Eric Church Delivers UNC-Chapel Hill Commencement Speech Like a Guitar Lesson, Performs ‘Carolina’ for Grads
Categoria: Musica
Church shared words with the class of 2026 the best way he knows how -- with his guitar.
Por Billboard | 11/05/2026
Eric Church spoke to the class of 2026 through song at UNC-Chapel Hill’s commencement ceremony on Saturday (May 10), where the country star gave an inspired keynote address and performance of “Carolina” for his fellow Tar Heels. Related Riley Green Awarded Honorary Doctorate at Jacksonville State University Hilary Duff Delivers Inspiring Northeastern University Commencement Speech: ‘Don’t Forget to Pause And Appreciate How Far You’ve Come’ Kacey Musgraves’ ‘Middle of Nowhere’: All 13 Tracks Ranked Pieces didn’t fall into place for the commencement speech Church delivered at Saturday’s ceremony at Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill, N.C., until he wrote the way he knows best. Sunglasses on, instrument in hand, he looked out at the crowd celebrating more than 7,000 graduates and turned their commencement speech into the most sincere guitar lesson they’ll likely ever experience. “I have torn up multiple speeches,” said Church, who’s twice topped the Billboard 200 albums chart, and had three No. 1s and two No. 2s on Top Country Albums. “I have thrown things. And in one of my fits of frustration, I sat down with a guitar. And I thought, man, who am I kidding. I need to figure out a way to do this with a guitar.” To begin, the Granite Falls, N.C., native told the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s graduating class, “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, it tries, but doesn’t. 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 tended to.” Then the metaphor that carried Church’s commencement speech came in: “Six strings. When all six 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.” In the singer-songwriter’s address to students, the six strings of a guitar represented faith, family, heart, ambition and resilience, community, and one’s sense of self. Church spoke of each guitar string and its significance to the life they’d construct post-graduation, encouraging the class of 2026 — 4,453 undergraduates, 1,608 master’s and 981 doctoral degree students, 5,594 of which are North Carolina residents — to aspire to flourish while tending to their roots. “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 pe