Dave Grohl: 'The musician comes first', SXSW keynote - 2016

Thank you SXSW very much for allowing me the incredible opportunity of being this year's keynote speaker. Having been raised by a former DC political speechwriter and a former public speaking teacher, it is practically written in my DNA zipper that I should feel the insatiable need to stand in front of a room of total strangers and BULLSHIT them. As a child, MY father's lectures were legendary. And Frequent. Great works of literature, that stay with me to this day and, if anything . . . taught me how to give loooong lectures myself. Not long ago I was lucky enough to sit down at dinner with another one of my favorite public speakers . . . the one, the only Mr. Bruce Springsteen. Bruce, as you would imagine, is a warm, funny, brilliant man, and a wonderful dinner guest! I congratulated him on last year's amazing keynote, quoting his insight and humor. And then I told him that this year's keynote speaker was . . . me. He stared at me for a moment, slowly cracked that famous smile that we all know and love, that smile that could light up an entire stadium, and then . . . he started laughing. AT ME. As if to say "GOOD FUCKING LUCK, BUDDY . . . " But . . . truth be told . . . that's not the first time anyone's ever said that to me, so it is without a doubt my musical life's greatest honor to be asked to share with you what I know about music.

So. What do I know . . .

The Musician comes first.

My mother tells me that I was born to applause. The morning of January 14th, 1969, there was a class of young doctors in a small delivery room in Warren, Ohio, there to witness their first live birth. As I was born, the room burst into applause. My first moments in this world . . . hanging upside down, covered in blood, screaming as I'm being spanked by a complete stranger. Perhaps the most appropriate preparation for becoming a working musician.

Now . . . before we go any further, I have to thank someone. I have to thank Edgar Winter. For allowing K-Tel records to include his legendary instrumental "Frankenstein" on their 1975 Blockbuster compilation. It was this record that my sister and I bought at the drugstore down the street and brought home to play on the public-school turntable my mother would borrow from school on the weekends. It was this record that changed my life. A veritable "who's who" of 1975 radio hits. But, it wasn't KC and the Sunshine Band's "That's the way, uh huh uh huh I like it" song that made me want to pick up the dusty old guitar in the corner. Nope . . . and  it wasn't Dave Loggins' "Please Come to Boston" or Silver Convention's "Fly Robin Fly" that made me want to jump in a van with my friends and leave the world behind for music. No. It was (sings "Frankenstein"). A riff. I gave it all up for a riff.

Interestingly enough, though, that song is completely instrumental. There's no vocal. It's drums, guitars, keyboards, percussion, each getting a solo in the song . . . no vocals. But what I heard in all of those solos . . . were voices. The voices of each musician. Their personalities. Their technique. Their feel. The sound of people playing music with other people. It made me want to play music with other people, too.

So, it wasn't long until I had my first guitar, an old Sears Silvertone with the amp built into the case. It smelled like an old attic full of mothballs and burning wire, and sounded like that "goats yelling like humans" YouTube clip that's going around right now (look it up, it's fucking hilarious), but it instantly became my obsession. It was this guitar, and a Beatles songbook that ultimately set my life in . . . ahem . .  one direction. Never one for taking lessons or direction, I was left to my own devices and devoted every waking hour to playing music. It became my religion. The record store my church. The rock stars my saints, and their songs my hymns.

Springfield, Virginia, wasn't necessarily known for breeding rock stars. A "career" in music never seemed possible to me. It just seemed too good to be true. Surely the faces on my Kiss posters weren't getting PAID to do this! Gene Simmons? Imagine! But that never mattered to me. Because I had finally found MY VOICE. And that was all I needed to survive from now on. The reward of playing a song from beginning to end without making a mistake . . . well, that could feed me for weeks. The discovery of a new chord, or a new scale could make me forget about that kid at school who wanted to kick my fuckin' ass, or that cute chick with the lip gloss and soft sweater I had a crush on who wouldn't give me the time of day. I liked my new voice. Because, no matter how bad it sounded . . . it was mine. There was nobody there to tell me what was right or what was wrong, so . . . there was no right or wrong.

As much as I wanted to be in a band, I was there, alone in my bedroom, day in day out with my records and my guitar, playing with myself for hours. I would set up pillows in the formation of a drumset on my bed and play along to records until there was literally sweat dripping down the Rush posters on my  walls. Eventually I figured out how to be a one-man band. I took my crappy old handheld tape recorder, hit record and laid down a guitar track. I would then take that cassette, place it in the home stereo, take another cassette, place THAT into the handheld recorder, hit play on the stereo, record on the handheld, and play drums along to the sound of my guitar. Voila! Multi-tracking! At 12 years old! To my chagrin, though, what I got was not "Sgt. Peppers" . . . rather a collection of songs about my dog, my bike, and my dad. Nevertheless, I had done this all myself. Therefore making the reward even sweeter.

But, still, I longed to share this newfound obsession with other people. Eventually, I found a kid up the street with an old drum set. I found a kid down the street with an old bass. I found a kid across the street with an old basement. And we found a kid across town with an old PA. Several awkward jam sessions later, and we had a band. Obstacle one, cleared. When asked what our band name was upon submitting our official entry to our high school battle of the bands, we applied as "Nameless." We just couldn't fuckin' come up with anything better than that. (Finding a good band name is still the fucking hardest part, by the way . . . I mean, Foo Fighters? C'mon . . .) Obstacle two, diverted. That night Kenny Loggins' "Footloose" never sounded so brave . . . Unfortunately, our enthusiastic rendition wasn't enough to seize the title of "Best Band at Thomas Jefferson High School," but . . . we carried on. We tried our damnedest at Bowie, Who, Zep, Cream, Kinks, Hendrix . . . we played basements, backyards, keg parties . . . we even played the Rolling Stones' "Time Is on My Side" at a fucking nursing home.

And then . . . I went to Chicago.

It was 1982, and on my mother's meager public school teacher's salary, our family had planned a trip to the great city of Chicago to visit our relatives who lived in a suburb up north, right on the lake. We stuffed everything that we could into our tiny, baby-blue Ford Fiesta and started driving.  A week and a half of swimming and Italian beef sandwiches was in order, though, upon arrival, the tone of our trip was instantly defined. My older cousin, Tracey, was now a punk rocker. 

At first . . . I HEARD her coming down the stairs. The clanking of chains, the stomping of heavy boots, the sound of a fresh leather jacket creaking like an old ship. And then . . . I saw her. Shaved head, bondage pants, torn Anti-Pasti T-shirt . . . she was a fucking superhero come to life. Something I had only seen on the TV shows Chips or Quincy. My heart started racing. My eyes widened. My throat tightened. I stood there, speechless and in awe. Tracey was my first hero.

She took me up to her bedroom and showed me her incredible record collection. Stacks upon stacks of seven-inch singles and LP's, with names I'd never heard before . . . Names like: The Misfits. Bad Brains. Minor Threat. Dead Kennedys. The Germs. Flipper. The Circle Jerks. . Discharge. Crass. Conflict. Black Flag. White Flag. Void. Faith. The Dicks. The Dickies. The Minutemen. The Adolescents. The Ramones. The Big Boys GBH. DRI. SOA. DOA. MDC. MIA. CIA. Crucifix. Crucifucks. X. X-Ray Spex. Wire. Sex Pistols. The Buzzcocks. Rights of The Accused. The Necros. Fang. Government Issue. The Descendants. I sat down and played every last one. This was the first day of the rest of my life.

That night I went to my first "concert." Though, it wasn't in an arena, it was a dingy little hole in the wall directly across the street from Wrigley Field called the Cubby Bear. And it wasn't any band I had ever heard of. It was a local Chicago punk rock band by the name of Naked Raygun. With a "ONE TWO THREE FOUR" the band kicked into the most ferocious noise and bodies were flying everywhere, spit and sweat and leather and volume and broken glass and piss and fucking puke . . . I was in heaven. And it was our secret.

The next day I took the L to Wax Trax records. I bought a Killing Joke T-shirt and the soundtrack to The Decline of Western Civilization. I was converted. I was no longer one of you. I was one of us.

But, more than the noise, and the rebellion, and the danger . . . it was the blissful removal of these bands from any source of conventional, popular corporate structure, and the underground network that supported the music's independence that was totally inspiring to me. At 13 years old, I realized that I could start my own band, I could write my own song, I could record my own record, I could start my own label, I could release my own record, I could book my own shows, I could write and publish my own fanzine, I could silkscreen my own T-shirts . . . I could do all of this myself. There was no right or wrong . . . because it was all mine.

Upon returning to Washington, D.C., I dove headfirst into the local hardcore punk rock scene. Little did I know that one of the country's most prolific and influential music scenes was right in my own backyard. Minor Threat. Bad Brains. Scream. These local bands were now my Beatles. My Stones. My Zeppelin. My Dylan. And these were the fucking REAGAN YEARS, so protest music was on fire! My first punk rock show back at home was actually the ROCK AGAINST REAGAN concert, July 4th, 1983. With the stage built at the base of the Lincoln Memorial steps on Independence day, it was recipe for disaster. Seven-hundred thousand barefoot, sunburned rednecks from Maryland and Virginia in Lynyrd Skynyrd and Judas Priest T-shirts, stone washed jeans and bandanas, converging on the nation's capital to watch the fireworks, coolers full of beer and Southern Comfort . . . only to find Texas' own Dirty Rotten Imbeciles singing their song "I Don't Need Society":

Your number's up, you have to go
The system says I told you so
Stocked in a train like a truckload of cattle
Sent off to slaughter in a useless battle
Thousands of us sent off to die
Never really knowing why
Fuck the system, they can't have me
I don't need society
I don't need society

It was a fucking riot waiting to happen.

I actually bought that record that day from the lead singer out of the back of his van. It was a 33-song seven-inch. Stuffed in a homemade sleeve. It is still to this day, one of my most prized possessions.

When the sun had gone down and the legendary Dead Kennedys finally came onstage, lead singer Jello Biafra pointed and screamed at the Washington Monument, calling it "The great Klansman in the sky, with it's two blinking red eyes . . . " Well . . . that was it . . . the powder keg finally blew. Helicopters buzzed overhead, shining spotlights into the crowd as policeman on horses beat their way through the punks with their billy clubs. It was right out of Apocalypse Now. This was my Woodstock. This was my Altamont. This was rock & roll, no matter what T-shirt you wore or what haircut you had. This was fucking REAL. I burned inside. I was possessed and empowered and inspired and enraged and so in love with life and so in love with music that it had the power to incite a fucking riot, or an emotion, or to start a revolution, or just to save a young boy's life.

So I joined a band, dropped out of high school, and hit the road. I starved. My hands bled. If I slept, I slept on floors. I slept on stages. I slept on the fucking floors under the fucking stages. And I loved every minute of it. Because I was free. And I wanted to incite a riot, or an emotion, or a revolution, or to save someone's life by inspiring them to pick up an instrument just like I did as a kid. I wanted to be someone's Edgar Winter. I wanted to be someone's Naked Raygun. I wanted to be somene's Bad Brains or Beatles. Because THAT was the reward. THAT was the intention.  We played THAT type of music, so we were left alone. There was no career opportunity. There was no hall of fame. There were no trophies. There was no A&R credit card buying Benihana dinners.  Our reward was knowing that we had done all of this all on our own, and that it was real.

But . . . inevitably it wasn't long before I found myself stranded in Hollywood without a cent to my name and no way home, crashed out in a Laurel Canyon bungalow with a bunch of female mud wrestlers. Don't ask. That's a whole other fucking keynote address . . .

And, that's when I heard the 5 words that changed my life forever:

"Have you heard of Nirvana?"

Nirvana were one of "us." Raised on Creedence, and Flipper, and Beatles, and Black Flag, they seemed to share the same ideals, the same intentions. But they had something more. They had songs. They had . . . Kurt. What they didn't have . . . was a drummer.

So, without hesitation, I packed all of my drums into one big, U-Haul cardboard box, grabbed my old army duffle bag, and flew up to Seattle.

We practiced in a barn. Every day. It was all that we had. There was no sun. There was no moon. There was just . . . the barn. And those songs. Kurt had, without a doubt, found HIS voice. Every practice would begin with an improvisational, free-form jam, which kind of served as an exercise in dynamic and musical collaboration/communication. We were speaking to each other without words. Verbal communication was never really Nirvana's forte, so we spoke to each other with our instruments. And the combination of our three "voices" resulted in a sound that eventually caught the ear of a major label record company. Or 10 major label record companies . . .

Suddenly, we were thrown into a bidding war of A&R guys with fancy shoes from Fred Segal, and radio promo dudes with little one-hitters in their glove compartments, and closets full of complimentary box sets, and fucking BENIHANA EVERY FUCKING NIGHT. At one meeting, after playing a demo of our song "In Bloom" for Donny Eiener in his high rise office in NYC, Donny turned to Kurt and asked, "So . . . what do you guys want?" Kurt, slouched over in his chair, looked up to Donny sitting behind his massive oak desk and said, "We want to be the biggest band in the world."

I laughed. I thought he was fucking kidding. He wasn't.

Now, you have to remember where music WAS at the time. Here are the Billboard year-end Top 10 songs of 1990:

10. Jon Bon Jovi, "Blaze of Glory"
9. Billy Idol, "Cradle of Love"
8. En Vogue, "Hold On"
7. Phil Collins, "Another Day in Paradise"
6. Mariah Carey, "Vision of Love"
5. Madonna, "Vogue"
4. Bel Biv Devoe, "Poison"
3. Sinead O'Connor, "Nothing Compares 2 U"
2. Roxette, "It Must Have Been Love"

And the Number One song of 1990 . . . Wilson fucking Phillips, "Hold On"

How Kurt could even THINK we'd make a ripple in this ridiculous mainstream world of polished pop music was beyond me. It was beyond everyone. It made absolutely no sense. It was simply unimaginable. It was the type of hopeless, shallow aspiration that we had been conditioned to reject, ultimately relieving us of any intention other than to just be ourselves. I mean, the very definition of the word "Nirvana" in the dictionary is "A PLACE OR STATE CHARACTERIZED BY FREEDOM FROM OR OBLIVION TO PAIN, WORRY, AND THE EXTERNAL WORLD." We had ALWAYS been left to our own devices as musicians, day after day in our bedrooms as children, day after day in that old barn. What did WE need with THAT world?

A few more A&R guys with fancy shoes, a few more box sets, a few more dinners at Benihana, and we signed a deal. Following in the footsteps of our great heroes Sonic Youth, we signed to the David Geffen Company, threw everything in the back of our old Chevy van and headed down . . . to SOUND CITY.

Sixteen days. Thirteen songs. We were used to recording 16 songs in ONE DAY. This was the big time. All of those cold, rainy days spent in that barn, chopping away at those songs, speaking to each other without words, finding our "voice," it was all . . . for this.

When we pulled into the parking lot of Sound City, I quickly realized that this was not the big, fancy, major label Hollywood recording studio I had imagined. Not at all. It was a shithole. It was a run-down, burned-out, dumpy old joint in a warehouse complex deep in the sunburnt San Fernando valley, miles away from any Fred Segal or Benihana. It was perfect. Famous for such legendary albums like Neil Young's After the Gold Rush, Fleetwood Mac's Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty's Damn the Torpedoes, Cheap Trick's Heaven Tonight and Rick Springfield's Working Class Dog, it was hallowed ground . . . but it looked like no one had cleaned up the place since fucking Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks were runners there. Brown shag carpet ON THE WALLS. A couch that they had been RENTING for 10 fucking years. I thought . . . it looked like a Chi Chi's that had a fire.

But upon listening back to the first take of "In Bloom," we instantly understood Sound City's legacy. That room, and that old Neve board captured something. Something we had never heard before. It didn't sound like our first record, Bleach. It didn't sound like the Peel Sessions we had recorded for the BBC, or the "Sliver" single, or any of the demos. Nope. It sounded like Nevermind. It was the sound of three people playing as if their life depended on it, like they had waited their whole lives for this moment to be captured on a reel of two-inch tape.

After a week or so at SOUND CITY, for whatever reason, I started getting worried that no one from the label had come to check out what we were doing. I called my manager John Silva and asked "Hey . . . should we be worried?" His immediate response was "FUCK NO! YOU SHOULD BE HAPPY! YOU DON'T WANT THOSE FUCKING PEOPLE DOWN THERE!" As usual . . . He was right. And, they left us alone.

Just as WE couldn't imagine making the slightest ripple in the mainstream, no one else really seemed to imagine that happening either. The initial pressing of Nevermind was around 35,000 copies. Enough, by their estimate, to last the label a few months. A pretty good indication of everyone's expectations. Well . . . those were gone within a few weeks. Within a month, the record went gold. By Christmas, the record went platinum. By the new year, we were selling 300,000 records a week. That ripple that seemed so unimaginable had become a tidal wave.

I've never really figured out why that happened. Timing? Perhaps. Legions of disaffected American youth fed up with Wilson Phillips? Probably . . .

But, I like to think that what the world heard in Nirvana's music was the sound of three human beings, three distinct personalities, their inconsistencies and their imperfections proudly on display for everyone to hear. Three people that had been left to their own devices their entire lives to find THEIR voices. It was honest. It was pure. And It was real.

Up until that point, no one had ever told me how to play, or what to play. And now, no one would ever again.

The follow up to Nevermind, In Utero was a brazen example of this. Twelve songs recorded virtually live in only a few days by infamous record producer and opinionated pundit on the music industry, Steve Albini. It truly was the sound of a band IN A PLACE OR STATE CHARACTERIZED BY FREEDOM FROM OR OBLIVION TO PAIN, WORRY, AND THE EXTERNAL WORLD. Now it was US that had the power. We weren't Nirvana anymore, we were NIRVANA. Now you HAD to fucking leave us alone. The latch key children that unexpectedly inherited the castle? Maybe. More like Lord of the Flies with distorted guitars . . .

But, where do you go from there? As an artist raised in the ethically suffocating punk rock underground, conditioned to reject conformity, to resist all corporate influence and expectation, where do you go?  How do you deal with that kind of success? How do you now DEFINE success? Is it still the reward of playing a song from beginning to end without making a mistake? Is it still finding that new chord, or scale that makes you forget all your troubles? How do you process going from being one of "us", to one of "them"?

Guilt. Guilt is cancer. It will confine you, torture you, destroy you as a musician. It is a wall. It is a black hole. It is a thief. It will keep you from YOU. Remember learning your first song, or riff, or writing your first lyric? There was no guilt then. Remember when there WAS no right or wrong? Remember the simple reward of just . . . playing music? You are still, and will always be that person at your core. The musician. And, The musician comes first.

Fuck guilty pleasure. How about . . . just pleasure? I can truthfully say, out loud, that "Gangnam Style" is one of my favorite fucking songs of the past decade. It is! Is it any better or worse than the latest Atoms for Peace album? Hmmmm . . . If only we had a celebrity panel of judges to determine that for us! What would J-Lo do? Paging Pitchfork, come in, come in!!! Pitchfork, we need you to help us determine the value of a song!!! Who fucking cares!!!! I fucking LOVE IT!!! Who is to say what's a good voice and what's not a good voice. The Voice? Imagine Bob Dylan standing there singing "Blowin in the Wind" in front of Christina Aguilera. "Mmmmm . . . I think you sound a little nasally and sharp. Next . . ."

It's YOUR VOICE. Cherish it. Respect it. Nurture it. Challenge it. Stretch it and scream until it's fucking gone. Because everyone is blessed with at least that, and who knows how long it will last . . .

When Kurt died, I was lost. I was numb. The music that I had devoted my life to had now betrayed me and broken my heart. I had . . . no voice. I turned off the radio, I put away my records, and packed up my drums. I couldn't bear to hear someone elses voice singing about pain, or joy, or love, or hate. Not one note. It just hurt much too much.

But eventually . . . that feeling that I had Independence Day, July 4th, 1983, at the base of the Lincoln memorial steps, that feeling came back to me. The same feeling that made me feel possessed and empowered and inspired and enraged, and so in love with life, and so in love with music that it had the power to incite a riot, or an emotion, or start a revolution, or just to save a young boy's life. I felt it again.

I found a studio down the street. I booked six days. Loaded all of my gear into the car, bought some good, strong fucking coffee, and got back to work. Fourteen songs in five days, with one day to mix. I played every instrument, running from the drums, to the guitar, to the coffee maker, to the bass, to the vocal mike, to the coffee maker, back to the drums, back to the coffee maker . . . here I was again, left to my own devices, with no one to tell me right or wrong, the same one-man band 20 years later, multi-tracking all on my own. Though, long gone were the two-cassette recorders and songs about my dog, my bike, and my dad . . . I was singing songs about starting over. And, maybe a few about my dad ...

I dubbed 100 cassettes. Gave it the name "Foo Fighters" so that people would imagine that it was a GROUP, rather than just one strung-out coffee junkie scrambling from instrument to instrument. I gave them to friends. I gave them to relatives. I gave them to people at gas stations. I was . . . starting over.

It wasn't long before I got the call. An A&R guy. The tape was getting around. Those six days that I spent alone in the studio that I considered to be a demo, I considered it an experiment,  I CONSIDERED IT TO BE FUCKING THERAPY, FOR CHRISTSAKES! They thought it was a record! I didn't even have a band! I called my brilliant friend and lawyer, Jill Berliner, for advice. Know what she told me? The musician comes first.

I started my own label, Roswell records. Yes, that's right, ladies and gentlemen, you are staring at the president of a record company.

After all that had happened, deep down I was still the same kid that, at 13 years old, realized I could start my own band, I could write my own song, I could record my own record, I could start my own label, I could release my own record, I could book my own shows, I could write and publish my own fanzine, I could silkscreen my own T-shirts . . . I could do all of this myself. It may have been an entirely different world now, but once again, there was no right or wrong . . . because it was all mine.

From day one the Foo Fighters have been fortunate enough to exist within this perfect world. WE write our songs. WE record our songs. WE make our albums. WE decide when the album is the album. WE OWN the album, and we'll license it to you for a little while, but you gotta give it back. Because it's MINE.

Because I am the musician. And I COME FIRST.

I have to imagine that the reason I am here today in front of you all is exactly this. Am I the best drummer in the world? Certainly not. Am I the best singer-songwriter? Not even in THIS fucking ROOM! But I have been left alone to find MY VOICE since that day that I heard Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein" on that public school turntable in my bedroom.

Recently, I directed a full-length feature documentary about the recording studio that Nirvana recorded Nevermind in over 20 years ago: Sound City. In the movie, we not only tell the story of this magical shithole, but we also explore technology and what we refer to as the "human element" of music. How do these things coexist?

There is no right or wrong. There is only, YOUR VOICE. Your voice screaming through an old Neve 8028 recording console, your voice singing from a laptop, your voice echoing from a street corner, a cello, a turntable, a guitar, serrato, a studer, It doesn't matter. What matters most is that it's YOUR VOICE. Cherish it. Respect it. Nurture it. Challenge it. Stretch it and scream until it's fucking gone. Because every human being is blessed with at least that, and who knows how long it will last . . .

It's there, if you want it. Now, more than ever, independence as a musician has been blessed by the advance of technology, making it easier for any inspired young musician to start their own band, write their own song, record their own record, book their own shows, write and publish their own fanzine (although now I believe you call it a "blog"?) . . . now more than ever, YOU can do this, it can be all yours. And left to your own devices, you can find YOUR VOICE.

Recently, I came home with the new Beatles vinyl box set. It's amazing. It's the size of a fucking Tumi suitcase, it weighs 50 pounds. As I walked into the house, my daughters Harper who's three, and Violet who's six, looked up and gasped, "WHAT IS THAT????" I said, "It's all of the Beatles' RECORDS!!!" Now, I have already spent hours brainwashing them with Beatles songs . . . they're cool. But this was vinyl! They had never seen that before. I set up the turntable in their room, opened the box, and started showing them how it's done. "Ok . . . you take the record out of the sleeve, here are the songs on this side, here are the songs on the other side . . . carefully place it on the turn table . . . gently put the needle down . . . CAREFUL!" They were absolutely BLOWN AWAY. I left the room, came back half an hour later, and there they were, dancing to "Get Back," album covers strewn all over the floor . . . sound familiar? We have all been there.

And, as a proud father, I pray that someday that they are left to their own devices, that they realize that the musician comes first, and that THEY find THEIR VOICE, and that THEY become someone's Edgar Winter, THEY become someone's Beatles, and that THEY incite a riot, or an emotion, or start a revolution, or save someone's life.

That THEY become someone's hero.

But then again . . . what do I know?

Bruce Springsteen: 'We live in a post–authentic world', keynote SXSW - 2012

15 March 2012, South by Southwest festival, Austin, Texas. USA

Good morning! Why are we up so fucking early? How important can this speech be if we're giving it at noon? It can't be that important. Every decent musician in town is asleep, or they will be before I'm done with this thing, I guarantee you. I've got a bit of a mess up here.

When I was invited to do the keynote speech of this year's conference I was a little hesitant because the word keynote made me uncomfortable. It seemed to suggest that there was a key note to be struck that sums up whatever is going on out there in the streets.

Five days of bands, hundreds of venues from morning till night, and no one really hardly agrees on anything in pop anymore. There is no key note, I don't think. There is no unified theory of everything. You can ask Einstein. But you can pick any band, say KISS, and you can go, "Early Theatre Rock proponents, expressing the true raging hormones of youth" or "They suck!"

You can go, Phish, "Inheritors of the Grateful Dead's mantle, brilliant center of the true Alternative community," or "They suck." You go, "Bruce Springsteen, natural–born poetic genius off the streets of Monmouth County, hardest – hardest working – hardest working New Jerseyian in show business, voice of the common man, future of Rock and Roll!", or "He sucks. Get the fuck out of here!"

You could pick any band, and create your own equation. It's fun. There was even a recent book that focused on the Beatles and decided, you got it, they sucked. So really, instead of a keynote speech, I thought that perhaps this should be a key notes speech, or perhaps many keynote speakers. I exaggerate for effect, but only a little bit. So with that as my disclaimer, I move cautiously on.

Still, it's great to be in a town with ten thousand bands, or whatever . . . anybody know the actual number? Come on, a lot of them, right? Back in late '64 when I picked a guitar that would have seemed like some insane, teenage pipe dream,  because first of all, it would have been numerically impossible.  There just weren't that many guitars to go around in those days. They simply hadn't made that many yet. We would have all have to have been sharing.

Guitar players were rare. Mostly, music schooled bands were rare, and, until the Beatles hit, played primarily instrumental music. And there wasn't that much music to play. When I picked up the guitar, there was only ten years of Rock history to draw on. That would be, like, all of known Pop being only the music that you know that's occurred between 2002 and now.

The most groups in one place I had ever seen as a teenager was twenty bands at the Keyport Matawan Roller Dome in a battle to the death. So many styles were overlapping at that point in time that you would have a doo wop singing group with full pompadours and matching suits set up next to our band playing a garage version of Them's "Mystic Eyes," set up next to a full thirteen–piece soul show band. And still that's nothing minutely compared to what's going on, on the streets of Austin right now.

So, it's incredible to be back. I've had a lot of fun here in Austin since the '70s, and Jim Franklin and the Armadillo World Headquarters. It's fascinating to see what's become of the music that I've loved my whole life. Pop's become a new language, cultural force, social movement. Actually, a series of new languages, cultural forces, and social movements that have inspired and enlivened the second half of the twentieth century, and the dawning years of this one. I mean, who would have thought that there would have been a sax–playing president, or a soul–singing president, you know?

When we started, thirty years old for a rock musician was unthinkable. Bill Haley kept his age a relative secret. So when Danny and the Juniors sang "Rock and Roll is Here to Stay," they didn't have a clue as to how terrifyingly, fucking right they were going to be. When I look out from my stage these days, I look into the eyes of three generations of people, and still popular music continues to provide its primary function as youth music, as a joyous argument–starter, and as a subject for long booze–filled nights of debate with Steve Van Zandt, over who reigns ultimately supreme.

There are so many sub–genres and fashions, two–tone, acid rock, alternative dance, alternative metal, alternative rock, art punk, art rock, avant garde metal, black metal, black and death metal, Christian metal, heavy metal, funk metal, bland metal, medieval metal, indie metal, melodic death metal, melodic black metal, metal core, hard core, electronic hard core, folk punk, folk rock, pop punk, Brit pop, grunge, sad core, surf music,  psychedelic rock,  punk rock, hip hop, rap rock, rap metal, Nintendo core, huh?

I just want to know what a Nintendo core is, myself. But rock noir, shock rock, skate punk, noise core, noise pop, noise rock, pagan rock, paisley underground, indy pop, indy rock, heartland rock, roots rock, samba rock, screamo–emo, shoegazing stoner rock, swamp pop, synth pop, rock against communism, garage rock, blues rock, death and roll, lo–fi, jangle pop, folk music. Just add neo– and post– to everything I said, and mention them all again. Yeah, and rock & roll.

So, holy shit, this is all going on in this town right now. For a guy who realizes U2 is probably the last band he is going to know the names of all four members of, it's overwhelming. Perhaps the most prophetic comment I've heard over the past quarter century about rock music was made by Lester Bangs upon Elvis' death. In 1977, Lester Bangs said Elvis was probably the last thing we were all going to agree on – Public Enemy not counting.

From here on in, you would have your heroes and I would have mine. The center of your world may be Iggy Pop, or Joni Mitchell, or maybe Dylan. Mine might be KISS, or Pearl Jam, but we would never see eye–to–eye again, and be brought together by one music again. And his final quote in the article was, "So, instead of saying goodbye to Elvis, I'm gonna say goodbye to you." 

While that's been proven a thousand times over, still here we are in a town with thousands of bands, each with a style, and a philosophy, and a song of their own. And I think the best of them believe that they have the power to turn Lester's prophecy inside out, and to beat his odds.

So as the records that my music was initially released on give way to a cloud of ones and zeroes, and as I carry my entire record collection since I was thirteen in my breast pocket, I'd like to talk about the one thing that's been consistent over the years, the genesis and power of creativity, the power of the songwriter, or let's say, composer, or just creator. So whether you're making dance music, Americana, rap music, electronica, it's all about how you are putting what you do together. The elements you're using don't matter. Purity of human expression and experience is not confined to guitars, to tubes, to turntables, to microchips. There is no right way, no pure way, of doing it. There's just doing it.

We live in a post–authentic world. And today authenticity is a house of mirrors. It's all just what you're bringing when the lights go down. It's your teachers, your influences, your personal history; and at the end of the day, it's the power and purpose of your music that still matters.

So I'm gonna talk, a little bit today, about how I've put what I've done together, in the hopes that someone slugging away in one of the clubs tonight may find some small piece of it valuable. And this being Woody Guthrie's hundredth birthday, and the centerpiece of this year's South–by–Southwest Conference, I'm also gonna talk a little about my musical development, and where it intersected with Woody's, and why.

In the beginning, every musician has their genesis moment. For you, it might have been the Sex Pistols, or Madonna, or Public Enemy. It's whatever initially inspires you to action. Mine was 1956, Elvis on the Ed Sullivan Show. It was the evening I realized a white man could make magic, that you did not have to be constrained by your upbringing, by the way you looked, or by the social context that oppressed you. You could call upon your own powers of imagination, and you could create a transformative self.

A certain type of transformative self, that perhaps at any other moment in American History, might have seemed difficult, if not impossible. And I always tell my kids that they were lucky to be born in the age of reproducible technology, otherwise they'd be traveling in the back of a wagon and I'd be wearing a jester's hat. It's all about timing. The advent of television and its dissemination of visual information changed the world in the fifties the way the internet has over the past twenty years.

Remember, it wasn't just the way Elvis looked, it was the way he moved that made people crazy, pissed off, driven to screaming ecstasy, and profane revulsion. That was television. When they made an attempt to censor him from the waist down, it was because of what you could see happening in his pants. Elvis was the first modern Twentieth Century man, the precursor of the Sexual Revolution, of the Civil Rights Revolution, drawn from the same Memphis as Martin Luther King, creating fundamental, outsider art that would be embraced by a mainstream popular culture.

Television and Elvis gave us full access to a new language, a new form of communication, a new way of being, a new way of looking, a new way of thinking; about sex, about race, about identity, about life; a new way of being an American, a human being; and a new way of hearing music. Once Elvis came across the airwaves, once he was heard and seen in action, you could not put the genie back in the bottle. After that moment, there was yesterday, and there was today, and there was a red hot, rockabilly forging of a new tomorrow, before your very eyes.

So, one week later, inspired by the passion in Elvis' pants, my little six–year–old fingers wrapped themselves around a guitar neck for the first time, rented from Mike Deal's Music in Freehold, New Jersey. They just wouldn't fit. Failure with a capital F. So I just beat on it, and beat on it, and beat on it – in front of the mirror, of course. I still do that. Don't you? Come on, you gotta check your moves. All right?

But even before there was Elvis, my world had begun to be shaped by the little radio with the six–inch mono speaker that sat on top of our refrigerator. My mother loved music, and she rahised us on pop music radio. So between 8:00 and 8:30 every morning, as I snowed sugar onto my Sugar Pops, the sounds of early pop and doo wop whispered into my young and impressionable ears. Doo wop, the most sensual music ever made, the sound of raw sex, of silk stockings rustling on backseat upholstery, the sound of the snaps of bras popping across the USA, of wonderful lies being whispered into Tabu–perfumed ears, the sound of smeared lipstick, untucked shirts, running mascara, tears on your pillow, secrets whispered in the still of the night, the high school bleachers, and the dark at the YMCA canteen. The soundtrack for your incredibly, wonderful limp–your–ass, blue–balled walk back home after the dance. Oh! And it hurt so good.

In the late fifties and early sixties doo wop dripped from radios in the gas stations, factories, streets, and pool halls – the temples of life and mystery in my little hometown. And I would always be enraptured by its basic chord progression. Isn't there supposed to be a guitar around here somewhere? Anybody got one?

(strumming guitar and singing opening lines of song, "Backstreets") One soft infested summer, me and Terry became friends...

It all comes from the same place. Well anyway, then into my thirteen–year–old ears came 60's pop. Roy Orbison, besides Johnny Cash, he was the other Man in Black. He was the true master of the romantic apocalypse you dreaded, and knew was coming after the first night you whispered, I love you, to your new girlfriend. You were going down. Roy was the coolest, uncool loser you'd ever seen. With his Coke bottle black glasses, his three–octave range, he seemed to take joy sticking his knife deep into the hot belly of your teenage insecurities.

Simply the titles, "Crying," "It's Over," "Running Scared."  That's right, the paranoia, oh, the paranoia. He sang about the tragic unknowability of women. He was tortured by soft skin, angora sweaters, beauty, and death – just like you. But he also sang that he'd been risen to the heights of near unexpressable bliss by these same very things that tortured him. Oh, cruel irony.

And for those few moments, he told you that the wreckage, and the ruin, and the heartbreak was all worth it. I got it, my young songwriters, wisdom said to me: Life is tragedy, broken by moments of unworldly bliss that make that tragedy bearable.  I was half right. That wasn't life, that was pop music.

But at twenty–four, who knew the difference? So I was on my way. Then Spector and the Wall of Sound. Phil's entire body of work could be described by the title of one of his lesser–known productions, "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)."  Phil's records felt like near chaos, violence covered in sugar and candy, sung by the girls who were sending Roy–o running straight for the anti–depressants. If Roy was opera, Phil was symphonies, little three–minute orgasms, followed by oblivion.

And Phil's greatest lesson was sound. Sound is its own language. I mean, the first thing you would think of with Phil Spector is (soundbite of mimicking a drum beat). That was all you needed. And then, the British Invasion. My first real guitar, I actually began to learn how to play, and this was different, shifted the lay of the land. Four guys, playing and singing, writing their own material. There was no longer gonna be a music producer apart from the singer, a singer who didn't write, a writer who didn't sing. It changed the way things were done. The Beatles were cool. They were classical, formal, and created the idea of an independent unit where everything could come out of your garage. The "Meet the Beatles" album cover, those four head shots. I remember, I seen 'em at J. J. Newberry's. It was the first thing I saw when you ran down to the five–and–ten cent store. There were no record stores. There weren't enough records, I don't think, in those days. There was a little set by the toys where they sold a few albums.

And I remember running in and seeing that album cover with those four headshots. It was like the silent gods of Olympus. Your future was just sort of staring you in the face. I remember thinking, "That's too cool. I'm never gonna get there, man, never."  And then in some fanzine I came across a picture of the Beatles in Hamburg. And they had on the leather jackets and the slick–backed pompadours, they had acned faces. I said, hey, "Wait a minute, those are the guys I grew up with, only they were Liverpool wharf rats."

So minus their Nehru jackets and the haircuts – so these guys, they're kids. They're a lot cooler than me, but they're still kids. There must be a way to get there from here. Then for me, it was The Animals. For some, they were just another one the really good beat groups that came of the 60s. But to me, The Animals were a revelation. The first records with full blown class consciousness that I had ever heard.  "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place" had that great bass riff, that (playing bass line of "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place) and that was just marking time.

(Singing and strumming "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place"):

In this dirty old part of the city, where the sun refused to shine.

People tell me there ain't no sense in trying.

My little girl, you're so young and pretty.

One thing I know is true, 

You'll be dead before your time is due, this I know.

See my Daddy in bed and dying.

See his hair turning grey.

He's been working and slaving his life away, yes, I know.

It's been work – every day

Just work – every day

It's been work, work, work, work.

We gotta get out of this place

If it's the last thing we ever do

We gotta get out of this place

Girl, there's a better life for me and you.

Yes, I know it's true.

That's every song I've ever written. Yeah. That's all of them. I'm not kidding, either. That's "Born to Run," "Born in the USA," everything I've done for the past 40 years, including all the new ones. But that struck me so deep. It was the first time I felt I heard something come across the radio that mirrored my home life, my childhood. And the other thing that was great about The Animals was there were no good–looking members. There were none. They were considered to be one of the ugliest groups in all of rock and roll.

And that was good. That was good for me, because I considered myself hideous at the time. And they weren't nice, you know. They didn't curry favor, you know. They were like aggression personified. It's my life, I'll do what I want. They were cruel. They were cruel, which was so freeing. It was so freeing. When you saw Eric Burdon, he was like your shrunken daddy with a wig on. He never, he never had a kid's face. He always had a little man's face, you know.

And he couldn't dance. And they put him in suit, but it was like putting a gorilla in a suit. You could tell he was like, "Fuck that shit, man." He didn't want it. And then he had that voice that was, like, I don't know, the Howlin' Wolf, or something – coming out of some seventeen or eighteen–year–old kid. I don't know how it happened. I found their cruelty so freeing. What was that great verse in "It's My Life?" It's a hard world to get a break in, all the good things have been taken. And then, "Though dressed in these rags I'll wear sable someday, hear what I say. I'm gonna ride the serpent. No more time spent sweating rent." Then that beautiful, "It's my life. Show me I'm wrong, hurt me sometime. Hurt me sometime. But someday I'll treat you real fine.  I love that.

And then they had the name. The name was very different from the Beatles, or Herman's Hermits, or Freddie and the Dreamers. The name was unforgiving, and final, and irrevocable. I mean, it was in your face. It was the most unapologetic group name until the Sex Pistols came along.

"Badlands," "Prove It All Night," Darkness On The Edge of Town was filled with, with The Animals. Youngsters, watch this one. I'm gonna tell you how it's done, right now. I took "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood,"

(Singing and strumming beginning of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood":

Danta, danta, danta, dah.

Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.

Danta, danta, danta, dah

Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.

(Singing melody of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" while strumming chords of "Badlands":

Dah, dah, danta, tadah.

Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.

Danta, danta, danta, dah.

Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.

It's the same fucking riff, man.Listen up, listen up, youngsters, this is how successful theft is accomplished. "Darkness" was also informed by the punk explosion at the time. I went out and I got all the records, all the early punk records, and I brought "Anarchy in the UK," and "God Save the Queen," and the Sex Pistols were so frightening. They literally shook the earth. And a lot of groups managed shocking. But frightening, frightening was something else. There were, very, very few rock groups that managed frightening. And that was a great quality, and it was, part of their great beauty.

They were brave, and they challenged you, and they made you brave and lot of that energy seeped its way into subtext of "Darkness." "Darkness" was written in 1977, and all of that music was out there, and if you had ears you could not ignore it. And I had peers that did. And they were mistaken, you could not ignore that challenge.

Of course, for me, there was movies, films. That's another discussion. But it was, then about soul music. It's incredibly important. The blue collar grit of soul music.

(Singing "Soul Man"):

I was brought up on a backstreet

I learned how to love before I could eat.

Now even though I personally learned how to eat long before I knew how to love, I knew what he was talking about. It was the music of gritty determination – of the blues, of the church, of the Earth, and of the sex–soaked heavens. It was music of sweaty perspiration, and drenched demands for pleasure and respect. It was adult music, it was sung by soul men and women, not teen idols.

And then it was the silk and sequined aspirational sounds of Motown. And that was something smoother, but that was no less powerful than, than Stax. There's a beautifully socially–conscious soul of Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions, "We're a Winner," keep on pushin'. Just great, great records that just filled the airwaves at a time when you couldn't have needed them more. You just couldn't have needed them more.

"A Woman's Got Soul," what a beautiful, beautiful record to women. "It's All Right." It was the sound track of the Civil Rights Movement. And it was here, amongst these great African–American artists, that I learned my craft. You learned how to write. You learned how to arrange. You learned what mattered and what didn't. You learned what a great production sounds like. You learned how to lead a band. You learned how to front a band.

These men and women, they were and they remain my masters. By the time I reached my twenties, I'd spent a thousand nights employing their lessons in local clubs and bars, honing my own skills. I was signed as an acoustic singer/songwriter, but I was wolf in sheep's clothing – signed by John Hammond at Columbia Records, along with Elliott Murphy, John Prine, Loudin Wainwright III.  We were all new Dylans.

And the old Dylan was only 30. So I don't even know why they needed a fucking new Dylan, all right? But those were the times. 30 was, you know…But I had nights and nights of bar playing behind me to bring my songs home. Young musicians, learn how to bring it live, and then bring it night, after night, after night, after night. Your audience will remember you.

Your ticket is your handshake. These skills gave me a huge ace up my sleeve. And when we finally went on the road, and we played that ace, we scorched the Earth, because that's what I was taught to do by Sam Moore, and by James Brown. There's no greater performance than James Brown burning ass on the Rolling Stones at The T.A.M.I. show. Sorry, sorry, my friends. I fucking loved the Stones. But James Brown – boys and men, you were screwed. Yeah, I think I'll go on after James Brown.

Oh, yeah, can you put me in the schedule somewhere after James Brown? Fuck, no. Get out. Go home. Save it. Don't waste it, man. I had a great thing with James Brown. I went to see James Brown one night, and he kind of knew me. I was sitting in the audience, and, suddenly I heard: Ladies and gentlemen, Magic Johnson, and Magic Johnson was onstage. And: Ladies and gentlemen, Woody Harrelson, and he was on stage. And then I'm sitting in my seat, watching, I hear: Ladies and gentleman, Mr. Mr., Mr. "Born in the USA." And I realized he didn't know my name, so I ran my ass up there as fast as I could.

I can't tell you, man, standing on stage alongside of James Brown…it was like, "Fuck, what am I doing here? He's such a, his influence. James Brown, underrated, still, today, underrated. He's, He's Elvis. He's Dylan. Dylan from whom I first heard a version of the place that I lived that felt unvarnished and real to me.

If you were young in the sixties and fifties, everything felt false everywhere you turned. But you didn't know how to say it. There was no language for it at the time. It just felt fucked up, but you didn't have the words. Bob came along and gave us those words. He gave us those songs. And the first time he asked you was: How does it feel?  Man, how does it feel to be on your own? And if you were a kid in 1965, you were on your own, because your parents, God bless them, they could not understand the incredible changes that were taking place. You were on your own, without a home. He gave us the words to understand our hearts.

He didn't treat you like a child. He treated you like an adult. He stood back and he took in the stakes that we were playing for, he laid them out in front of you. I never forgot it. Bob is the father of my musical country, now and forever. And I thank him.

The great, the great trick I learned from Bob is that he still does one thing that nobody, nobody can do. He sings verse, after verse, after verse and it doesn't get boring. It's almost impossible. But he didn't write about something, he wrote about everything that mattered at once in every song, it seemed like.

He pulled it off. I said, "Yeah, I like that. I'm gonna try that." So now I'm in my late twenties, and I'm concerned, of course – getting older. I want to write music that I can imagine myself singing on stage at the advanced old age, perhaps, of 40? I wanted to grow up. I wanted to twist the form I loved into something that could address my adult concerns. And so I found my way to country music.

I remember sitting in my little apartment, playing "Hank Williams Greatest Hits" over and over. And I was trying to crack its code, because at first it just didn't sound good to me. It just sounded cranky and old–fashioned. But it was that hard country voice and I'm playing it, and it was an austere instrumentation. But slowly, slowly, my ears became accustomed to it, it's beautiful simplicity, and it's darkness and depth. And Hank Williams went from archival, to alive for me, before my very eyes.

And I lived on that for a while in the late seventies. In country music, I found the adult blues, the working men's and women's stories I'd been searching for, the grim recognition of the chips that were laid down against you. "My Bucket's Got A Hole In It."  "I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive," "Lost Highway," the great Charlie Rich song,

(Singing "Life Has it's Little Ups and Downs"):

Like ponies on a merry–go–round

No one grabs a brass ring every time

But she don't mind

(Speaking) Oh fuck, man, that was like…

(Singing "Life Has it's Little Ups and Downs"):

She wears a gold ring on her finger

And it's mine

Oh my God, you know, that can reduce me to tears now. It was so much. It was "Working Man's Blues" – stoic recognition of everyday reality, and the small and big things that allow you to put a foot in front of the other and get you through. I found that Country's fatalism attracted me. It was reflective.  It was funny. It was soulful. But it was quite fatalistic. Tomorrow looked pretty dark.

And the one thing it rarely was, it was rarely politically angry, and it was rarely politically critical. And I realized that that fatalism had a toxic element. If rock and roll was a seven–day weekend, country was Saturday night hell–raising, followed by heavy "Sunday Morning Coming Down." Guilt, guilt, guilt, I fucked up. Oh, my God.  But, as the song says: Would you take another chance on me?  That was Country.

Country seemed, not to question why. It seemed like it was about doing, then dying, screwing, then crying, boozing, then trying, Then as Jerry Lee Lewis, the living, breathing personification of both rock and country said, "I've fallen to the bottom and I'm working my way down."

So that was hard core working man's blues, hard core – loved it. And in answer to Hank Williams question: Why does my bucket have a hole in it? Why?  So along with our fun, and the bar band raucousness, the E Street Band carried a search for identity, and that became a central part of my music. Now country, by its nature, appealed to me. Country was provincial, and so was I. I was not downtown. I wasn't particularly Bohemian or hipster. I was kind of hippy–by–circumstance, when it happened. But, I felt I was an average guy, with a slightly above average gift. And if I worked my ass off on it…And country was about the truth emanating out of your sweat, out of your local bar, your corner store. It held its gaze on yesterday's blues, tonight's pleasures' and maybe on Sunday, the hereafter. And I covered a lot of ground, but there was still something missing. So, somewhere in my late twenties I picked up Joe Klein's "Woody Guthrie, A Life."

And as I read that book, a world of possibilities that predated Dylan's, that had inspired him, and lead to some of his greatest work, opened up for me. Woody's gaze was – it was set on today's hard times. But also, somewhere over the horizon, there was something. Woody's world was a world where fatalism was tempered by a practical idealism. It was a world where speaking truth to power wasn't futile, whatever its outcome.

Why do we continue to talk about Woody so many years on, never had a hit, never went platinum, never played in an arena, never got his picture on the cover of Rolling Stone. But he's a ghost in the machine – big, big ghost in the machine. And I believe it's because Woody's songs, his body of work, tried to answer Hank Williams' question: why your bucket has a whole in it.  And that's a question that's eaten at me for a long time.

So, in my early 30s, his voice spoke to me very, very deeply. And we began to cover "This Land is Your Land" in concert. And I knew I was never gonna be Woody Guthrie. I liked Elvis, and I liked the Pink Cadillac too much. I like the simplicity, and the tossed–off temporary feeling of pop hits. I liked big, fucking noise. And in my own way, I like the luxuries and the comforts of being a star. I had already gone a long way down a pretty different road.

So four years ago, I found myself in an unusual situation. It was a cold winter day, and I was standing alongside of Pete Seeger, and it was 25 degrees. Pete had come to Washington. Pete carries a banjo everywhere he goes – the subway, the bus – and comes out in his shirt. I said, "Man, Pete, put on a jacket, man, it's freezing out here."  He's ninety years old, a living embodiment of Woody's legacy. And there were several hundred thousand of our fellow citizens in front of us. We had the Lincoln Memorial behind us and a newly–elected president to our right. And we were going to sing, "This Land is Your Land" in front of all these Americans. And Pete insisted, "We have to sing all the verses. We have to sing all the verses, man. You can't leave any of them out." I said, I don't know, Pete, there's only – we had, like, a crowd of six year old school kids behind us. He says, "No, we're all gonna sing all the verses – all the verses. And, so we got to it."

(Playing guitar and singing "This Land Is Your Land"):

As I was walking

I saw a sign there

And on that sign said

We're trespassing

And on the other side

It didn't said nothing

That side was made

For you and me.

This land is your land

This land is my land

(Speaking) This song is meant to be sung by everybody.

(Playing guitar and singing "This Land Is Your Land" – crowd singing along):

From California

To the New York island

From the Redwood Forest

To the Gulf Stream waters

This land was made for you and me

So, on that day, Pete and myself, and generations of young and old Americans – all colors, religious beliefs – I realized that sometimes things that come from the outside, they make their way in, to become a part of the beating heart of the nation. And on that day, when we sung that song, Americans – young and old, black and white, of all religious and political beliefs – were united, for a brief moment, by Woody's poetry.

So, perhaps Lester Bangs wasn't completely right, for here we all are tonight in this town together, musicians, young and old, celebrating, each, perhaps in our own way, a sense of freedom that was Woody's legacy. So, rumble, young musicians, rumble. Open your ears and open your hearts. Don't take yourself too seriously, and take yourself as seriously as death itself. Don't worry. Worry your ass off. Have ironclad confidence, but doubt – it keeps you awake and alert. Believe you are the baddest ass in town, and, you suck!

It keeps you honest. It keeps you honest. Be able to keep two completely contradictory ideas alive and well inside of your heart and head at all times. If it doesn't drive you crazy, it will make you strong. And stay hard, stay hungry, and stay alive. And when you walk onstage on tonight to bring the noise, treat it like it's all we have. And then remember, it's only rock and roll. I think I may go out and catch a little black death metal. Thank you.