A Graduation Speech for Both This Age and The Ages

 

That was a hell of a graduation speech that singer/songwriter Eric Church gave at Chapel Hill. The man's a good writer, and he delivered that thing as though he was speaking off-the-cuff. I don't know how he could have memorized it, it's so long and so intricately constructed. Eric Church seems like a righteous, smart dude, and we share the Southern Baptist upbringing. UNC-Chapel Hill thought enough of the speech to make the entire thing easily available for viewing (above).

In 2018, leading up to Trump's first mid-term election, Church made this comment to Rolling Stone about the president his wife voted for in 2016 -- Church himself didn't vote: “I’m conflicted. I like that he’s thrown a monkey wrench into things. I think that chaos is good. I enjoyed the North Korea thing. Why haven’t we talked to that guy? Tariffs, I don’t know yet. I don’t want a trade war, but I’ll walk with him down that road a little farther. At the same time, I have a ton of problems with him. I don’t like the racial overtones. I hate the tweeting. It seems insecure, petty, not presidential.”

In a graduation speech that never mentioned Trump or the current national mood, Church nevertheless managed to telegraph an mistakable update to the preceding opinion.