So history as you all know is about words. Thats why you are here. The stately rhythms of the declaration of independence, the cadences of the constitution, but its also about sounds. Its about the muffled drum at lexington and concord and the sound of the surf at omaha beach, sound of a minister at the march on washington calling on us to live up to the full meeting of our creed. And its also about music, and music is one of the most universal expressions. You can listen to song with which you might disagree, more ingeniously and more profitably and you couldmo ever listen to e speech about something with which you disagree. Absolutely. As sure as the patriots were carrying their swords and the guns, they were carrying their pin and prose and poetry along with them to move this revolution forward and move our countryio forward. Henry David Thoreau once wrote when i hear music i fear no danger. I see, no foe unrelated to the earliest times into the latest. That pretty much sums up i think what we wanted to write about when we sat down to write this book. Thoreau until about three weeks ago tim mcgraw thought thoreau was a running back for lsu. [laughing] you here at an h inflection poit in the life hes the reason we won a national championship. I rooted for clemson just to make tim mcgraw map. We are an unlikely duo. Im very fit. [laughing] veryry well known for my good looks and singing voice. When we started do this project, i was down in dallas at george w. Bush asked me what he working on . I i said im doing this project with tim mcgraw. Bush went, mcgraw . I like t the wife. [laughing] i thought this is a project with faith hill and in his sorry shows up. So here here we are. This begin, where neighbors at national. Ten as the really important question and i never thought aboutou it. He asked given the peerage of history ive written about have ever considered the role e music played in the history . I was embarrassed to say i had not. As David Halberstam once observed a a great nonfiction project is one that so that like aa liberal liberal arts degree. You learn something about the world you were vacant vaguely interested in it did not yet know. 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 my first memory, noty 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 step dad when she was a young single mom and as as a playpen right by the jukebox. I would sit in that playpen everyday all day while she worked and listen to the jukebox. Faith once to keep you in a playpen. [laughing] some kind of pen. If dont know if its a playpen. Lets see if we can do okie. Give me okie from muskogee. Can you do it . Theres a green beret, all right. Thats good. Play that one. Fighting soldiers from the sky fearless men who jump and i menu mean just what they say the brave men of the green beret silver wings on their chest these are men, americas best 100 men will test today only three when the green beret is so interesting. Number of you were singing along. Fascinating. And that song, 1966, number one number one song in america, by 1968 you couldnt have released that. Right . Thats how quickly the war changed for folks. For the war, for sure. Merle haggard was riding along on a bus one day. Im sure drinking protein shakes and healthy vaping. [laughing] sure, a lot of hydration, a lot of water, and they passed a road sign about muskogee, oklahoma. Lets see if we can now were talking. We dont smoke marijuana in muskogee ua we dont take our hits on lsd. We dont burn down on main street wee like living right and free we dont let our hair grow long and shaggy like the hippies out in San Francisco do and im proud to be an okie from muskogee everyone knows that one. A place were even squares can have a ball we still way of old glory down at the courthouse and white lightning is still the biggest thrill of all. Nit depended on the states which one sold ticketsat which time. Exactly, but nixon took advantage of that. In fact, the only two places Richard Nixon in march 1974 could safely go, one was the Economic Club of chicago and the other was the grand old opry in nashville. And he shows up and as you all may know nixon was terribly clumsy and roy a cup used to do a thingwith a yoyo and that was a disaster. France brokaw when he was working for nixon, when nixon would put a metal on someone it would often remind him of combat because nixon would slice his hand open. N so theyd have a flashbackand they finally had to put scotch tape on the metals. So he shows up hes greeted by a song written just for that occasion to that theme because at that point, everything is falling apart for him and he was going to the base. And that was 40 years ago, 45 years ago. So there was very much a concerted effort on the part at that point of the Republican Party in the same way the Democratic Party was reaching out to the counterculture. When youlook at the march on washington, bob dylan was there, peter paul and mary. Re he had an answer to this so if youre 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 mourning in america. And two different songs that are really two sides of that going. You can listen to Lee Greenwoods god bless the usa and it can really move you and you can listen to Bruce Springsteen, born in the usa and be a big fan of that and they both have different meanings and they come from different places. In fact, reagan wanted to adopt the springsteen song and 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. Does anyone else . I put myself in springsteens shoes. When we were putting this thing together and we were actually playing songs when we did our to our shows, they ended up being 2 and a half hours sometimes with john talking. But we were going to do, i was going to do born in the usa and i told john he wanted me to do born in the usa and i told john this story and i told this story throughout the tour that we did. I promised myself i would never do Bruce Greenstein going ever because i tried it once and theres this thing called granny cares that is this song they do a couple nights before the granite that always honors a huge influence in music. Someone who has had a big impact on American Music or music in general. One year they were doing springsteen and springsteen happened to be a friend of mine and he asked if faith and i would do trumpet and the rest, and i said sure we be love to do that and we learned to offer than the rest and theres biggest names in the music business. Staying and neil young, john legend and the listgoes on and we were proud to be part of that group. So we sank tougher than the rest and as hard as it is for me to match my wifes vocals because he such a fantastic singer we got through it and we get back to the table and bruce is congratulating me on how good it sounds and taking us for doing it andsaying at the end of the show , im going to get up and sing i forget the name of the song now. Anyway, glory days, im going to get up and sing glory days. You need me, can you tell us and mark. Faith and i said all artists are going to get behind me and sing along to the chorus of glory days and i said will come up and ursing the chorus of glorydays, that would be fantastic. Being on stage with staying and bruce and neil young, i cant wait and im sitting right beside bruce so he goes up and Start Playing and start doing glory days and called all artists up and were all standing behind bruce and i have my cowboy hat on and my wife beside me, bruces right there singing. And hes starting to get to the second birth and he looks back at one of the artists, im not going to name the artist and he says do the second verse and heslike now, i dont think i want to. Another artist and the second verse he says no i dont want to do that and at this point im starting to get embarrassed for my friendbut he looks over 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 brucespringsteen so i thought how hard can it be . I know the song. Everybody in the Music Industry is here and why dont i step up there and act like i know what im doing . I step up, those songs, 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 start singing the song. Im totally embarrassed, i know ive ruined my career and i step back in line beside my wife and my wife does one of theseon me. Literally moves away from me while im there so thats why i will never ever do the springsteensong the rest of my life. [applause] there you go. Plus no one can do justice to Bruce Springsteen. No reason to try. [music] its easy to get caught up in this, its such a great song and its easy to get caught up in the anthemic notion of that chorus and sort of beat your chest and be very patriotic whenyou hear that but when you listen to the verses you realize its coming from a different point of view. So word reached president reagan in the fall of 84 at this hasong had come out and he said this was his favorite Bruce Springsteen song to which the White House Press for always respectful asked what his previous lwfavorite breeze Bruce Springsteen song had been. It took three days theword came back it was born to run. And no one is sure whether president reagan had actually heard that but he was in new jersey, it was a swing state and it was the core remember of what we now use to call reagan democrats. sso the fact that a republican was carrying new jersey was a big deal. Bruce springsteen came straight out of that constituency president reagan was trying utto affirm in 1984 he gives a couple of speeches where he says new jerseys own Bruce Springsteen has made this patriotic song but the patriotic song is about a guy getting killed in khe san and trying to get a job and this is how Ronald Reagan learned about Bruce Springsteen is through george will, that explains a lot about america and georgia the only person present company included who ever wore a bowtie and a doublebreasted blazer to a Bruce Springsteen concert. I dont think its that striking but apparently it is. So there was another song, that merv griffin had discovered. Lee greenwood and then a car dealer in vegas into about 1982, 83. He came to nashville, made a name for himself with this song. Played it on mervs show. Merv as you know is close to mrs. Reagan and sent a videocassette where he explained to your grandchildren later on what that are of greenwood singing this and it became the reagan anthem and has an amazing power today. Such a great song, the best song and it strikes me every time i hear it because i associated with growing up and being a Country Music fan and hearing that song. Very patriotic and very moving and very storing and certainly me greenwood is a fantastic singer and writer so even today when i hear the song still moves me although sometimes when its played bothers me a little bit. Great song. All right. [music] lee greenwood. [applause] what an incredible song to a great country and paid tribute to such a great country and do it in a popular way with a song like that. It was pretty pretty incredible and its still such a great piece of music. M and inextricably linked i think to the mid80s and september 11 in many ways. In president reagan, i never met president reagan to my great regret but i did get to know mrs. Reagan a little bit. I dont need to tell anybody hear about that. I have scars from barbara bush, you all have scars from nancy. Her, president reagans transformative power is so amazing. As Jimmy Stewart once said if ronniehad married nancy the first time he would have won an academy award. Which is probably true but reagans visual imagination was so important. So he as you know, his great phrase was the shining cityon a hill. The only guy i know who can improve on jesus because city on a hill is from his sermon on the mount in the new testament but the addition of the word shining is so important in that that actually, not making this up. Ive heard ministers from pulpits say as jesus said, america shall be as a shining city upon a hill. How that was rendered in the original aramaic i dontknow. But i got to see nancy reagan late in life and as you all know, she always knew more gossip than you and sometimes it was evenaccurate. So i was always embarrassed because she knew far more about what was going on in washington that i so i had just heard a minister say this a couple of weeks before about jesus and a shiningcity on the hill. So i was at lunch with her and she ordered that third of, salad at the bel air and not eating it. I said maam, its incredible. President reagan improved on jesus and she looked without blinking, said oh yes, thats the kind of thing ronnie did. So maybe ill someday be loved as nancy davis love Ronald Reagan. But it was what greenwood did was capture a moment where patriotism from the ballad of the green berets until about greenwood had fallen into kind of squares bill. Thats what he was about. And it was really an affirmative cultural statement that patriotism could be popular again. And we can make that case as a speech, you can make that case in a campaign but we asrent around america and people when he sings, lots of people now stand up. And particularly military families. Its always a pleasure to sing that song especially when john and i do our things together. Its a highlight of the evening to perform that song and see what it stands for and see what it means to people and thats what music does and thats what music hasalways been a part of in my life. It marks moments in your life and sometimes you will hear a song and it put you right back into a situation and sometimes it can be just a mundane situation. I hear im not lisa by Jesse Coulter and it puts me in seventh grade laying in a hammock halfasleep with my math homework on my chest. Explains a lot about his accounting. When john and i were putting this book together, music shows up and place a big huge part too little moments in ourcountry and in our lives in a lot of ways. Back to the second world war, Irving Berlin God Bless America in the first world war. But it was too sentimental to be put in a drawer. Pulled it out in 1940 41 and it becomes the song it became. But you all know the churchill story about berlin, very quickly. So isaiah berlin, the great philosopher was an attachc at the British Embassy during the war in washington. He would write these marvelous reports about the american political situation and the Prime Minister read them you put out the word that when misterberlin is london i want to see him. So mister berlin comes to london, they set up lunch. Its just the Prime Minister and mister berlin. Theyre discussing american politics, mister berlin leaves. One of churchills assistance how was lunch and churchill said all i know is he writes much better about politicsand he talks. Was Irving Berlin. Who had mistakenly come to lunch. So its amazing we arent speaking german. As it turns out. The other great churchill story which has no relevance whatever but youll like it churchill was in the mens room of the house of commons one day danny along trough doing what one does and clement ackley, the socialist labor Prime Minister comes in and churchill steps away. He says are you feeling standoffish today winston and it says every time you see somethingbig you want to nationalize it. Im usually very highbrow and this is just, bring it in. So we are in a divided era. Of music, has represented a illuminated, tried to assuage our divisions in the past. What you see the role in this era for your craft . I think for me, sometimes music is there just to make you feel good and i think that right now we really need that and i also think we need music for people to be able to hear and to get both sides esno matter what side of the isle you fall on, no matter what type of music 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 and i think me when those songs come along or when that inspiration comes along i try to do that and sometimes i try to make a t song to make you laugh or cry im and one of the songs that really for me is one of those transcendent. You just mixed up incendiary and transcendent but thats why im here. Was one of the great ones, meacham i got my very own history professor. I am like a humanwikipedia and about that accurate. That was a very george w. Bush moment, he may be president next. Hyou all know the story about strategery . You have to be pretty confident in yourself and george w. Bush is to have a conference at your president ial library on comedy and the presidency. De he invites will ferrell and Lauren Michaels to come down to the library and there sitting around backstage before they go on and bush said i made this pretty easy for you all. And he says i gave you strategery. And michaels and carol looked at each other and say we tell him . Mister president , we made that up and bush was crushed. He thought he had said it. And then he fought back and said youdidnt make up miss underestimated. So its what did you say . What i was trying to say in my louisiana language was that music has a way of crossing all boundaries and one of the songs that i noticed when i sing that, no matter what i audience auim singing is when i sing a song live like you are dying and thats one of the songs i feel like im very privileged and blessed to be the vessel for that song and i dont feel like thats my song, thats a song thats meant for everyone and everyone finds a way to relate to that and im fortunate, thank you. Im fortunate in my career and able to have songs like that a, its one of my repertoire and as an audience that is ultimately what you want to do is move people to bring people together in a way that they might not have been brought together without a message like that. Used ever think about the difference between a political song and a cultural one . I dont. I think about good songs. I dont think i would necessarily do a song if it was just meant to be political. I think i would do a song thats meant to move you and whether it has a political angle to it maybe its so wellwritten song and a song that has an emotion wthat can connect not to just one side of asociety but to all societies. Thats important. Which would be more cultural than political. One of the things, we are the sum of our parts so are dispositions of hearts and minds matter enormously. One of the uncomfortable realities of the current era is that politicians are far more often mirrors of who we are rather than molders. If we wanted Something Different they would give us somethingdifferent. Thats the nature of the enterprise. So you can create art, if you can create a climate in which maybe you spend a little more time appealing to the best instincts, we can nudge forward a little bit and thats about the best we can do. You can get to 51 percent of the time doingthe right thing, thats a good day. I dont think it very often. Particularly, thats why i keep hopingfaith is going to show up. So let me tell a quick story. One of the last times i saw the senior president bush was in may, three summers ago and a buddy of mine in nashville and just released a song and i played it on my phone with 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. But when he spoke you listened. And we played this and then he just said beautiful. Beautiful. Heres a songabout us. [music] tim mcgraw ladies and gentlemen. If i could tell a quick story about that song, Lauren Mckenna, i wish i could take credit for writing that song Lauren Mckenna wrote that song and shes a great artist but she sat down, to show you how a great song comes about and you said earlier, he sat down in her living room. She has five children, her husband was a plumber and she sat down on her living room because some of her kids had moved away and she had two kids left home and she was wanting to write a message to her kids about how to treat people when they leave home so she sat down and wrote this note 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 it in 30 minutes. Thats the power of music. Absolutely, thank you sir. Tonight on book tv in prime time we feature books about race in america with authors such as abram candy, bestselling author terrell westover reflects on her introduction to formal education at the age of 17 and being raised by survivalist parents read Surgeon General debate mercy murphy discusses why Human Connection is important in a journalist lauren famas reports on homelessness across america the full schedule is available on your program guide. During a Virtual Author Program Richard Cordray ordered director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reflected on the creation of the bureau. Heres a portion of his talk. One of the important thing for people to realize is finance has changed in the last two generations really since world war ii. There was very little credit available to our grandparents and it wasnt a big part of their lives. They didnt face a lot of risk and couldnt get into a huge amount of financial trouble in todays society, fastforward 2 generations, credit cards and is pretty ubiquitous among americans. Auto loans are a big part of peoples lives in any part of the country where people drive to work. Mortgages are the way in which we buy houses they are significant obligation. And Student Loans are not a very prevalent part of life for many families carry those loans for years even for decades. So people have a lot more opportunity that credit provides what a place a lot more risk in making these more trouble so theres sort of a bigger piece of our lives. This brings us to the financial crisis of 2080 which was caused by widespread irresponsible and predatorymortgage lending. It caused many families to lose their homes. During the crisis and really offended the entire economy. That led to congressional reform to try to prevent a crisis like that from happening again created as part of that reform an idea, the idea that had been put forward by an professor, now senator elizabeth one for a Consumer Agency to protect consumers in financial marketplaces. Her very straightforward analogy was a winning argument for many was we had got to the point in america where it is basically impossible to sell someone a toaster with a 20 percent chance of bursting into flames burning down their house. But its entirely, it was entirely legal to sell the mortgage and had a 20 percent chance of putting them into foreclosure and putting them out on their streets with their families that we were providing protection for Financial Products with a huge oversight. The financial regulatory system in washington was really focused on the big bang and the Financial Companies themselves, it was aboutsomething that was safe and sound. It was about making sure they prospered over time. Thats important, its important to remember that a part of Consumer Protection too. If your bank goes belly belly up its not good for any customers but at the same time it was important for everyone to turn around hundred 80 degrees and look at the customers of these institutions and realize if they were mistreated in the marketplace, something was wrong and we need to redress the balance and rebalance the marketplace so that consumers had the protections and the support they need inorder to flourish. Was the rest of this program is in our website and search record Richard Cordray for the title of hisbook watchdog. Now on book tv, some recent offer programs about the trump administration. We begin with author and journalist ronald kessler, he appeared on our Author Interview program in 2018. Discuss how president from this experience impacted his presidency. Lets talk about the media because you do put a lot of examples in the book as you just described. Where there seem to have no bounds for discrediting, destroying, driving negative narratives on donald trump. Its as if with President Trump he could do no wrong but for donald trump he can do no right to
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