WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.100 align:middle line:90% 00:00:04.100 --> 00:00:06.770 align:middle line:90% This is also a request. 00:00:06.770 --> 00:00:10.400 align:middle line:90% This is for Cam. 00:00:10.400 --> 00:00:12.570 align:middle line:90% I just-- yay, Aztlán! 00:00:12.570 --> 00:00:22.070 align:middle line:90% 00:00:22.070 --> 00:00:24.265 align:middle line:90% This is also a true story. 00:00:24.265 --> 00:00:28.100 align:middle line:90% 00:00:28.100 --> 00:00:31.400 align:middle line:90% A New National Anthem. 00:00:31.400 --> 00:00:36.980 align:middle line:84% The truth is, I've never cared for the national anthem. 00:00:36.980 --> 00:00:40.350 align:middle line:84% If you think about it, it's not a good song. 00:00:40.350 --> 00:00:41.390 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS] 00:00:41.390 --> 00:00:45.990 align:middle line:84% It's too high for most of us, with the rocket's red glare. 00:00:45.990 --> 00:00:49.190 align:middle line:90% And then there are the bombs. 00:00:49.190 --> 00:00:53.960 align:middle line:84% Always, always there is war and bombs. 00:00:53.960 --> 00:00:56.810 align:middle line:84% Once I sang it at homecoming, and threw 00:00:56.810 --> 00:01:00.920 align:middle line:84% even the tenacious high school band off key. 00:01:00.920 --> 00:01:03.290 align:middle line:84% But the song didn't mean anything, just a call 00:01:03.290 --> 00:01:05.330 align:middle line:84% to the field, something to get through 00:01:05.330 --> 00:01:07.200 align:middle line:90% before the pummeling of youth. 00:01:07.200 --> 00:01:09.810 align:middle line:84% And what of the stanzas we never sing, 00:01:09.810 --> 00:01:12.020 align:middle line:84% the third that mentions no refuge 00:01:12.020 --> 00:01:15.380 align:middle line:84% could save the hireling and the slave. 00:01:15.380 --> 00:01:19.460 align:middle line:84% Perhaps the truth is, every song of this country 00:01:19.460 --> 00:01:24.940 align:middle line:84% has an unsung third stanza, something brutal snaking 00:01:24.940 --> 00:01:27.610 align:middle line:84% underneath us as we absentmindedly 00:01:27.610 --> 00:01:31.370 align:middle line:84% sing the high notes with a beer sloshing in the stands, 00:01:31.370 --> 00:01:34.870 align:middle line:90% hoping our team wins. 00:01:34.870 --> 00:01:39.130 align:middle line:84% Don't get me wrong, I do like the flag. 00:01:39.130 --> 00:01:42.860 align:middle line:84% How it undulates in the wind, like water, 00:01:42.860 --> 00:01:48.110 align:middle line:84% elemental, and best when it's humbled, brought to its knees, 00:01:48.110 --> 00:01:51.530 align:middle line:84% clung to by someone who has lost everything. 00:01:51.530 --> 00:01:54.020 align:middle line:90% When it's not a weapon. 00:01:54.020 --> 00:01:55.550 align:middle line:90% When it flickers. 00:01:55.550 --> 00:01:57.610 align:middle line:84% When it folds up so perfectly, you 00:01:57.610 --> 00:02:02.390 align:middle line:84% can keep it until it is needed, until you can love it again. 00:02:02.390 --> 00:02:05.990 align:middle line:84% Until the song in your mouth feels like sustenance. 00:02:05.990 --> 00:02:09.830 align:middle line:84% A song where the notes are sung by even the ageless woods, 00:02:09.830 --> 00:02:13.720 align:middle line:84% the short grass plains, the Red River Gorge, the fistful of land 00:02:13.720 --> 00:02:14.920 align:middle line:90% left unpoisoned. 00:02:14.920 --> 00:02:17.260 align:middle line:84% The song that's our birthright, that 00:02:17.260 --> 00:02:20.690 align:middle line:84% sung in silence when it's too hard to go on. 00:02:20.690 --> 00:02:24.650 align:middle line:84% That sounds like someone's rough fingers weaving into another's. 00:02:24.650 --> 00:02:27.950 align:middle line:84% That sounds like a match being lit in an endless cave. 00:02:27.950 --> 00:02:31.570 align:middle line:84% The song that says my bones are your bones, 00:02:31.570 --> 00:02:34.130 align:middle line:90% and your bones are my bones. 00:02:34.130 --> 00:02:37.110 align:middle line:90% And isn't that enough. 00:02:37.110 --> 00:02:48.000 align:middle line:90%