The Ghost of Tom Joad (Introduction) - Live at the Walter Kerr Theatre, New York, NY - July 2018

Alright. I never believed that people came to my shows
Or rock shows in general, to be told anything.
But I do believe that they come to be reminded of things,
To be reminded of who they are,
That they're most joyous at their deepest, when life feels full.
It's a good place to get in touch with your heart and your spirit.
It's good to be amongst the crowd, be reminded of who we are and who we can be collectively, and music does those things pretty well. Sometimes, they can come in pretty handy.
And particularly these days, some reminding
Of who we are and who we can be isn't such a bad thing, ya know, uh.

I uh, I re- I refer back to the weekend of the March for our Lives
When we saw all those young people in Washington
And citizens all around the country remind us of what faith in America
And what real faith in American democracy, and how sacred that is.

When uh, that weekend, you just saw what it actually looked like and felt like.
It was just encouraging, to see all those people out on the street and all that righteous passion alive in the service of something good
To see it still there at the center of the beating heart of our country,
And, in spite of what we've been goin' through, Iit was a good day ya know, it was just, it was just one good day.
But it was a necessary day.
Because these are the times when we've also seen folks marching,
And in the highest offices of our land who want to speak to our darkest angels,
Who want to call up the ugliest and the most divisive ghosts of America's past
And they want to destroy the idea of an America for all.
That's their intention.
That's what we've been seeing in the outrage of the broken families on the border,
and in hate-filled marches on American streets, this year.
Things I never thought I would see again in my lifetime.
Things that I thought that were dead and gone forever,
On the ash heap of history.
Ya know uh, ya know we've come too far and worked too hard,
Too many good people paid too high a price,
And paid, paid with their lives to allow this to happen now.
Ya know.
There's been too much hard work done, and sacrifice.
There's a beautiful quote by Dr. King that says
The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justic
It is important to believe in those words and to carry yourself,
And to act accordingly, to live with compassion,
And have faith in that what we're seeing now,
Is just another hard chapter,
In the long long ongoing battle for the soul of the nation