone else. Lofgren. Tim when we were putting this thing together and we are actually playing songs, we did our two hour show as well. And you ended up being two and half hours sometimes with john talking. [laughter]. But, were going to do more than the usa and then until john, and he wanted me to do it until john, the story until the story throughout the tour that we did. I promised myself that i would never do a Bruce Springsteen song and her because tried it once and theres this thing that is a grammy care, noise honors a big huge influence. And had a big impact on american music. In one year doing springsteen happened to be a friend of mine and he asked if faith and i would do a song. And we said sure we would be glad to. And we learned the song we show up for some of the biggest names in the Music Industry there. John legend in common the list goes on and on and we were very fun to be part of that group. Silly singsong is nervousness we work in his heart as it is for me to try to match my wifes vocal because she such a fantastic singer. And when get back to the table and bruces congratulating us for doing this and he said, you by the way, at the end of the show, i am going to get up and saying, i forget the name of the song now. Anyway, glory days. And he said would you mind. Jon he needs begin to tell. Tim it is for nine to do this and we will sing along to the course of glory days if you dont mind. It is insurable, and single course that would be fantastic. And we all sing together. That would be great. Cant wait. So is the website bruce in any such claim and they start singing glory days. We have the scent of pretty girls standing behind bruce i am a cowboy hat on my wife is beside me. He is starting to get to the second person he looks back at one of the artists on that when you name him and says hey come to the second verse. And he said no i dont think i want to do that. And then another artist. They said no i dont want to do that. At this time im starting to get a little bit embarrassed for my friend. Nobody wants to sing the song with him. Then he said, a cowboy hat come and sing the song come sing the second verse. I do know the second verse. [laughter]. And i did not want to be the third person saint known Bruce Springsteen so i thought how hard to beat. [laughter]. I know the song. Everybody in the Music Industry hears it. What i just about their act like i know what i am doing. Bad mistake. The lyrics are on the teleprompter but i cant find the melody to save my life. I am all over the place. The bruce just pushed me out of the way and turned beet red and aunt holy embarrassed i know i just ruined my career. My wife does one of these on me. [laughter]. Literally moves away from me. So i will never ever ever do another Bruce Springsteen song. [applause]. Tim there you go. No one can do it as good as bruce. One down in a dead mans land. Born in the usa, born in the usa i was born in the usa born in the usa tim it is easy to get caught up in that. And the notion of that course. In sort of be your chest and be patriotic when you hear that. When you listen to the verses, it is coming from a little different point of view. He realized that pretty. Jon sober reach president reagan that the song has come out. In the fall of 1984. He said this was his favorite Bruce Springsteen song in which the plants press corps, always respectfully asked what his previous favorite Bruce Springsteen song was predicted three days working back then it was born to run. [laughter]. And no one questioned whether president reagan actually heard that. But he was in new jersey, swing state and i was the core member, of what we know used to call reagan democrats. Its in the fact that the republicans was carrying jersey was a big deal. Bruce brink springsteen came straight out of that constituency the president reagan was trying to affirm in 1984 predict certain it does a couple of speeches where he says, new jersey own Bruce Springsteen and seeing his patriotic song. Its a guy getting killed and not to find a job. So there was big pushback and george will had written a column, this is how Ronald Reagan learned about Bruce Springsteens through george. This means a lot. [laughter]. About america. And george is the only person, who ever wore those type in a double breasted blazer to a Bruce Springsteen concert. I think it is at striking but apparently it is. So there was another song that merv griffin, discovered. Lee greenwood had been a car dealer in vegas. And to about 1982 or 1983. He came to nashville, he made a name for himself with the song and plated on mars show. Merv as you all know, area close to missus ready to presented videocassette any explain to your grandchildren with his art. It became the reagan anthem. It has an amazing power today. Tim is such a great song. That song still strikes me returning. I associated with growing up in being a Country Music fan and hearing that song. And its very patriotic and very moving and certainly is a fantastic singer and writer. Even today when i hear the phone, it still moves me although sometimes it can bother me too. Tim a great song, right. I am proud to be an american and i gladly stand up there aint no doubt i love this land god bless the usa tim [applause]. [applause]. What an incredible song. Tim a great country such a patriot and dude incident popular take it was pretty incredible and it still incredible. Such a great piece of music. Jon and is linked to the mid 80s and in the september 11th. In many ways and president reagan, i did get to know missus reagan little bit and,. [applause]. Tim [laughter]. Jon i dont need to tell anyone here about that. I have scars from barbara bush. President reagans transformative power so amazing. Jimmy stewart once said that if ronnie had a nancy the first time he wouldve won an academy award. Probably true. Reagans visual imagination was so important. So he as you know, his great phrase was a shining city on the hill. His only kino who can improve on jesus. Because indian hills from from some amount. In the new testament. The addition of the word shining is so important in that. I actually, ive heard ministers from pulpit say that as jesus said, america shall be the shining city upon a hill. How is was rendered, i dont know. We are at lunch one day and as you all know, choice new gossip and sometimes it was even accurate. And so is always embarrassed because she knew far more about what was going on in washington that i did. So i just heard a minister say this. There was a couple of weeks before about jesus on the shining city and help. So i had lunch with her and she ordered that cobb salad at bel air not eaten it. Nice and million you know, its incredible. President reagan improvement jesus. And she looked without blinking incentive yes, thats the kind of thing that ronnie did. [laughter]. May we all sunday be loved and nancy davis love Ronald Reagan as it turns out. But it was Will Greenwood did, was capture a moment where patriotism from the battle of the green berets and until about greenwood, and fallen into the kind of squares bill. Hazlett oakie was about. And was really an affirmative cultural statement that patriotism could be popular again. We can make that case is a speech going to be the case in the campaign we would run america when these things stand up, when he sings that, when people center. And particularly military. It. Tim and is always a pleasure to sing that song. Especially when john and i do hard things together with a highlight of the evening to do that song. See what it means to people. And this will music does and music has always been a part of in my life and marks moments in your life and sometimes youll hear some some of the picture right back into the situation and sometimes it can be just a mundane situation. Here, it puts me in seventh grade laying in a hammock halfasleep with my netbook on my chest. Jon is feigned explains a lot with your accounting credits betook but when you Start Talking with the idea, music shows up in places, big huge parts of pivotal moments in our lives in a lot of ways. Jon back to the second world war, Irving Berlin wrote God Bless America and the first world war. He thought it was too sentimental so he put it in the drawer. He pulls it out in 194441 and becomes song became. Do you know the churchill story about berlin. Very quickly. So remember the great philosopher, was natasha during the war in washington and he would write these marvelous reports about the american political situations. And so we put out the word when mr. Berlin was in london, he wanted to see him so mr. Berlin comes to london they set up lunch and is just the Prime Minister and mr. Berlin, their discussing american politics. Mr. Berlin leaves in one of churchills assistances to him, comes lunch. And churchill says, all i know is that he writes much better about politics and he talks. It was Irving Berlin. Mistakenly coming to lunch. [laughter]. Is amazing we are all speaking german at this point as it turns out. The other great story, which has no relevance whatsoever but you will like it. Churchill was in the mens room at the house of commons with a standing in a long trough. Doing what one does. And clement the socialists liberates Prime Minister consent. Churchill stops only. And he looks at him you feeling standoffish today and he said no just every time you see Something Big you want to nationalize it. [laughter]. [laughter]. Jon im usually very highbrow. So we are in a divided era read music, has represented, eliminated, hard try to sway our Division Investment when you see the role in the sarah for your craft. Tim i think for me, sometimes music is just there to make you feel good. And i think the right now, we really need that. We need music to be able to people to be able to hear and give both sides no matter what side of the aisle you full on. No matter what type of music that you likely to something that has a way to stir your soul and lazy some insight to another point of view. Music is a way of doing that and i think that for me, when this come along with an interest comes along, i tried to do that and sometimes it just try to make a song think a lot make you cry. One of the sons a really for me, is one of those trends in response princeton very limited work. Jon you just mix tours. But that is why am here. [laughter]. Tim he speaks to me about vocabulary the same time. I have my own history professor. Jon i am about that accurate. [laughter]. Was a very george w. Bush moment. So he may be president next. Deal know the story. Very quickly. You have to be pretty confident in yourself and george w. Bush is to have a conference at your president ial library on comedy in the presidency. This pretty bull thing to do. So he bites will ferrell the more michael to come out of the library in dallas. And there sitting around backstage before the gone. An sentiment is pretty easy for yall. This agreement mr. President. I give you your teacher e. [laughter]. And i look at each other in the state should we tell him. Mr. President we made that up. English was crushed. Because they thought is that it. And then he said we didnt make this. You underestimated it. [laughter]. So what did you say it was pretty. Tim when i was trying to say in my louisiana language in my native tongue was. Jon with a simultaneous translator. Tim one of the songs that i notice when i think that no matter what audience i am singing to come is what i do a song live like you are dying. And then some really one of the songs that i feel like an very privilege didnt last to be the vessel for that song. I dont feel like that is my song, that was meant for everybody and everybody finds a way to relate to that nothing thats what thats what greek music does to that. [applause]. And forcing them a career that i am able to have songs like that as part of my repertoire and as an artist, and is ultimately what you want to do is move people and bring people together in a way that they may not have been brought together without a solid that her message like that. Jon do you ever think about the difference between a political song and a cultural 100. Tim i dont. I think just think about good songs that song is a really move you. I dont think i necessarily would do is im just because it was meant to be political. I would do song was meant to move you. And whether it has of political angle to it maybe but if it still a well written song, a song that has an emotion to connect, not just one side of the society but to all society. Jon thats really important. Tim which would be more cultural than political. Jon one of the things, remember, for the sum of our parts. So our dispositions very. Later the uncomfortable realities of the current era is the politicians are far more often mayors of who we are rather than, if we really wanted something different, they would give us something different. That is the nature of the enterprise. So if you can create art, if you can create a climate in which maybe is spend a little more time listening to those angels rather than workboat worst instincts, we can nudge things forward a little bit. And thats about as best we can do. If you can get to 51 percent of the time doing the right thing, that is a heckuva good day. I dont take it very often. I dont make it particularly in this way i keep hoping that faith is going to show up but she hasnt yet. So quickly, the last times i saw the senior president bush, was in may 3 summers ago. A buddy of mine in nashville had just released a song. I played it on my phone for president bush. And he listened to it and at that point it was very difficult for him to talk. He had parkinsons he was very quiet about it though. So when he spoke, you listened. And we played this a dissent, in full. Beautiful. So heres a song about us. Always stay humble and kind. Go to church, because your mama said, always be humble and kind always be humble and kind. Always be humble and kind. Jon my friend, tim mcgraw. [applause]. Tim if i could share something, lawyer of that song and shes a great artist. She sat down, to show you how a great song comes about. She sat down in her living room, she has five children and her husband was a plumber. She said in her living room because some of her kids had moved away and she had two kids left home. She was wanting to write a message to her kids about how to treat people when they go out of the house within the home. So she sat down and wrote this little note really for her children who actually have two left home and she wanted to read it to them. And she wrote it in 30 minutes. That is the power of music. Jon absolutely