Award-winning recording artist Eric Church gives UNC Chapel Hill commencement speech
If you'll indulge me I want to start with a
sound
You know this sound it's a guitar that's out of
tune
Something that almost gets there that tries but doesn't and
some ancient honest part of your brain knows it immediately
You don't need training to hear it you just know
That sound is the sound of something beautiful that has
not been that has not been tended to
6 strings
When all 6 are in tune the chords they make
can stop a conversation cold
Carry a broken person through the worst night of their
life or make a room full of strangers feel for
three minutes like they've known each other forever but if
even one is off the whole chord unravels not gradually
not politely the moment you strike it
You know
I believe your life runs on this principle and I'm
gonna break it down for you right now and tell
you about your strengths OK String one the low E
that is your foundation
The low E is the thickest string
It is the heaviest
Every chord a guitar can make rests on this string
being in tune
Your faith is the low E of your life
The thing at at that sits at the very bottom
of you
Your belief about what this life is for what you
owe what holds the universe together when science reaches the
edge of its own explanation and shrugs
The people who tend to their faith in ordinary seasons
do not come undone and extraordinary ones
They still hurt
They still sit in hospital waiting rooms asking unanswerable questions
at 3 in the morning
But they have a foundation to return to
The world will try to untune this string
Through busyness through slow accumulation of a full schedule a
full inbox a full life
Listen to me tend to your faith not just when
you're broken but when you're whole
String 2
String 2 is family OK Look out at these bleachers
look around
Somewhere in that crowd is someone who has loved you
longer than you've been easy to love
It's true
Someone who saw you at your actual worst not your
public facing worst and didn't leave you
Someone who worked a job they didn't love to put
a book in your hands you sometimes didn't open
Someone who sat alone in a quiet house and cried
the weekend you moved into dorms and wondered have I
done enough That is family
And the A string is where the music starts to
get warm
It gives a cord its body it's richness
It's the string that makes you feel like you're not
alone in a room
I wanna warn you about something
You're about to get busy in ways that feel important
and many are professionally ambitious creatively alive building the life
you've been pointed toward for 4 years and family because
they love you with the grace you will spend most
of your life trying to deserve will rarely demand your
time
They'll tell you they understand
And they'll mean it
Do not take them up on it
Call your people not when there's news not when there's
nothing
Show up when it costs you something
Let them see you when things are hard
The A string is not a holiday string it's an
everyday string protect it
The D-string the heart of a chord on a guitar
the D string sits right at the heart of the
instrument in the middle of the lobe
And high strings giving the chord its body
And it's sold
Strike a full chord in a D string is what
you feel
In the center of your chest that is not an
accident that is exactly what the right spouse and partner
will do for your life
The person you choose to share your life with is
the most important decision decision you will ever make outside
of your faith
They will either amplify every other string you're playing or
slowly pull the whole instrument into an out of tune
miss
Not that I know that
I love you honey
Find your best friend someone you wanna talk to at
the end of a long day
Look for shared values over shared interest
You don't need to love the same food or music
you need the same compass though it would be a
benefit if you both hated NC State
We'll see
That wasn't in the speech
I added I'm throwing it in there
The right partner is the string that makes the whole
chord ring fuller and warmer and truer than anything you
could ever play along choose them wisely and then love
them fiercely
The G-string
That's what it's called Sorry
I didn't name the damn thing that's just what it
is
The G-string G string drifts faster than the others on
a guitar
I can promise you that is true
I have dealt with it my whole life
It's because ambition and resilience both live on this string
and they pull in opposite direct directions
I want you to want things
You should want things
The world has more than enough people standing at the
edge of their own potential waiting for a permission slip
that was never gonna arrive want the thing say it
out loud build toward it with everything you have and
when you fail and you will fail
Hemingway wrote it plainly right in the sternum
The world breaks everyone afterward the best of us are
stronger at the broken places
Get back up tune the string keep playing
The B string is about community your generation faces a
temptation no generation before has ever faced
The temptation to perform for everyone and belong to no
one
To be globally visible and locally invisible
To have thousands of followers and no one knows actually
where you live
Resist this plant yourself somewhere put down roots with the
full intention of growing there
Learn the actual names not user names of the people
around you volunteer
Coach the team build the thing your community needs even
if the Internet will never see it
Generosity
Generosity is not something you do after you make it
it's how you make it
And if you get lost and at some point I
promise you you will you have a place you belong
now come back walk through the quad on a fall
day or sit on Franklin Street on a game day
and remember these are my people because I am a
Tar Heel
My last tour my last tour took me 42,185 miles
over North America and every single night near and far
someone had on a Carolina flag a Carolina hat or
a Carolina jersey
You will find yourselves speaking from experience high fiving strangers
wearing Carolina gear in faraway airports or staying up across
time zones to catch the moments last moments of a
game
Or canceling a show in Texas
To be with your people in the Final Four as
you vanquish Coach K
You're welcome
And having the ultimate pride knowing that's the night my
boys learned the Carolina fight song ends with go to
hell Duke
True
Carry this community with you as you plant your roots
It will reap a bountiful harvest and make your song
richer and fuller
And finally The highest string this is the thinnest string
It's the highest note the one that carries the melody
that single line above the chord that everyone in this
room recognizes and takes with them on the way home
It's also the one bent most easily by outside pressure
Social media is going to show you 1000 versions of
a life that looks better than yours
The comparison will be relentless curated
And a lie dressed up in really good lighting
Someone's comments someone's criticism someone's cold opinion is gonna try
to convince you to re-tune yourself to match what they
think you should sound like
Do not let them touch your string
You were made uniquely wonderfully distinctly there's a sound only
you can make a voice that has never existed before
you and will never exist again
A contribution only you can bring a way of seeing
that belongs to only you
The world does not need another another cover song
It needs an original
6 strings 6 strings of life and willingness to keep
them in tune 6 principles 6 pillars
When all 6 are in tune with each other the
chord your life makes is full and resonant and truth
All 6 will drift not 1 or 2 all 6
in their own time in their own season
Your faith will go quiet when you need it loud
Your family will get complicated in a way only the
people who love you most can complicate things
You will go through hard seasons with your spouse
Your ambition will hollow out and your resilience will wear
thin
Your community will start to feel like an obligation and
your world will try to sand down the edges of
exactly who you are
This is not failure This is not weakness
It's the inevitable universal experience of living in an imperfect
world that doesn't stop to let us tune up
And the difference between a life that sounds like music
and a life that sounds like noise
It's whether you stop and listen
Whether you're honest enough to hear which string has drifted
out of tune and humble enough to make the adjustment
instead of just turning up the volume and hoping nobody
notices
Because you will notice
The part of you that knows what the chord should
sound like will always notice
It will not let you go
Life won't be right until it is tuned
Trust what your heart hears and is telling you about
your song
So graduates now I encourage you to take your 6
strings make it something worth hearing and play your song
as I leave you with mine
Hang on hang on we gotta do this the right
way
Hang on
Yeah peti fan
There's a cabin in a valley
My grandpa built on your land
And your mountains are a canvas for the Maker's hand
Tonight I'm fishing a river
If only in my mind
No I haven't seen her banks in such a long
long time
I carry you
In my heart Your memory
Phone call from my baby
Saying honey I miss you like crazy
You kind of like the sound of a siren song
I call on me
Oh yeah yeah
Sometimes I grow weary
I'm staying on this road all the time
Yeah I'd love to take a minute and let your
mountains ease my
Yeah I love to see my mama
He's in Keenan Stadium tonight
To hear me talk to the 26 Tar Heels about
love
Don't get me wrong I love what I do It's
just another song about Missy
I missing A phone call from my
Saying honey I miss you like crazy
You kind of like the sound of a siren song
room
A
car
Oh yeah
Now
Standing here tonight I feel right
You're like a phone call from my family
You're saying honey I miss you like crazy
Sound of the siren song
OK
Thank you for calling me
class of 2026 and go Tar Heels
Thank you guys